PCM flashing question

[mainjet]

I am thinking about buying a PCM from an ebay store. They say that they flash the PCM using your provided VIN when you purchase it. My question is does this work as easy as it sounds? Can I just provide my VIN, have them flash it and be able to just swap this into the vehicle or is it more complicated than that?

This is assuming that everything on my car is stock.

I would just like to have a good workign PCM on the shelf for swaping it into the car to eliminate that part of the equation as possibly being a problem. More of a tool than anything else. Unless of course I find that the original PCM is bad.

[BillBoost37]

Yeah, should be that easy as long as they use the right tune. Many of us have tuners and can do this same thing.

[mainjet]

Thanks Bill.

What do you mean "as long as they use the right tune"? I think that I somewhat understand the concept but maybe I don't

If the car is completely staock and they use a stock tune then I ASSUME that is what is needed. Am I wrong as usual

[Z34Phoenix]

even for the same model year there can be different versions of a stock tune. these are called OSID's. this normally isn't a problem for our cars. but if they uploaded the wrong car file or a GT instead of a GTP then it wouldn't work.

[mainjet]

Thanks Z34. They say that they take your VIN and do it from that so I hope that they would do it properly.

Can you just pull the one that is in the car and plug this one in and have it work right away or does it take some "learning". The reason I am asking is I want to know if I can pull the old one and temporarily install the new one for testing. If everything tests okay then I would put the old one back in. However, if there is going to be issues with quick swaps like that then I would want to be aware of that.

[BillBoost37]

Fuel trims etc are learned.

On the tune. It's like Z34 mentions. As the model year etc goes by, GM did tweaks. Therefore you'd ideally want the latest/most current software for that year.