Tuning + warranty concerns, how real is the risk?

[BMWAUDIO]

Originally Posted by Mike Benvo

Everything said is spot on and restoring the eeprom pre tune is the safest way - but there could be traces in other control units, and the absence of fasta data in between the time it was flashed with the eeprom restore. It just depends on how much they want to dig... having a friendly SA and mainly a friendly tech is the best way. We haven't had any issues to date.

Really Mike ,
You haven't had any issues ? I call Bullshit on this one .
I know for a fact that my car is not the only one that has blown a motor .
Yes it did have your tune on it .And if you remember you charged me to put the stock flash back on on my car which served absolutely no purpose .

Because after getting my motor replaced on my dime you basically decided you did not want to put the tune back on for the original price you quoted .
In fact you wanted me to pay for a new tune .

If you have any concerns about Warranty just buy the Dinan and don't look back .

Good luck to everyone on here thinking the dealers wont dig . They will and so will Bmw
No apparently they do not need to let you know your car has been flagged just when you need something in the future they will just let you know your car was red flagged because of
Downpipes , Ecu tune ; Jb4 , Methanol , ETC....

[josec70]

It's refreshing to hear someone actually publicly discuss a blown engine and the consequences ..... forums would lead you to believe this never happens. @BMW AUDIO - Sorry bout your engine but thanks for having the balls to put it out there.

[Mkai0]

Originally Posted by josec70

It's refreshing to hear someone actually publicly discuss a blown engine and the consequences ..... forums would lead you to believe this never happens. @BMW AUDIO - Sorry bout your engine but thanks for having the balls to put it out there.

Amen

[BPMSport]

Originally Posted by BMWAUDIO

Really Mike ,
You haven't had any issues ? I call Bullshit on this one .
I know for a fact that my car is not the only one that has blown a motor .
Yes it did have your tune on it .And if you remember you charged me to put the stock flash back on on my car which served absolutely no purpose .

Because after getting my motor replaced on my dime you basically decided you did not want to put the tune back on for the original price you quoted .
In fact you wanted me to pay for a new tune .

If you have any concerns about Warranty just buy the Dinan and don't look back .

Good luck to everyone on here thinking the dealers wont dig . They will and so will Bmw
No apparently they do not need to let you know your car has been flagged just when you need something in the future they will just let you know your car was red flagged because of
Downpipes , Ecu tune ; Jb4 , Methanol , ETC....

You bought RAM's 1000+ horsepower car, and then the motor blew a couple weeks later. According to RAM and the logs, the car was running 30PSI on an advanced JB4 map with an empty meth tank - so not surprised that it blew. Ram ran that car at multiple race events and never had any engine issues - because he knew how to maintain and operate a heavily modified car and used proper fuel.

The car was flagged way before this when the diff mount broke and caused the driveline to drop when the dealer observed a JB4, Meth, an ICE Tank, and Downpipes - a number of aftermarket components.

When you got a new engine, you told me that you had some hesitation issues, so naturally I didn't want to tune a car that had preexisting problems.

Not to mention, you never paid for a tune - you bought a used car that came with one. I told you that the dealer would not cover that car. Regardless and against my advice, you put everything back to stock and tried to commit warranty fraud and were denied coverage. Would be nice if you shared the whole story.... Don't forget that when you brought it into the dealer to try and get coverage that it had disconnected cooling lines - you even told me that you stopped payment against the technician that put it all back to stock because of this.

I was nice to you and tried to help you in every way, but this was a very highly modified car and all we did was a backend flash for it.

The warranty denial has nothing to do with our software in any way.

[MissionPerformance]

Interesting turn of events for sure for the AllMotor's car. Its sad that the motor blew but vehicles like that do require a constant attention/maintenance and you just cant expect S63 to run 30psi without meth, its just not happening. If anyone is to blame for this is JB4 for not building a fail safe to cut boost once meth runs out and the operator for not checking meth levels. But either way, BMWAudio, you can't expect to have dealer repair a vehicle that has meth, jb4, ice tank, turbos, downpipes and so on. They will flag it by just seeing one of those things. If you had Dinan chip/box, they would not cover the repairs either since you have all of the other non DINAN approved modifications.

As we have said before, dealers CAN deny warranty for something as simple as exhaust or drop in filters but it is not beneficial to them since they get paid by BMW to do the job. So as long as your modifications are "covered up" and not obvious, you should be fine. Bring a 1000hp race car to the dealer and your SA will laugh and red flag your ass right away.

