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Hi Folks,
I havent had a whinge for a while so here you have it, because this really drives me mad and it getting too common!
We recently had a car in the workshop with problems that developed after having a remap elsewhere locally. The customer to his credit freely admits he went there as it was cheaper than us which is absolitely fair enough.
His car has big problems and even our BMW diagnostics showed up nothing at all wrong. Which was odd, as they usually have some codes listed, but this had nothing at all.
So after a period of head scratching, my calibrator, Arran delved into the ECU Calibration and found this...
What is it you might ask?
Well that is 181 Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTC's) deleted from the ECU so any of those component or plausibility errors will never flag and the engine will just keep on going.
The 181 Trouble codes that are missing.
This is getting more and more common and we see it across our installer network almost daily now.
The cheap mappers have trouble remapping and keeping the lights out, so they just bin all the codes so the owner has no idea its a mess in there. Absolute Madness! :furious:
If this car had a fuel pressure problem, a clogged DPF, injector or glowplug problem, or any one of the 181 errors listed, it could do nothing to warn the owner about it.
These guys need jailing. A problem like a clogged DPF or excess common rail pressure can actually cause a FIRE! Thats why the bloody programming is there to prevent it!
Take care out there folks... the ability to use a laptop does NOT make someone a quality engine management calibrator!
The clown who did this plainly knows less about engine calibration and safety limits than I do about space travel!
This is much too common now and is rife with unscrupulous used car sales places who buy cars with errors cheap and then just have that error flag binned to hide it. Tidy profit.
Its also a headache for the garage trade in general as can you imagine trying to dioagnose a problem with a modern car that has had all its codes removed so they never work? garage has a headache, cstomers paying massive labour for troubleshooting. Its just a mess.
Rant over... normal service will now be resumed.
Last edited by Evolution Stu; Aug 13, 2015 at 03:08 PM.
That is incredible and to me a weakness in the manufacturing process not locking down the codes so they can't be removed.
Why would they leave them to be able to be deleted? I had a Skoda and the VAG.com software and cable which was invaluable for checking my car for error codes, I wish there was easily affordable equivalents for all models of cars so you could check yourself.
There is a local guy near me who does mapping on the side as he works in a national garage centre, he's done the similar to the above then bad mouths the local mapper ( Clive atthowe ) saying he's a better mapper etc... He talks so much ****e, he offered to map my spec c...I said no way so he then said when it's mapped can I have a few pictures to put on his Facebook.... No thanks.
Very few decent mappers out there now adays, people think that just because they have the software they can map.
Bit like 'mapping days' with 6+ cars in a day, really?
Yep I totally agree, I've always used and always will use Clive atthowe tuning
They mapped and look after my cars, never had one problem, recently they mapped my spec c and I left it with him for 3 weeks as he was busy and I was away, he spent put so much time into my car I think it worked out all in all 25 hours it's completely safe and seriously a fast piece of kit
Does that mean that my map was done properly then (done before I had it) as on the diagnostics it shows up about 80 codes to do with loads of things,many repeated, and yet they cannot be cleared and I don't have any lights on? I presume (and hope!) that as the codes are there, it means it was done the opposite way to the bad practices you speak of?
Does that mean that my map was done properly then (done before I had it) as on the diagnostics it shows up about 80 codes to do with loads of things,many repeated, and yet they cannot be cleared and I don't have any lights on? I presume (and hope!) that as the codes are there, it means it was done the opposite way to the bad practices you speak of?
Do you mean fault code history?
does your engine check light work? (dodgy traders either remove the bulb or cover it with tape)
This sounds terrible! That dodgy re-mapper should be reported to the Trading Standards by the victim imo. I'm happy that I don't mess about with this mapping and re-mapping etc. anymore with my non-sports car. I shall certainly tell my friends and acquaintances about this, so that they go to the right firm to get authentic re-mapping done, not some cowboy job.
does your engine check light work? (dodgy traders either remove the bulb or cover it with tape)
Some codes are historic others are current I think that's why some get repeated but yes all lights work on dash when ignition goes on and go out again after starting.
And if you try to clear the codes not one of them will clear
Last edited by Trix-wrx; Aug 13, 2015 at 10:31 PM.
i know of a p1 mapped by a pro mapper with a wideband 02 sensor, mapper then refitted standard 02 sensor without testing to make sure it worked, guess what it didn't car went boom on the way home, just proves even the best make schoolboy error's
i know of a p1 mapped by a pro mapper with a wideband 02 sensor, mapper then refitted standard 02 sensor without testing to make sure it worked, guess what it didn't car went boom on the way home, just proves even the best make schoolboy error's
I live in West Wales and there are a few mappers around. I went to one and they said they just download the map from somewhere else and chuck it on the car. Didn't like the sound of that so left it be.
