The ATmega162 chip was the gold standard for high-quality clones because it could accurately mimic the timing and protocols of the original Ross-Tech hardware. However, Ross-Tech implemented a defense mechanism: whenever the VCDS software detected a clone cable while connected to the internet, it would silently overwrite the cable's EEPROM/Flash memory , effectively "bricking" it.

avrdude -c usbasp -p m162 -U flash:r:bricked_flash.bin:r -U eeprom:r:bricked_eeprom.bin:r

: Even when reflashed with newer firmware, these chips lack the hardware capacity to support many features found in VCDS versions past approximately v19.x .

Needed if the bootloader is disabled or the device is "bricked" .