[Bimmma]

Seems there is more to this story . Subscribed!

[BMWAUDIO]

Originally Posted by Mike Benvo

You bought RAM's 1000+ horsepower car, and then the motor blew a couple weeks later. According to RAM and the logs, the car was running 30PSI on an advanced JB4 map with an empty meth tank - so not surprised that it blew. Ram ran that car at multiple race events and never had any engine issues - because he knew how to maintain and operate a heavily modified car and used proper fuel.

The car was flagged way before this when the diff mount broke and caused the driveline to drop when the dealer observed a JB4, Meth, an ICE Tank, and Downpipes - a number of aftermarket components.

When you got a new engine, you told me that you had some hesitation issues, so naturally I didn't want to tune a car that had preexisting problems.

Not to mention, you never paid for a tune - you bought a used car that came with one. I told you that the dealer would not cover that car. Regardless and against my advice, you put everything back to stock and tried to commit warranty fraud and were denied coverage. Would be nice if you shared the whole story.... Don't forget that when you brought it into the dealer to try and get coverage that it had disconnected cooling lines - you even told me that you stopped payment against the technician that put it all back to stock because of this.

I was nice to you and tried to help you in every way, but this was a very highly modified car and all we did was a backend flash for it.

The warranty denial has nothing to do with our software in any way.

I Never stopped payment for any work that was done on my car . You can ask Anthony he is on here . I did pay for the work that was done .
I did not change settings on the car , it was on map 2 so somehow either the car changed maps or after the motor blew the jb4 got reset ? I still don't know what exactly happened . The car was being run with 100 Octane gas.

In any case the car I bought had your TUNE on it so why should a buyer pay to get a tune removed . You got paid for the work when it was done and Ram was paid for the car with the tune on it .
I dont think anyone on this forum agrees with you charging to put the stock tune files back on the car . It should be a service you provide for your customers .
You also offered a half refund which you never delivered on.
Car hesitates because there is too much flow from the turbos and you know that . If you wanted to be helpful you would offered to go for a drive and try to access what was happening .
Maybe you were having a bad day/week , sorry about your car accident but that was not my fault .
Being in the same city I would expect more from a reputable tuner .
Ram (ALLMOTOR2000) chose to use a different tuner than you as well for his next project , again nothing in my control .

For the record I had the Icebox removed which i never really wanted in the car we well as all the methanol and downpipes . There were extra hoses left behind from the icebox removal .

I never said the Warranty denial had anything to do with your software . I was simply telling the op if he is concerned with warranty dont tune or go with Dinan . A reputable company that offers warranty and you can flash back to stock w/ no cost and no consequence from the dealer.

The more I ask other the more info I get .

So is it true , you buy your tune files from a company in Holland and just slightly tinker with it and resell it . Tunes that are probably made for a car running on 93 octane or higher ?
Do you actually do the tune yourself ?

How is this possible without having the car on a dyno and loaded . Every car runs slightly different and my car does not have stock exhaust , or off the shelf downpipes and it has PURE Stage 2 turbos .

[apexlocator]

I dont see a problem with a shop buying tune files and tweaking/customizing the tune themselves....why reinvent the wheel? As long as they know what they're doing, which becomes evident by word-of-mouth/reputation.

I do, however, agree and have always believed that a tune needs to be customized to a car, especially with stage 2 or above.

The next time I'm at the dealer, I'm going to ask if my car has been flagged; the SA has mentioned/complimented on my RK intakes before.

Good luck with your new setup bmwaudio; maybe keep whp below 800, these power levels are really useless on the streets.

[BPMSport]

Originally Posted by BMWAUDIO

I Never stopped payment for any work that was done on my car . You can ask Anthony he is on here . I did pay for the work that was done ..

It's really none of my business - you mentioned it when I saw you at your shop while my E39 was getting tinted next door. Leaving that disconnected could have caused an issue with coverage if the car wasn't flagged, but I didn't agree with not paying for the labor.

Originally Posted by BMWAUDIO

I did not change settings on the car , it was on map 2 so somehow either the car changed maps or after the motor blew the jb4 got reset ? I still don't know what exactly happened . The car was being run with 100 Octane gas. .

I'm not sure - I wasn't there. I'm just going off of what Ram told me he saw in the logs.

Originally Posted by BMWAUDIO

In any case the car I bought had your TUNE on it so why should a buyer pay to get a tune removed . You got paid for the work when it was done and Ram was paid for the car with the tune on it .
I dont think anyone on this forum agrees with you charging to put the stock tune files back on the car . It should be a service you provide for your customers ..

