Has anyone had a remap done to a diesel engine?

What sort of cost is involved?
Did it make a noticable difference to MPG and acceleration?
Anything to be wary of?

Cheers

http://tuning-diesels.com/index2n.htm

See if they have something to suit your car here?

Which car?
Good info on VAG diesels here http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=117
I've had a hybrid turbo fitted to my Ibiza & remapped to 230bhp – 0-60 is now under 6 seconds & MPG is up when driving steady as you don't need to change gear so much.
Remaps can be had for aroung £300 ish from good tuners, just avoid the cheap 'plug ins' from Ebay as they just fool the ECU into over fueling by tricking the fuel temperature sensor.

Diesel mapping is easy, safe and widely done. You can get loads more power out of them just by putting more air and fuel in.. just stop before you blow the head gasket 🙂 The thing is, it doesn't have a negative effect on fuel economy because if you don't use full throttle it works exactly the same as before.

For example, I called a company about my new Passat 2.0 TDI that comes with 140bhp. For £350 they zap a new program to the ecu and voila, 200bhp 🙂 They also reckoned on 2-5mpg increase, because you get loads more torque which allows you to use higher gears more.

had a remap on my audi a4 2.0 d
extra torque is great,no issues as far as i can see
got a box so i can change it back whenever i like to the standard map
about £350

The general negatives on D mapping is more smoke, even on a good map you'll see more smoke. Not a huge problem unless it's really poorly done.

On PSA type HDi engine a 20-40bhp increase map can be had for as little as £120 from known good sources.

I've had a couple of vans done and mpg was unaffected at worst and improved by about 10% at best (this was a van with a lower bhp output than most of the size so struggled a bit). Driving of both was much improved, it was especially more relaxing.

I used these guys…
sp tuning
http://www.sp-tuning.moonfruit.com/
Check ebay just search for passat remap or similar and see if they appear for some good prices, most i've paid is £200.
http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/SP-TUNING__W0QQ_armrsZ1

I'm not sure I'd risk it with a Mondeo TDCI, but diesels with other fuel systems seem to cope ok.

how does all this change your premiums though?

My parents have a passat estate 1.9tdi 130ps. looking at buying it off them and adding cruise control and doing a re-map. interested in performance increase aswell as any mpg gains.

Why not with a tdci? Any reasons?

Remaps are untraceable even by a main dealer, all they can do is drive it and know it's too quick. I think my insurance co added 10%.

With vagom adding cruise control can be pretty easy but depending on the car is has to have electric windows or climate control or other random things as the controllers can be shared.

how does all this change your premiums though?

I'm 43, full no claims & no points – no change to premium but insurance company were more worried about the body kit than the power modification as that would cost them more to repair!

Remaps are untraceable even by a main dealer, all they can do is drive it and know it's too quick. I think my insurance co added 10%.

Sorry, you're wrong – joe bloggs in the street with a programmer/reader can tell you it's modified in about 10 minutes flat. Anyone with the hardware for writing ECU maps can read off the map and compare it to the standard version. Let's not spread misinformation and end up with hundreds of drivers with invalid insurance because they were not aware of just how easy it is to identify a modified fuel map. Insurance companies employ people with pretty damn good understanding of vehicle systems (in the fraud departments) – the only question is whether they BOTHER to check.

I'm 43, full no claims & no points – no change to premium but insurance company were more worried about the body kit than the power modification as that would cost them more to repair!

I'm 43 and yet to own a car with a body kit. To be honest I thought I'd missed out on that one but maybe not.

I didn't think anyone had a car with a body kit at 43!

It gives hope to us all.

Coffeking is totally correct, a remap is easily tracable to someone who know's what they are doing(most garage's these day's), all they have to do is look at the check sum of the map as this would have been adjusted when the remap was installed.

Remap's are great, they optimise the engine's performance within safe workload parameter's if they are done by a reputable company, i say this as they are the one's who have invested lot's of time and effort into developing their software for the specific car, so in remapping you tend to get what you pay for.

I would also not dismiss tuning box's quite so easily either these day's, i ran my old vectra CDTi on various tuning box's(as i was trying them out for the owner of DTUK) and i never had one bit of bother over 30-40K worth of hard miles. It really depend's on what your after, something cheap and easy to remove that give's you huge bang for the buck then try a tuning box but if it were me and i planned to keep the car long term, it would be the safe remap all day every day.

I know that Vauxhall these day's have an approved map supplier (thorney motorsport's) so what type of car you got and we could possibly advise further??

HTH 🙂

What is the downside to remapping?
i.e. why don't manufacturers provided the cars with optimised performance anyway?

engine life,

add more air/fuel to the engine, get a bigger bang, go faster, but engine wear suffers, so serviceing should be more regular and bearings (big end, small end, turbo), piston rings, and other consumables, wont last as long. But as someone said, these things tend to only apply at or near full throttle, so normaly wouldnt be a problem (unless you normaly mash your pedal into the shagpile). But equaly if your not then why both with the 'upgrade'.

Have a look at cars with good reliability reputations. I'm thinking old (pre ford engines) volvo's that would do 250,000miles and still be good as new for another few years. They'r all big engines with low power outputs for their capacity.

Had my Ibiza done by P-Torque down in Birmingham. Chose them due to great reviews, good price, good maps and a very through re-map (eg: rollers and lots of computer stuff)

MPG improved by around 3-5mpg performance is not stupid for such a small car (175bhp and 298lb/ft or torque)

No the downside:
– You will rinse tyres
– 3rd gear will see wheels spin
– You will probably wear your clucth out.

