But, you do have to be prepared to accept it if you are the one to win the "unlucky lottery." I've won it twice.

I lost an '06 C6 Z06 engine at under 20K miles, and I lost the engine on an '02 745i at about 10K miles. Both were untuned and both were replaced with new engines at no charge after thorough examinations by both BMW and GM.

 

So then in assessing the risk of a tune I think there are four factors which need to be answered (there may of course be more that I haven't though of).

1. How likely is the engine to fail?

2. In the event of an engine failure that is not related to the tune, how likely is the tune to be blamed?

3. How much does a tune increase that likelihood?

4. What is the likely cost or range of repairs?

Being that I'm not in any way an expert (or even a novice) on tuning, what do you think would be the best way to for me to answer these questions and accurately assess the risk?

 

OK, this is weird. Someone who is in a position to know a lot about this stuff, saw this thread and contacted me... and had some interesting things to say. I can't say who, so don't ask me.

To summarise;

Since early 2014 the SDD diagnostic system automatically scans and stores the DTC's in the car, regardless of what the technician is doing. If the VIN gets read, the various modules are scanned, and the DTC's are recorded. Every time.

For JLR dealers it's only possible to use SDD online and connected to the JLR server, and every time they connect to your car and it's scanned, that 'session' is later sent back to JLR HQ and stored in their records.

If the P167F-00 is noted during a scan, the session is immediately uploaded to the JLR server, same for some other "suspicious" DTC's as well.

There are ways around this, but dealers can't / won't / don't know / don't care. (but there are some people, not dealers, who have SDD, and who might)

So since early 2014, every time your car get's connected to SDD at a JLR dealer, every DTC (and a hell of a lot more information on top of that) get's saved and sent back to JLR HQ.

If your car goes in for a major warranty claim, for example, a replacement engine is needed, the stored data from the SDD sessions is likely to be inspected as part of a claim investigation. For the time being this is done "manually" but it was hoped/planned to make it an automated process.

So big brother is watching, your, car.

What this basically means is, if you have the P167F-00, and the car gets scanned by a JLR dealer with SDD for any reason, then JLR HQ has that information.

If you have the P167F already it's pointless to flash back to a factory tune to try and "hide the tune from the dealer". As I said before it will always be there, it can't be hidden. And it will be recorded and sent back to JLR HQ the next time the car goes to the dealer and the plug in the SDD.

If you have a tune and by some miracle you don't have the P167F, well you can't know that until you connect the car to SDD so it's a bit of a catch-22. Perhaps there are some aftermarket scanners than can catch this code, but i'm not aware of any.

So that's that, make of it what you will, i'm just the messenger.

 

Makes perfect sense that the mfr might want to snapshot all relevant information for engineering, customer service reasons as well as the fact that they are on the hook for warranty claims in the warranty period and could justify info gathering on that basis alone. That said, there is WAAAAY too much voodoo, chest thumping, butt hurt and 'secret sauce' in the tuning biz, when the hidden reality is they are mostly franchise operations. Case in point a recent thread where the 'before' result could not be explained - well how can one honestly modify the operation of a machine without understanding how it was working before? This is not voodo, it is engineering.

That said, even promoting tunes as undetectable is borderline fraudulent as it is an attempt to retain warranty where it is no longer applicable.

 

Now, how many people on this forum have had or know someone who has had a warranty claim REJECTED due to a tune......

 

My SWAGs in bold.

 

It's one thing, LobsterClaws, to have an engine part fail and quite another to have a complete engine failure. While a dealer may not (and likely won't) trip over a part that fails, an engine failure will certainly garner BOTH the dealer and manuf's complete attention. How much attention is a case-by-case thing; it will depend on the data and whether/how much the engine was called upon to operate beyond its design parameters.

Hey, all of life is a risk. Having a tune on a car that is under a powertrain warranty is just one of them! Long threads about tunes and warranty coverage would be cut in half if folks didn't expect the manuf to pay for each and every instance of part failure.