Ram paid for the initial tune and there were multiple revisions that I provided free of charge including the tuning cable. This isn't something that is normally included but I respected and commended his efforts and quest for more power. There is a difference between flashing the car back to stock via OBD and restoring the backups in bootmode. You requested that it be 100% in the condition it was before I touched it - so that requires putting the ECU's on the bench and restoring all of the backups taken from it. I charged you a nominal fee to flash it back, and put it ahead of a ton of other things at the end of a Friday to do you a favor.

You felt that you were entitled to full support from me at no charge, which is not reasonable - as stated earlier, a number of freebies were already thrown in and you are not the original purchaser.

Originally Posted by BMWAUDIO

You also offered a half refund which you never delivered on..

I offered you half of what you paid to flash it back to stock just as a courtesy gesture, and you replied that you didn't want any money back. I agreed to pull the ECU's and retune them for 91 octane to your spec for less than half of what the tune costs, including the labor, and no matter what you were unsatisfied. I tried to work with you and be more than fair, but that wasn't enough.

Let me know your PayPal and I'll refund you half, even though you declined my offer.

Originally Posted by BMWAUDIO

I never said the Warranty denial had anything to do with your software . I was simply telling the op if he is concerned with warranty dont tune or go with Dinan . A reputable company that offers warranty and you can flash back to stock w/ no cost and no consequence from the dealer. .

DINAN is a piggyback unit so there is no "flash" to begin with. Many people have switch from the DINAN piggyback to our software with nothing but positive things to say. That's not to discount the DINAN unit in any way.

Originally Posted by BMWAUDIO

So is it true , you buy your tune files from a company in Holland and just slightly tinker with it and resell it . Tunes that are probably made for a car running on 93 octane or higher ?
Do you actually do the tune yourself ? .

No, we do not buy files from a company in Holland and tweak them. We are one of the few that actually have the Damos/A2l/Function sheets/Factory data for all of the BMW DME families. Ram has seen it first hand - so go ahead and ask him. We spend an incredible amount of time on developing software for these vehicles and have pioneered a number of features in the past. You'd be surprised what other tuners on here purchase files.

Originally Posted by BMWAUDIO

How is this possible without having the car on a dyno and loaded . Every car runs slightly different and my car does not have stock exhaust , or off the shelf downpipes and it has PURE Stage 2 turbos .

We've done extensive dyno testing and testing on the road. Every car is different but a target based ECU with a map sensor and wideband o2 means that software can be calibrated properly to cater to a wider variation.

Paul - you're a nice guy and I truly do sympathize with your situation. It's too bad that you ran into these issues, and I wish you the best with that car going forward.

[TheHouseWon]

Is the ice box for sale? Pm me if so.

Good luck with the car, I hope you get it where you want it to be

[MrPowell]

I've worked with plenty of tuners of the years on multiple platforms and I've never seen a tuner carry over "free updates" to anyone that buys a car that has been previously tuned. Its common practice honestly and I don't think there is anything wrong with it.

As far as the motor letting go yeah 30psi with no Meth makes perfect sense, it has NOTHING to do with the tuner. As someone who's pushed 2 different stock motors to their ragged edge (868rwhp on mine 897rwhp on my brothers) before to keep them alive takes a lot of up keep and careful attention paid. On both Porsches we routinely changed plugs every 1-2k miles (which is a PITA if you've never done it), changed oil every 1500 miles, lots of data logging almost every few weeks to review everything, making sure we had good fuel, always double checking target boost when weather changed, dynoed the car every so often to make sure power was still there (we have our own Dyno so that helped a lot), etc.. Hell even with a built motor I've always been as anal as well because anything can happen with big HP.

[combatbmw]

I can tell you that tunes don't carry over to other owners.
Almost every company of every car I ever owned has the same policy.

[BMWAUDIO]

Mike,
I did not ask for it to be free .When the stock files were put back on I paid you for the work and I was quoted $xxx to put it back afterwards . The number changed to double when it was time to flash it back probably because it took 6 weeks .
I simply asked that you charge for your time to help get my car running properly . What you responded with was you are not a $150 an hour mechanic and that tuning car is a craft .
If you would have taken 5 minutes to go for a short drive in my car you would have seen what it was doing then you could access the situation and advise me on what to do .

It's awsome that you take so much pride in your work and i did compliment you on being a great businessman but that does not help me in my situation .

