Cobb Acessport- “tool rental”

Is the Cobb Accessport considered a tool rental ( like the example of Hp tuners on the rules page)?  And therefore not a budget item. 
 

But then if you pay for a separate tune then just  the cost of that tune would go on your budget sheet? 

As far as I know, access ports used to be married to the ECU, I.E. you couldn't reflash one vehicle with it, while a flash is currently on another. If that is still the case, it would not be a rental, but it would be a full purchase price. 

I haven't messed with an access port in over a decade though since theie firmware when to crap And instead of correcting it Gary Sheehan went off on a profanity laden tirade against several different ownership groups, which ultimately, years later set in motion Trey selling. I'm of the opinion that you get better products support from the open source options that are much more cost effective and now at this point better supported. 

Not being familiar with them tell me more please. Is it tied to the vehicle like Capt says?  Does it come with a tune and you can buy optional ones?

INSTALLED STATE

The installed state is just as important as whether or not the Accessport is the correct part number. If it is already installed (or “married”) to another vehicle, it will not work on your vehicle. The installed state can be checked by plugging the Accessport into any car (any car with an OBD2 port, compatibility for this step is not required) or computer and completing the steps above or with a quick scroll through the main menu. If “Install” is an option, this Accessport is ready to work on another compatible vehicle. If “Uninstall” is an option, this Accessport will not work on your vehicle until it is uninstalled from the previous vehicle or sent to COBB to be re-licensed.

GOOD: Ready to be used on your car! BAD: Still installed to another car.

v3-install v3-uninstall

There is no way to determine 100% the Installed State without being in person. Sadly, we have seen situations where sellers take pictures of the “Install” option and then install the Accessport prior to selling it. We recommend to protect yourself by confirming the installed state in person or, at the very least, feel the seller out. Check for references or mentions of previous transactions to determine if you’re willing to trust this person to be honest about the Installed State of the Accessport. This is typically readily available on forums or Ebay which may be a better alternative to craigslist." 

From-

https://www.cobbtuning.com/buying-a-used-accessport/

Now they have changed the way the protuner software is handled to create your own maps, it used to be $150 for the software upgrade, now it's $150 for a class on how to utilize that software upgrade and you get the software for free included in the cost of class enrollment. So if you have an accessport budgeted, you'd be able to utilize the protuner software for free under the rules. 

I was thinking about this in school pick up line.  How is buying the accessport any different than playing for the credits to put the VIN of your car into HP Tuners?  Both are tied to the car.  Just being a Devil's advocate.

In reply to Stampie :

Because with the HP tuners, You don't have to purchase a $650 device that is tied to the car and only that car, you get a single use reflash license tied to the device with the accessport. With HPtuners, The credits are purchased to a single Vin, but the hardware and dongles to reflash them can be utilized for as many vehicles as credits are purchased towards as opposed to being tied to a single vehicle as they are with the accessport. 

There are other open source methods to reflash Mazdas and Subarus that are less than 1/5 of the cost of an accessport, And actually provide greater amounts of individual control. 

In the interest of playing devil's advocate though, I will bring up an example of a reflash for different platforms that offers an interesting option as it pertains to the challenge. 

APR offers trials of their software upgrades for VW/Audi/Porsche where you get a reflash that expires after a shortened timeframe (in the range of 48 hours to a week) at which point the ECU automatically reverts back to stock on its own. These are readily available to anyone through an authorized APR dealer as a one-time use. And cost ranges anywhere from free to $99 (with the $99 normally rebated back if you decide to purchase the tune). If someone were to show up with a temporarily APR flashed ECU, with a set expiration, at a reduced or free cost under the trial, That I could see an understand being allocated as whatever the cost was for the trial. As it's readily available to anyone with that platform to take advantage of. 

Stampie said:

Not being familiar with them tell me more please. Is it tied to the vehicle like Capt says?  Does it come with a tune and you can buy optional ones?

I *think* they do come with some type of "canned tune". That is why I was wondering vs hptuners which doesn't come with a canned tune. 
 

You can buy custom tunes. They seem to be around 200-300 for the tunes delivered through email to the acessport so you can upload to your car. 
 

They are tied to just one vehicle, but so are the credits you buy for the hptuners. 
 

It just still seems similar to the Hp tuners for some of the cost. That is why I thought maybe you could just put the cost of the tune in the budget but not the cost of the tuner? 
 

Also I would be interested in the open source Mazda tuning.  Off to Google. 
 

In reply to Somebeach (Forum Supporter) :

The difference is the end user for a single vehicle with HP tuners doesn't need to purchase the reflash device. Which runs about $650 new. I haven't checked the secondary market on access ports recently. With HP tuners you're only paying for the individual map. If you purchase an access port you'll have access for free of several hundred tunes through Cobb's forums, where you can match up different modifications down to individual exhaust setups and intakes and cam profiles two other things done to the vehicle and then upload them yourself. The additional cost is just for the ability to do custom maps. Which you can now pay for a class as opposed to the software upgrade to get yourself. Which would make it so pain for a class would be a non-budget item with regards to the challenge, but the access port itself would be budgetable towards challenge expenses. 

It's somewhat similar, but it also very different, to the ability to have a laptop to monitor and log performance and parameters during the challenge and not have the laptop be part of the challenge budget. But if I were to install a pi dash to do the same thing, as the pi dash would be hardware on the vehicle, that would count towards challenge budget, even though it's literally doing the exact same thing that the laptop would be doing that would be exempt from challenge budget. 

A well supported open source option less than half the cost of a Cobb AP

And that's for a more capable package. The $199 version is pretty much what the AP is, the $299 option is the AP with pro tuner. 

I'll add, there are others that are free once you purchase a tactrix cable, which can be used on multiple platforms a thusly wouldn't count towards budget, but there's definitely a learning curve with them and support is more limited.  

In reply to captdownshift (Forum Supporter) :

Thanks for the good info. I will take a look at the versatuner stuff.