My A4 has had its DPF and EGR removed and had it done in hereford as the garage supplied a proper straight pipe rather than gut the DPF. It was "mapped" at the same time but it doesn't chuck out a belch of black smoke like some diesels I've seen that have been mapped.
I had the wheels changed at a local spanner monkey yard and they took it for a "test" yes I could have got excited about it but wasn't too concerned - I know the owner so monkey break, monkey pay. Anyway he said my car hasn't been mapped as its not as fast as other mapped 170TDIs he's been in.
To be fair, even after that statement I just left it be. My car does complain about the usual issues oil, lights etc but never given an error code so who knows if they've been turned off or not. I think all that was done was the DPF code was removed. Its been like it for nearly 3 years.
Last edited by EddScott; Aug 14, 2015 at 05:11 PM.
What did you do about it? Is it easy enough to put the error codes back in?
After discussion with the customer about the perils of us playing with it and essentially it no longer being the "tuners" calibration in there he opted to contact trading standards and the approach the vendor for a return to standard and then hes bringing it back for us to see whats actually wrong with her.
Its a tricky situation because we could have sorted it there and then by re-enabling all the error PID's and running soem diagnostics on it with INPA but then the "tuner" would have had a right to refuse touching it as it had been elsewhere.
After looking at the tables, all the transmisison torque limiters have been removed too, not to mention the EGT and fuel temperature limiters.
Does that mean that my map was done properly then (done before I had it) as on the diagnostics it shows up about 80 codes to do with loads of things,many repeated, and yet they cannot be cleared and I don't have any lights on? I presume (and hope!) that as the codes are there, it means it was done the opposite way to the bad practices you speak of?
Its impossible to quote the quality of a calibration without seeing it but yes, at least they didnt block delete the codes. Thats not to say "some" werent deleted, but if so, at least they know where they are. Block deletion means they have no idea which byte does what so they bin the lot, or employ software to do just that which is freely available nowadays sadly.
The quality of the calibration is as always down to power delivery, economy the shaping of the torque limiters for area under the graph and driveability and of course how many safety limits have been sensibly moved to allow the extra torque without just removing them altogether.
For example, all BMW's from about 2004 have torque limiters for each gear that give a torque output figure in them that no matter what the rest of the 2000 maps say, limits torque to the output in the table per gear. These are usually the last to be done in development as that allows them to shape the power curve to suit the tranmission fitted (ZF's quoted NM limit for example), weight of chassis (a 7 series can put down more torque in 2nd than a 1 series for example), wheel and tyre options etc.
To someone poking about with clone tools and hex editors it looks like this:
If you have the means to decode the cal, after a few days or weeks of effort you can view it like this and understand what it does in real numbers,
(Gears along the top / RPM left... all figures are now in NM at the crank but are subject to another table that calculates internal engine drag, about -130NM at peak torque on this motor IIRC)
All most tuners seem to do is put a huge number in every cell like 10'000 as they probably just have no idea what its for. They just learnt on some forum the car goes faster if they do it. Just flatlining these makes the car feel epic, but of course rewinds 1st and 2nd gear useability back to the 1980's where your powerful car was totally useless on wet roads. Its software like this that makes modern cars so useable with big power as the ecu keeps torque in check until your able to put it down.
Its understanding things like this that makes a good tune worth more money, EVEN if it doesnt make as much "headline" power. I mean, Imagine unleashing all 600ftlb of torque of our 335D stage 2 remap in 1st and 2nd gears. Pointless. Exciting maybe, but ultimately pointless.
Last edited by Evolution Stu; Aug 14, 2015 at 06:27 PM.
I will have a look at my paperwork when I can and find out who did the map and then I will come back and ask if people rate them. Shocking really that stuff like that goes on and ultimately dangerous
Ok so I looked through my paperwork and my map was carried out by TD Racing or Thwaites Developments in Warwick. Anybody got any feedback on them good or bad? Think I will get it checked ASAP either way by somebody who people on here trust. Who's best for mapping in redditch area or not to far away?
I used to regard remapping as a no-brainer modification. Having read Stu's threads over the last few years I probably wouldn't let anyone near my car except for Stu and Blackpool is absolutely no use to me. Knowing the way the world works, I'd imagine for every Stu there are 20 cowboys. In short, mathematically, any remap I get would be a dodgy affair.
One of the big problems I see in Euro tuning is that many are just putting on slave tunes of unknown quality or testing, others are adjusting undocumented maps through pattern recognition. Few understand the architecture of the ECUs they "tune" at the factory functional description level with an a2l definition, lots of datalogging and testing. Fewer still modify the code itself to unlock new features. All this is routine on Jap ECUs.
Remapping Companies Rant... Disgraceful practices!
it's completely safe and seriously a fast piece of kit 
