Re:I Hacked My Car Guides: Creating Custom Firmware
by aorth on Tuesday July 19, 2022 @12:37PM
(#32154262)
On a related note, factory-installed Toyota display systems can sometimes be locked and require an "ERC" code to unlock. The display in my recently imported car was in Japanese and seemed to be stuck, as none of the buttons or rear camera worked. I learned from Google Translate that it was in some kind of anti-theft lock mode, and after going down the rabbit hole I found out that I could access a secret menu by holding radio power and turning the headlights on and off three times, which revealed a screen displaying the display's serial number and asking for an "ERC" code.
It turns out some fine Internet people have written C# (https://github.com/alexeyfadeev/erc-calculator) and Python (https://github.com/Berks/python_erc) packages to generate these codes. Was really cool to figure this out without having to pay some shady site in Bitcoins! The display is still in Japanese, but at least I can use Bluetooth and the rear camera! Hope that helps someone.
It turns out some fine Internet people have written C# (https://github.com/alexeyfadeev/erc-calculator) and Python (https://github.com/Berks/python_erc) packages to generate these codes. Was really cool to figure this out without having to pay some shady site in Bitcoins! The display is still in Japanese, but at least I can use Bluetooth and the rear camera! Hope that helps someone.