I am simply not informed enough to understand what all is ness to flash a car back to stock or to flash the tune . Everyone makes it sound like it will take you 15 minutes to do the work plus the time to remove the Ecus .

I will contact Pure to find out if anyone has dropped in stage 2 turbos without a tune and what the car will do .

Thanks for responding I do feel better just venting a little

[allmotor_2000]

Originally Posted by MissionPerformance

Interesting turn of events for sure for the AllMotor's car. Its sad that the motor blew but vehicles like that do require a constant attention/maintenance and you just cant expect S63 to run 30psi without meth, its just not happening. If anyone is to blame for this is JB4 for not building a fail safe to cut boost once meth runs out and the operator for not checking meth levels. But either way, BMWAudio, you can't expect to have dealer repair a vehicle that has meth, jb4, ice tank, turbos, downpipes and so on. They will flag it by just seeing one of those things. If you had Dinan chip/box, they would not cover the repairs either since you have all of the other non DINAN approved modifications.

As we have said before, dealers CAN deny warranty for something as simple as exhaust or drop in filters but it is not beneficial to them since they get paid by BMW to do the job. So as long as your modifications are "covered up" and not obvious, you should be fine. Bring a 1000hp race car to the dealer and your SA will laugh and red flag your ass right away.

The only comment I would add here is that the JB4 does have meth safety in Map 8. If Map 6 is used (custom tuning Map) it does not have safety. It is recommended that Map 6 is for expert use only.

[BPMSport]

Originally Posted by BMWAUDIO

Mike,
I did not ask for it to be free .When the stock files were put back on I paid you for the work and I was quoted $xxx to put it back afterwards . The number changed to double when it was time to flash it back probably because it took 6 weeks .
I simply asked that you charge for your time to help get my car running properly . What you responded with was you are not a $150 an hour mechanic and that tuning car is a craft .
If you would have taken 5 minutes to go for a short drive in my car you would have seen what it was doing then you could access the situation and advise me on what to do .

It's awsome that you take so much pride in your work and i did compliment you on being a great businessman but that does not help me in my situation .

I am simply not informed enough to understand what all is ness to flash a car back to stock or to flash the tune . Everyone makes it sound like it will take you 15 minutes to do the work plus the time to remove the Ecus .

I will contact Pure to find out if anyone has dropped in stage 2 turbos without a tune and what the car will do .

Thanks for responding I do feel better just venting a little

Paul, when that number changed to "double" according to you - I asked you what number I originally quoted you. You told me I said "zzz". I said to you that I don't recall quoting you "zzz", but I'm a man of my word and if that's what I said, that's what it will be. With your permission I will post all of the text messages between us as this is clearly in there.

I haven't seen you or your car since the engine was replaced, so not sure how I would take "5 minutes" to go for a ride in it.

Thanks

[DenverF10M5]

Originally Posted by Mike Benvo

Paul, when that number changed to "double" according to you - I asked you what number I originally quoted you. You told me I said "zzz". I said to you that I don't recall quoting you "zzz", but I'm a man of my word and if that's what I said, that's what it will be. With your permission I will post all of the text messages between us as this is clearly in there.

I haven't seen you or your car since the engine was replaced, so not sure how I would take "5 minutes" to go for a ride in it.

Thanks

Maybe you guys should agree to handle this privately. I don't see how bashing each other is contributing to anything meaningful on here. This whole he said/she said situation has nothing to do with anyone else on here. Call each other on the phone and handle the situation like men.

[BMWAUDIO]

I went thru all of the texts
you never sent it to me in text you quoted the price to me verbally when i paid for the stock files to be put back on the car .

Go ahead and read thru the texts and you decide if you want to put it all out here for everyone.

[TheHouseWon]

No need for texts... Lets talk about tuning and ice boxes!

[DenverF10M5]

Originally Posted by TheHouseWon

Need need for texts... Lets talk about tuning and ice boxes!

Did you get the tune flashed yet?

[TheHouseWon]

Originally Posted by DenverF10M5

Did you get the tune flashed yet?

Doing it tonight. Have the unlock and activation ready just need flash via ENET. And I just picked up my cable from storage

[DenverF10M5]

Originally Posted by TheHouseWon

Doing it tonight. Have the unlock and activation ready just need flash via ENET. And I just picked up my cable from storage

It's such an easy process. The flash literally takes 90 seconds. You'll have some fun.

[srtoad4]

Just waiting for MJ with the popcorn to make an appearance in this thread..