I went to my local garage today and they spoke to me regarding a remap service where they can remap the car engine to give more torque, power fuel economy. This could give my 1.9 TD 105 bhp Touran the little boost it needs as it is a little underpowered but does the job. Any body had this done? Happy? Did you notice the difference. Could cost me £250 is it worth it?
Its about the going price, if done well they are supposed to be good with bags of torque, need some reviews on that garage to see if they are any good.
I have heard of stories of people who don't know what they are doing and mesing things up.
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You also need to factor in a possible increase in your car insurance as you will have modified it. Some insurers don't increase premiums if the change is to increase the torque, others take a dim view. Either way you must inform them.
Is the car under warranty? You need to check if it will invalidate any warranty. Never tried one myself. I always have taken the view that the manufacturer knows best.
from what i have read it depends on who does it,there have been some badly re-mapped engines.as said ask insurance first it may be classed as a modification.
------------- the only silly question is the one you do not ask.
what you have to remember is that car manufactures sell millions of cars all over the world and the engine map will be optimum to use the various grades of fuel available and to use air at a relatively good quality and pressure. Therefore remapping the ECU in view of where you live globally speaking and the use of superior fuel in the UK, then a remap would work well. Take the Mitubishi EVO this is just the normal 2.0ltr petrol engine 150 - 200 bhp approx. with a remapping to 300bhp+ in some caes. If you car is out of warranty and its afordable then why not. I remember having it done to my Cavalier SRi130 back in the early 1990's and increasing the BHP to approx 168BHP.
Its how Citroen and Peugeot get their little cars to be high powdered.
Watched a repeat motoring programme on tv yesterday about getting a car to do more by adding a chip upgrade, and special low resistance tyers and the car ended up doing 4 miles less for a set distance but this was a chip change and not a re-map.
the resulting opinion was it could be worthwile on large engines but a wast of time on smaller ones.
Not sure about re-mapping
chip change is old tech these days, from the time when chips couldnt be remapped, the only was was to install a piggyback, or swap out the chip itself.
Id be wary of a local garage offering the service TBH. they may just install a generic map, a good remapper will install a generic map, then take it for a run, while plugged in and tweak any parameters that are not quite right.
Most remaps do not affect warranty, and again, decent remappers will be able to take the car back to the stock map if required.
I'm sure I read somewhere(but can't think where) that you need to be carefull as if you are pushing extra torque etc. through the clutch then you can very easily rip your clutch apart. I think the point was that remapping is ok but you might need to upgrade your clutch.
I do believe that good remapers go by good guidelines so that it doesn't risk the clutch etc, bad remapers remove the torque limiter so I've read which makes it feel like it has more bhp but its not its torque and good bye clutch/gearbox.
We don't know what they have done to the remap so we need to trust them, vantuner is good and has got a good reputation, don't know if he does cars etc google him.
Had my previous tow car re-mapped. A Jeep Cherokee 2.8D upped the power from 163 to 195 bhp and torque from 400 to 500Nm.
Made it a totally different car to drive and tow with. Had this done when it was 8 months old without problems. Increased MPG by 11%. I am now considering doing this to my new car. But as we only do 9k miles a year and the existing fuel consumption is extreemly goot is difficult to get a reasonable payback.
not had it done on my current tow car as it's a petrol engine ( no significant improvement to be had,so not cost effective) however our last tow car WAS an oil burner ( diesel) had her re-mapped ,
my nephew did it for me as thats what he do's for a living and as it's his own buisness i got it done at a very reasonable rate too , at the time (2yrs ago) his normal price was around the £250 mark
there were very significant improvements to the ammount of torque the engine produced, as well as improved engine performance and fuel economy.
but if the job isn't done correctly the story can be very different, unfortunately you don't find out until the jobs been done
as an aside ,i don't know if your aware of it but if you add a small quantity of 2 stroke oil to your fuel tank when filling with diesel it can help to quieten a diesel engine down a bit as well as helping it to run cleaner
------------- no tin tent outings booked as yet ,just another cruise in Sept' booked so far