The last point there is probably the most pricie. With a stage 1 map you would be ok with a standard clutch, as with 130bhp PD engines the clutch is rated to 300lbs/ft torque…However even one of those standard is around £400 fitted. An uprated one, your looking at around £850 fitted…

The thing is teh power is amazing, however if your car has done more miles ((mine is on 78,000) (which for a PD derv is not much)) then things are going to wear out alot quicker, as somebody else said.

Ow yeh Snaps – You on SCN? show us a pic of the car 😉

also you need to declare any re-mapping to your insurers…

I have had merc viano and 3.0 td range rover remapped, both were hugely improved with no extra fuel costs. I would not declare to insurer as the remap is undetectable.

I've got the Sachs uprated clutch in mine, about £700 if I remember rightly.
Only pic I've got here, shows off the Audi TT Quattro brake conversion nicely.

along with added wear on the car, one of the reasons companies down tune cars is due to the fluctuation in fuel quality.

diesel quality varies hugely across the globe.
the engines are tuned to be able to run on the lowest grade stuff availible.

i think the worst diesel availible is what one would get if you filled up in india, but i dont know why i think that. must have read is somewhere.

if you map it to use nice fuel more effiecently, and then put junk in it, it probably wont thank you.

….iirc

i think the worst diesel availible is what one would get if you filled up in india, but i dont know why i think that. must have read is somewhere.

you can't even burn it in multifuel stoves, i think spring water has a higher octane content

Quite a few Ibiza owners on here! I've got an 03 130 TDI Sport.

Keep toying with the idea of a re-map, but my car is on 106k miles and I am currently doing 600 miles/week.
Not sure I can be bothered with potential:

– reduced engine/turbo life
– increased tyre wear
– increased clutch wear
– increassed insce premiums.

Would be nice though.

Needs new seat cover, some rust on bootlid sorting & alloy wheel refurb before even thinking of a re-map though.

Another Ibiza Tdi here!

'05 FR 1.9/130bhp, thinking of a remap, car has done only 36k, I drive about 7500 miles a year, so wear & tear on other components shouldn't come into play for a long time (touch wood)

Only downside I see with mine is the tyre wear, I get 13k on the front with Toyo Proxes @ 130 bhp, so I'd guess at about 10k with a remap? Still it's less than £160 a year on tyres up front…

Not looking for a speed rush.

The car in question is a Kia Carens. It is to be used to pull a caravan so the torque and MPG increase would be nice. If its more responsive too then that would be a bonus.

I'd have thought that a re-map would be just the thing for caravan towing duties. Have you googled to see if anyone remaps Kia engines? Or are they sourced from a different manufacturer?

Orangista – wouldn't worry about tyre wear if you are doing 7.5k miles/yr.
Although, it does beg the question how do you drive the thing? I get about 30k miles out of the Kumho KU31's fitted to mine – have you got 16 or 17" alloys? Camskills do the 205/45/16 Kumho KU31s for about £105/pair delivered.
A mate of mine has got T1-Rs on his Corolla T-Sport & I can't say I've noticed them being anymore grippy.

I drive fairly quickly, mostly on twisty A roads, muhahahaha…

std 16" FR alloys, 205/16/45 Proxes T1-R's IIRC, just had a pair of Dunlop sportmaxx fitted on the back, as they were needed asap & couldn't find anything else in stock locally, they seem ok so far. Might try some different tyres up front once this set of Proxes wears out. Cheers.

You only get increased tyre and clutch wear if you are actually mechanically unsympathetic with the car, if you make sure you're not slipping the clutch when gunning it and don't wheelspin (basic car control) then neither is particularly effected. Emissions WILL increase, and this is part of the reason manufs dont like it, but also major reasons are shorter service interval would be advisory (oil gets more abuse) and why would you map all your cars to the max when you can wring an extra few hundred quid from people by offering the next model up for a little more, still using the same engine but mapped differently?

Pros and cons with all things, and it is always a risk, but a moderate increase is considered pretty non-destructive.

Most cars are de-tuned at manufacture to conform with emission regulation's, hence why most engines are uber tunable..

I know alot of guy's who run mapped for caravan's and they swear its great, but im afraid i dont know much about the kia engine but will ask my tuning guru buddy 🙂

EDIT- beaten to it 🙂

I wonder what car the kia engine comes from, I doubt they make their own.

The car in question is a Kia Carens. It is to be used to pull a caravan so the torque and MPG increase would be nice. If its more responsive too then that would be a bonus.

I was going to ask if anyone had got a remap for low down power/grunt as well, I have a big van that I pull a 2.8t trailer with, its fine most of the time but on hilly A-roads/dual carriageways it struggles to maintain 40mph. Its a 2.3L Iveco Daily.

http://www.vantuner.co.uk

Most tuners exagerrate their power claims. Martin does not. he's a diesel and van specialist.

had a remap on my audi a4 2.0 d
extra torque is great,no issues as far as i can see
got a box so i can change it back whenever i like to the standard map
about £350

Where from/What's it called? 🙂

[i think the worst diesel availible is what one would get if you filled up in india, but i dont know why i think that. must have read is somewhere.

you can't even burn it in multifuel stoves, i think spring water has a higher octane content

cetane for diesel

Where from/What's it called?

I think Custom Code do various systems and if you pay a bit more, you get the option of swapping between various maps. Not sure if it's two or three maps, but you can definitely switch between 'standard' + 'power' map. Might also be an 'eco' setting too.