Hey guys - new to the forum. I've got a few questions here ranging from generic to fairly specific.

Background: Safety Recall 22S27 involves dealership reprogramming of the PCM. The recall update makes the parking brake apply automatically when shifting to park (and in a few other situations), which means, if I don't want to apply the accelerator pedal to disengage the parking brake after putting it in gear, I'm required to push the parking brake switch in the floor console. I know I'm not the only one who feels this is an annoying, band-aid solution.

Side note/technical analysis: My understanding after scouring the service literature is that prior to any recall update, the ABS module receives the input directly from the floor console switch, and if it determines (does it poll the PCM, or has the PCM been updating it all along?) that the vehicle state is good, it will actuate the parking brake motors. Now, after the PCM update, how does the ABS module get told by the PCM to just "do it now"? Did Ford already have the provision in for the PCM to command the ABS without user input?

My real question is, is this something anybody has figured out a patch/workaround for in the PCM, for someone who doesn't have a backup file? In my case, the update was applied by my dealer before my vehicle was delivered, so I couldn't get a backup of the PCM config.

I suppose this is also an opportunity to ask how the VCM Editor works fundamentally: when doing a Read Vehicle operation, how does that 20 minute transfer get compacted down to a 2MB .hpt file? Is there stuff in there that could be manipulated which doesn't show up in the GUI? Are there a few bytes that could be diffed and reverted in the .hpt if I did have the old image?