Anyone had problems after a remap?

[walbjj]

not wanting to lay the boot in while a man is down, but surely u would have known the risks of choosing a lesser known tune vs the plethora of established guys out there.
i mean, if it was for a few bucks, then i guess this is a great example of why u should just stump up the extra few bucks and go with something that is known.

anyway, i think that putting it on a flatbed would have been the first option for me

[Wynnston]

Sorry to hear about your woes. Sometimes these backyard tuners are hit and miss. I tuned my old car with a small tuner (compared to the rest) and it was the best tune I've ever had, but having said that, I have a lot of friends that get tunes for their JDM Modified cars etc and I hear stories of snapped this, blown that etc. so it really is hit and miss. Of course, you can always have hiccups with the more reputable brands but they do a lot more R&D than the others and ensure that you're not putting a tune on something that has hidden issues already (the cause most of the time).

Re-Mapping the engine isn't going to get rid of that knock. It sounds very much like a bad lifter, or worse. Is it smoking a lot or anything else besides the noise?

[h100vw]

Get tuner to the car if you can't move the car. They surely will want to clear their name if they are worth their salt.

Gavin

[tigger73]

Get tuner to the car if you can't move the car. They surely will want to clear their name if they are worth their salt.

Gavin

Surely if it's a bench tune you can remove the ECU and take it to the tuner for reflash

[Naresh]

Basically the way this stands is that the car is with VW up on a ramp with the engine removed. The crank case looked ok to me but the bottom end contain small brass fragments and one piston was removed and on the table looking damaged. (I'm no expert in engines but there were scratches to the u-shaped section below it) The car has one of the newer generation tricore protected ECU's so was in fact bench flashed. Due to the noise I felt not travelling the 60 miles to the tuner and instead took it 4 miles to VW in an attempt to get the work carrired out under warranty as I was advised by the tuner the map was virtually undetectable.

Yes, in hindsight I could have risked a drive up to the tuner (and experienced a possible engine seizure) or taken on a flatbed but at the time there was no way I could have anticipated the scenario to have spiralled so out of control. After all, I have been running a 1.8T with a map for over 5 years from another lesser lower tuner with no issues and some good reviews from a colleague helped me decide on the current tuner in question. My initial choice was to pay a little extra and go with Revo but it's too late for that now and this whole experience has put my off remaps for life. Poor tuners, in my opinion, should be banned from touching cars as I believe (with backing from VW) that the remap is to blame and this particular tuner has very poor experience in common rail 2.0TDI's who put a bad map on my car causing this catastrophic failure.

[parso_rex]

Its actually pretty hard to kill a diesel engine, I wonder if it was already damaged somehow prior to the tune and then it simply failed with the increased stress once tuned.

Bit of an aside but this is something that scares me with cars over here that we sometimes get to fix up when they have been tuned by others before we get to touch it. I'm not talking Euros but the same thing can apply. Last year I sent an STI away to be tuned elsewhere because 3 other tuners had 'had a go' at it previously - its engine failed 2 months later so certainly a good decision there and we got the fix up job too !!!

I know this doesn't apply to your car though because its hasn't been tuned previously and its a diesel too so the same factors that can kill your internals like petrol engine don't really apply i.e ignition timing and fuel mixture. High EGT's do though and it could potentially kill your pistons but usually other parts would fail first due to the excessive temps - your turbo being one of those. The usual stuff like low oil or badly diluted oil could possibly hurt things too

See If you can find out if the piston itself failed or if it was one of the big end bearings

[Transporter]

It maybe a bit hard to find what really had happened because, he only get the info from the dealer and they can say whatever they like the cause of the failure was.

[tigger73]

I don't like the sounds of where this is heading

[Naresh]

Guys, I will have to gain further clarification from VW on what actually failed as the senior tech wasn't there when I visited at the weekend. To say I feel sick is an understatement. All my previous cars were looked after meticulously with regular service intervals and cambelt etc done to VAG standards. Now I have an engine failure on an 18 month old car that has only covered 20k miles.

So far I only have these pictures to go by.........

[tigger73]

...and are VW saying it was due to the tune?

So what is the tuner saying about it?

