Brake recall with modified ECU or other mods?

I had the brake recall done a long time ago and have a hardwired radar. Being superstitious, my lips are sealed!

 

I can't speak to aftermarket items or modified ECU since mine is all stock without camera's however what I will say is that I find it interesting and a bit funny that we no longer hear ANYTHING about brake problems associated with our cars whatsoever. I contended all along that the whole thing was a farce brought about by a few that probably created their own problems not to mention any hungry lawyers looking to chomp in. In any event I had the recall done when I was in for a scheduled service and it is done. I still don't think that whatever they did had any material impact on the recall other than to lower the threshold for the brake lights to come one.

 

As far as I understand it, the NHSTA required recall does two things. The new cap is a sealed flexible diaphragm cap to the brake fluid but the top is vented through the side slit to the atmosphere to keep any pressure from building up in the master cylinder reservoir and causing a retrograde leakage of brake fluid into the vacuum booster. The brake fluid level switch is an spst type switch that is either on or off at a set level based on its position in the reservoir tank. The recall involves testing/inspecting the booster for the presence of brake fluid that may already have contaminated the booster and started to cause rubber diaphragm degradation and if so replace the booster/master cylinder unit as it has already failed. If the booster fails,(no vacuum assist) you get a hard almost immovable pedal upon braking. If the fluid leak is heavy or severe,( almost no fluid in reservoir) then the pedal to the floor happens and no brakes either way.

The software is changed to now advise the driver to stop the car and not drive it any further when the brake fluid light indicates low fluid, thus the failure has already started as the low fluid is now leaking into the vacuum booster. A sticker is placed in the operators manual.

It is probably a pretty rare occurrence, but the key thing IMHO is establishing that the initial failure mode (leak into the booster) has NOT started by inspecting the vacuum side of the booster and determining that it is indeed dry. Moral of the story: Watch your brake fluid levels

As far as the software upgrade was concerned, I did experience an issue with the instrument cluster after 1st upgrade, but no fault/root cause was ever definitively established. The car did have aftermarket K40 installation, stereo amplifiers and an ECU tune aftermarket mods prior to the upgrade then went to have front and rear cameras installed at an audio shop that modified the cluster for video input after which time it was returned to the dealer for air conditioner vent work and it was discovered that the cluster had several faults that were not present before, ie, the glove compartment wouldn't open and the airbag lights were on. It took awhile to trace these faults but it was determined to be the cluster. Ultimately removed the cluster and had the motherboard replaced and tested, then reinstalled. Software upgrade was then performed and it installed correctly and the motherboard worked. Good ol fragile Ferrari electronics. I have since learned that there have been some problems with the clusters in some cars that had been upgraded, and I guess I was one of the "lucky" ones this time.(Don't know of any specific cases , however) As far as I know the ECU's are uninvolved with any software upgrade regarding the recall, only the cluster. FWIW.

 

Done that 2 years ago ... took 3 hrs !

Only thing that was "different" was something not O.K. with the (day)tripmeter. But that went away.

So in all: do that upgrade !

 

If you are worried that your radar detector / camera install can short out the gauge cluster, then you need a more competent installer. Both of those things just need 12V power, there should never be anything about them that could interfere with vehicle modules…


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