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Remap paranoia.

4K views 39 replies 20 participants last post by  jason@bwchiptune 
#1 ·
Right, I can't physically read anymore warranty queeries about remap's :lol2:

You can have a map done that is 'flashed' and is undetectable by BMW! I know this because my car is flashed and I work for BMW, I told them.. 'find it if you can' and they couldn't see a thing

Now. Insurers will NEVER be able to find this, so why the hell do you all panic so much?! Chill out folks, short of removing the ECU and sending it to Germany to have the codes triple checked or sticking it on a dyno they Will not find it!

And I've never heard of anyone doing that in my puff!

Calm doon. It's just a remap. Not a hybrid turbo with a bolt on supercharger and meth injection... It ain't thar big a deal and done properly your warranty And insurance will be fine, plenty bigger things to worry about than this :eek2:
 
#3 ·
#4 ·
muz1990 said:
marco_polo said:
Regular generic tune is traceable, but again they'd have to be looking for it which the tend not to.

A flashed one reads oem figures and codes, I was beside the technician as he tried to see anything out of the ordinary which he couldn't :lol2:
When you say a "Regular generic" would that be a pre made map upload via a lap top? Traceable

& then a fully custom map, untraceable?
 
#6 ·
Iirc Bushys dad confirmed that all maps are traceable, and that some garages were being told to look for remaps when cars were brought in with certain engine issues...
 
#7 ·
kjb1 said:
hmmm this isn't really true.
I'm only going on what I've been told, and my cars have been in with warranty issues while remmaped and I've never once had an issue personally lol
 
#9 ·
I think for day to day warranty and insurance claims, you could well be right.

The issue comes if the worst does happen! If you were involved in a fatal accident, there could be hundreds of thousands of pounds / millions at stake, if you are judged to be at fault!

That's when the insurance companies might send you ecu off to BOSCH (or whoever) to forensically examine it for irregularities.
 
#10 ·
For insurance, I wouldn't mess about to be honest. As Red says, claims for personal injury and death can run well into 6 figure sums. It costs £50 to get a car rolling roaded (if it's possible after an incident). 5% above manufacturer's claims is probably a good engine, but 20+% has definitely been modified in some way, and they don't care how if it's not been declared. This then would result in a police matter/investigation.

It's all well and good to try and brush this under the carpet, and we can all boast about our own abilities and observation skills, but actually you're statistically more likely to have an accident the longer you don't have one, and all it takes is a momentary lapse; you can never rule this out. Couple this with the mind blowing possible eventualities lurking around every corner, the risk is just too great, although I agree the likelihood is very low.

I agree with your sentiment though, there's more to life than worrying about what could go wrong just because you've had your car remapped. Having said that, isn't that the reason to declare it and move on? Some insurance companies don't mind cars being remapped or it has little impact on premiums, if they do mind at all, I'd probably avoid them as they're the ones more likely to investigate every single detail with a fine tooth comb to wriggle out of a claim.
 
#15 ·
marco_polo said:
Where do people stand legally, if we innocently buy an (undeclared) car that was mapped by a previous owner?

Is ignorance a legal defense?
No unfortunately, How do you prove whether someone is ignorant to the fact their vehicle is mapped?

How many times has someone tried the old chestnut "i didnt know", benefit of the doubt is almost non existant now.

At the end of the day remap or no remap if you are involved in an incident you are either to blame or not and this is the point you would be more worried about trying to prove.
 
#16 ·
cars crashed worrying via insurance etc is tad ott!! infact very!! and if you did buy a car without knowledge of remap, sorry but you would not be responsible. And lets be honest how many cars are insurers going to test for altered software?? I've never heard of one incident!! just declare the map, insurers will be quite genuine!! and I've no idea that reasoning behind that above comment on avoiding insurers who allow maps!! adrian flux, very good insurance company. These forums do go far ott with theories sometimes, this being one example. If an se A4 estate with a 140bhp tdi engine on 15" wheels completely standard to look at had a map, would an insurer go to the trouble of paying for investigation into a cars ecu for a bump?? dont think so!!
 
#17 ·
The techs are not the ones who look for it
On the flash-able Ecu there is nothing to flag up using the hand held system

It the tp Ecus

It's when the car is plugged in to Isis (in the wall)techs can't see what goes on and it's when the Ecu has tp (tuner protected) software installed
So the early cars before tp (200:cool2:are a lot harder to tell

As for warranty most of BMW's techs have been on a course about this
The feed back i get is BMW are monitoring how many cars are being tuned and if breakages or problems are caused by tuning or should we say bad tuning

On the other side if you got your speed limiter reduced to 70mph so you would let your younger son drive would this void your warranty ?

BMW performance tuning
,so if a tuning company used the same tuning setting as bmwp or unlocked a bmwp Ecu so it could be used on a another car would this void warranty?

I've told a lot of ppl if they are worried about being found out then don't remap your car till its out of warranty

We have remapped many new cars and customers pop back before taking the cars in to have them put back to standard then back on again

Only 1 car has been pull up on and that's because he did over 170mph in a 123d

Now in Asia it's all different as this is the biggest car market in the world dealers can remap and do Remaps through company's like my self which the are under warranty still by them

Audi in Singapore use a company not to far from me in the uk for there Remaps

as for warranty each dealer gets given around £45-50,000 a year to make there own minds up on what they are going to warrant so ive heard

It's just a big can of worms if you open the lid on every thing
 
#19 ·
Bmw can find out and should be checking for it!!
This is the instructions given to BMW and they should have been trained on this..

Sorry for the pics, couldnt be bothered to copy it all out word for word, so i took a pic :lol2:
Anyway this is from BMW....



 
#24 ·
kjb1 said:
^^^. doesn't matter taking it on off etc. The file wont flag up and be known to the tech in the workshop, it's only flagged when the car gets plugged in online that will cause anything to become known.
What about flashed mapping? Mine came up 100% normal, nothing unusual but my tuner flashed it so it didn't come up with the map on any diagnostic machines
 
#25 ·
It depends who is looking, the average tech is not going to be able to check the hex code against the bmw issued map. If for example you were involved in an accident and someone died then you can be sure that all ecu's would be sent off for analysis which wouldn't involve a BMW tech.

Then you will be in the ****, for the sake of an additional £50 insurance premium.
 
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