joe189man

Hey guys, i have a question regarding using used or older electronic boxes and or programers in our trucks, is there any danger to doing this? Can they malfunction in a catastrophic way? Is there a cut off as far as a useful life span for programers and boxes? What do you experts think? TIA

screamn56

I have bought 2 used smarty boxes without any problems. My new was 2 yrs old. I think as long as they are taken care of it should last a long time.

rip 112

Normally the circuitry is designed to last longer than the truck on most programmers. Exceptions are valid though. You want to make sure any used programmer bought is VIN UNLOCKED (meaning the vin # of the last truck installed on has been returned to stock and the programmer is as it was unused)

Spooler

Nothing wrong with it, just some caviats you have to watch out for.

1) No worky
2) Vin lock issue of coarse
3) You actually recieve it from the seller and it is what the seller states so be careful with who you deal with.

1SlowFormula

I was looking over the Banks PDA that came with the truck I just bought, and in looking through it I see performance tests (this box can log 0-60, 1/8, and 1/4 mile acceleration test and things like that) for even earlier than this truck, some dated back to April 26th of 2005, so either the PO of my truck had it on another truck or bought it used (plus it has the 03-05 mount for the PDA), and it is still running strong. If you are looking at something with the PDA, be sure you look over the PDA because they can get damaged rather easily and are expensive if you need to replace it and are almost always sold seperatly so the programmer company (banks in my case) puts big warnings in it literature to not let it get too hott or too cold and should be removed from the truck to prevent damage when not in use...

DaveB.inVa

I bought my Smarty in early 2007, right after I got the truck. I changed the program to lower smoke about a week into owning it and ran it on SW1 for about 2 years. I got the nerve to move up to SW3 this year. The Smarty was in its case in my room under my bed and hadn't been connected to the truck since I went to SW1 (about 2 years). I hooked it up and everything ran fine.

Most of the electronics, if they're of any decent quality and aren't abused, will last a long time.