[Naresh]

...and are VW saying it was due to the tune? Yes, that's why they won't pay out under warranty. They same for this failure to occur so soon after the map is prime reason for the state of my engine!

So what is the tuner saying about it?

Did not comment on my detailed email earlier outlining the damage for the repair estimate. He just pointed me to his terms and conditions saying that they "do not offer warranty on any modified vehicles". That could be said about ANY tuner on the planet though. It says nothing about screwing up someone's engine and getting away with it! With his response I may as well just lube up and bend over!

[tigger73]

Did not comment on my detailed email earlier outlining the damage for the repair estimate. He just pointed me to his terms and conditions saying that they "do not offer warranty on any modified vehicles". That could be said about ANY tuner on the planet though. It says nothing about screwing up someone's engine and getting away with it! With his response I may as well just lube up and bend over!

Did you point out the fact that he was the one that performed the modification?

So what is the tuner suggesting your course of action is now given your engine is in pieces at VW dealer?

Not sure what sort of consumer law you have in he UK, however there's surely a case for faulty workmanship or something.

Given the reliability of the diesel enginers you'd have to be really unlucky to have an engine failure at 20k miles. And given VW have found you have tuned it this is their out friom warranty repair. You'd have to prove that it wasn't the tune which caused the damage to get it repaired under warranty. Though sounds like there may have been something seriously wrong with the tune - not sure how you would find this out now...

Does the tuner have any log files or record of how the vehicle was running "within spec" once the tune was put on? If he has then you could take this back to VW and ask them how the damage could have occurred. If not then you could ping the tuner for failing his duty of care to ensure the tune was 100% when it left his workshop.

Not sure how much the repair bill at VW dealer is up to at present, however if there's no hope of getting VW to pay up then I'd be looking at options from independent workshops to do the repair work.

Are there no reports of this type of engine failure on non-tuned 140TDI's anywhere? I'd be looking everywhere to try and find if anyone else has had this type of failure so that you could at least get VW to agree that it is possible (although maybe not probable). Even if you can get them to take aprt blame this is better than nothing. Then if you can get the same out of tuner and maybe you will be left having to stump up the difference this may be the best outcome you can get.

Also I'd be asking the tuner what he's going to do so that you don't feeel the urge to shame him on every VW forum you can find... I mean just as a community service kind of thing/warning for other forum members of the tuners lack of response/customer service once there's a problem and after he's got your $.

Most tuners here are very concerned about keeping a squeaky clean image online as they know it could potentially cripple thier business.

I think this is the worst nightmare for anyone with a tune..... VW negative response and tuner wiping hands of responsibility.

Best of luck sorting it out.

[Transporter]

Just looking at the pictures, I think that there would have to be something seriously wrong with the tune and the driver would have to be ignorant to any signs that were there when he driven of from the tuner, for that kind of damage, if everything else in the engine was tip top.

Remeber, that it had happened the only 100 miles from the tuning. The oil and fuel samples were not taken as well, or were they?

It looks like you're ready for a new engine, mate. I doubt that VW would rebuild if it was covered under the warranty, so don't fell for the trap to save a bit, if you'd have to pay for that repair.

[h100vw]

Just looking at the pictures, I think that there would have to be something seriously wrong with the tune and the driver would have to be ignorant to any signs that were there when he driven of from the tuner, for that kind of damage, if everything else in the engine was tip top.

Remeber, that it had happened the only 100 miles from the tuning. The oil and fuel samples were not taken as well, or were they?

It looks like you're ready for a new engine, mate. I doubt that VW would rebuild if it was covered under the warranty, so don't fell for the trap to save a bit, if you'd have to pay for that repair.

Pretty meaningless pictures IMO without knowing where all that scrap in the sump has come from. I thought it was a big end shell to start with but there isn't one in the picture. So why is that the only piston on the bench.

If it was damaged, where's the photo?

Ask them for some more pictures, the damage to that piston, if any and one of the state of the bore where it came from.

[parso_rex]

If it is a big end failure (conrod looks scored the way I see it ) I can't see realistically how a simple tune could cause it not without other things failing anyway. The question is though what has made this happen. Happy to be proved wrong of course
Petrol is a different story but even then the ECU would hopefully be able to protect itself