What is up with SCT's new emissions testing? The answers here.

Here is the skinny on SCT. As many of you know, SCT was fined by the EPA for things done by Bully Dog (a mostly diesel specialized company) prior to SCT acquiring them. The issues were diesel tuning issues. The EPA, in part of the settlement, made SCT also train and test any users of their software for emissions compliance. So now when you get their software, and this applies to past users too, including all dealers like ourselves, you have to take a ‘course’ which is a bunch of PowerPoint slides, mostly about diesels. You then take a five question test (we had five questions, your results may vary). You have to get 100% on the test. It is no problem getting 100% because all the answers were in the PowerPoint and if you downloaded the PowerPoint ‘training’ you can refer to it to as much as you like.

Before you take the training, SCT will ask you what you are using the vehicle for. You need to be honest, but you need to keep in mind a person who tells them it is being used for casual street use, may get less parameters than someone who tells them you are using it for R&D of an off-road vehicle. 

People who already have the software may have seen their software have less parameters – essentially become worthless. That actually happened to one of our USB dongles. They forced us to do an update and our parameters were downgraded to essentially nothing worth anything. We got it fixed quick by emailing them. If you are in that situation, you need to email them at: compliance@derivesystems.com and tell them you need to take the course and get your full access again – and remember to tell them what you are using the vehicle for to get as much access as you can.

People are kidding themselves if they think this is not going to happen to the rest of the tuning industry. SCT was just first. They had enough resources to weather the storm. Other companies may not. In our opinion SCT is a really good supplier of tuning software and you should not let this dissuade you from using it.