 

As long as my car is under warranty I will not make a tune. But as soon as the warranty have postphoned, I will tune the car.

Not because I think the tune will make an engine failure more prone to happen, but because the extra problems that might occure IF an engine failure happened while the car was covered by the warranty.

 

+1 Tusen takk!

 

Had mine flash a misfire code at me. Never tried to hide the tune, intercooler, intercooler water spray system, and pulley swap from the dealer. They connected it to the computer to check the code it threw and see if they could replicate the misfire but knowing it was tuned they said any further physical inspection into a plug or coil or other cause was no longer covered by the warranty. Your whole warranty isn't voided, just whatever's affected by the modifications. Problem hasn't reoccurred yet, been almost a month.

Talked to hennessey after getting the codes from the dealer and they said anything like that, that their tune might have caused, would be picked up by them.

 

Given my experience with the JLR service department, I find it highly unlikely that they are sufficiently knowledgeable to detect a tune. They know just enough to be able to flash updates as necessary. That said, there is no doubt in my mind that the factory can easily detect a tune, whether the ECU throws a special code or not. All they have to do is pull the file and do a "document compare" with the last known OEM tune that was loaded. Any decent tuning software will have that functionality. A good tuner might be able to hide the unauthorized tuning event, but they can't hide the changed parameters.

Get over it. If you want a lock tight warranty, don't tune.

 

We should have the benchflash hypothesis tested by end of next week. Fingers crossed.

 

This has a lot to do with legislation that mandates ECU's be
tamperproof, and that the firmware uploads are encrypted.

It was initiated by CARB and spread to the EPA.

 

According to CARB or the EPA (I can't recall) it's not technically legal to ECU tune a car in People's Republic of CA. I guess there are more idiotic rules/laws: Stupid Laws - Old women must hide their faces when in the vicinity of virgins. The penalty for disobeying this law is 5 years in prison.

 

It is also likely the case in the EU. Probably in directive 5.

In any case, it is what it is and the people in this thread
are discussing the ramifications as it applies to their
potential financial exposure as it applies to their vehicles.

It may be commercially inconvenient to vendors of aftermarket
tunes, but it is the owners who face the consequences.

ECU's of all makes have been hardened over the years. And the
impetus to do so has come from the regulatory framework. Not
because the manufacturers wanted to spend money needlessly.

 

If OEMs wanted to completely lock us out of the ECUs they are presently using, they could do so easily. Take it FWIW.

Thanks
VMax

 

And in fact for a number of years they did. In the days of OBD I, ECMs had read only memory. Tuning was accomplished by replacing the ECM entirely or by modifying the sensor inputs (typically with resistors) to fake the ECM into doing something differently than planned for by the manufacturer.

 

Information security is also a big reason for hardening. Consider that hackers have been able to open car doors, stop engines, apply brakes, etc. all from the comfort of their living room by using the cellular connections to cars e.g. Nav systems. Consider how many people actually hook up to your OBD connector. Any one of them could upload malicious code. There's been no documented non-controlled cases of this that I'm aware of, but the thought of it is terrifying.

 

That's the kind of history I wish they taught in school

We saw tuning protected ECUs for the BMW N/A 3.0L I6 making 260HP found in the '07+ X3, and the 2008 Viper PCMs are still unhacked (the Mopar replacement is a waste). With more manufacturers showcasing in-house tuning divisions (Jag/LR SVR, Porsche "S", MB AMG, BMW/M, etc.) the days of aftermarket tuning are numbered--lest you count converting to an aftermarket engine management system.

Met with a couple Bosch automotive software engineers at SEMA last year. The potential for lawsuit liability by the OEMs has forced Bosch to completely compartmentalize development of new ECU platforms. Engineer A has no idea what Engineer B is doing and vice versa.

Enjoy them while the picking's good gents!