I'm hearing the new simtek is like a mini syvec? ? Any ideas ? Lol

he appears to be more focused on continual development, there are some seriously quick and successful cars that run his ecu's, the stand alone and dccd items he produces appear to be some of the best on the market.

Imagine being at the forefront of your chosen career and being in a position where you have a choice, doing development work for race and rally cars (which you enjoy and are good at) or do a mundane job you have done 1000 time before (upgrade a road car ecu for joe blogs - no offence intended, just putting perspective on things)

not everybody is driven by money, i know it's a hard concept for most to grasp as it's driven into people, but what does earning lots of money really help us achieve? happiness? only the individual can answer that and andy obviously isnt driven by money, thankfully.

I'm affraid mate the fastest imprezas in this country pretty much all use Syvecs. For whatever reason it hasn't really caught on in the rally work yet, I don't know why

Whilst I don't disagree Andy is very very good at what he does, he still has a duty to support people who have put faith in his products. The best thing the man could do is hand over the service side of things to a specific dealer or middle man, just someone to deal with the things he doesn't want to.

I have a syvecs and quite frankly it's superior to the Alcatek, the poor service and way in which the Alcatek is (basically you have no access or control of the ecu) is what drove me to buy the syvecs. Whilst I'm no expert with these things, I have some friends who are very well versed in it, the syvecs community and support is absolutely fantastic

the outright fastest impreza's in the country arnt necessarily that great in comparison to others in their class/discipline though
give TEG a ring and ask their opinion, Aaron is winning pretty much everything he enters.....

maybe you could put forward a business proposal to him as you seem to know what he should be doing and where he is going wrong? but remember alcatek is cheaper for a reason, if you did all the things you are proposing then you would basically be replicating the syvecs, and you would also have to charge more money for it, making it a similar cost as the syvecs, so you would be producing the same product for the same price (pretty much). 2 identical products in the market place is not great for business, but i'm sure you've already thought this through...

All he has to do is open the ecu to let anyone access to map it, rather than the crappy code/profile system it alcatek uses at the moment.

Bit of a stupid thing to say, alcatek is a very capable ecu, but it's now getting well known customer service is poor so people are just spending more and getting a syvecs even though you could argue its OTT for their needs. Right now if you want a reliable remap your ecutek/OS or syvecs.

Other than price syvecs is prob the best ecu on the market (given people are swapping from motec to it says alot) and customer service is way up there with the best as well. You can have the best product int he world but if you don;t support your customers they will go else where.

I don't need to ring Teg I'm fully aware of what Aaron is achieving as I'm up there regularly having my own car mapped. I did also say that syvecs isn't used amongst the rally boys for whatever reason. I doubt teg would change their ecu, partly because of their involment and relationship with Andy, not because it's a better product than a syvecs, because it isn't!
I know your into rallying, and please don't take this the wrong way, but there's a big world of motorsport with these cars outside the rallying world, and these cars have been very competitive

Alcatek is a good product but you cannot tell me that their service and aftercare is acceptable, infact no one can. I doubt even Andy leach himself would say it is.
With regards to someone else looking after the service side of things, I know there's more to that story, than probably you know. So don't make assumptions as to what I have and haven't thought through.

PS just for the record, 2 years ago I had an Alcatek I wanted it mapping at short notice, I found a phone number, called Andy leach and he sent my code to my chosen mapper there and then. Really nice guy and In my own personal experience was very helpful.

To be fair though if he is more interested in the rally and race cars and not prepared to update and repair the ecus he is selling to people with road cars/track day cars he should not be selling the ecu end of.

Don't be silly lol.

Well it's been plenty of years now, enough to see alcateks been sold off regularly due to all the hassle.
Probably the number 1 ecu on the marketplace lately, wonder why?

The original Simtek ECU was forever having problems with injector drivers, seems nothing has moved forward in that sense.

Another reason to avoid.

Does anyone have an email address for andy? I'm still ringing his office number at least 15 times a day with no joy so he must not be there so hopefully if I send him an email he will see it

i can access mine :thumb:

i guess the issue is protection of intellectual property which is a bit of a grey area and most ECU's have the facility to be locked by a code if the mapper decides to

sorry i got up on the wrong side of the wrong person this morning, and she's still here so i'm still in a foul mood :freak3:

if there were gains to be had from running a syvecs then TEG would do it, they're in it to win it at the end of the day. The ecu they run is not the same as the ones that go into road cars. And the add on dccd ecu and dash is supposed to be awesome, i'm yet to try them out but plan to on the next car.

I am well aware of the world, the interview andy forest did about his time attack car was a great insight into what he is doing, have you seen it? I currently run a link on my skyline which is a good bit of kit and access is easier than alcatek, very similar functionality but it did cost a bit more, had MoTeC prior to that and customer service was out of this world, but then so was the price. Ran basic piggy back ecu's on other cars which did the job, to an extend.

that all depends on who you are and what you can do

i was just pointing out that idea is flawed and if you had thought it through with a business head you would have seen that, so no i dont think you thought it through thoroughly, but lets not get into an argument over this when but they are still unable to obtain the relevant 'kit' to get into the ECU?! something isnt adding up.....
at the end of the day i'm a nobody and i managed to get in, somehow!

woaw, hold up, you're saying all these negative comments based on second hand information? and actually had a good experience with no issues?!!!?! :wonder: :nono:

Right I've not long being at work, so can't be bothered with an overly long reply.

My reference to "me being not very well versed in these things and having some friends that are" was in regard to to the personal syvecs support that I have, which I then go on to say the aftercare and community from syvecs is excellent.
From what you've written, it looks like you've taken what I said and thought I was on about unlocking an alcatek? That's not what I meant, maybe I worded it incorrectly.

I'm gonna reel this in now as I can't be doing with it. Irrespective of which product is the best, does this does that.....

Andy needs to sort his service side of things out Tom, you and I both know that, anybody suggesting otherwise must be crazy. We've got guys here having to go without their dailys for months whilst waiting for ecu they've sent off. Guys who haven't seen their ecu for 6months so went and bought others during the interim. I know the motorsport side of things is going well for Andy, but there's a duty of care to support your own products correctly in the aftermarket, don't you agree?


Whilst what I had written about my experience with Andy may seem contradictory, I take people as I find them and in that incident Andy was very helpful. Might I add I was very lucky to be given the phone number that I was,, In turn being able to get hold of him so easily and get what I wanted. Before people ask, no I'm not going to divulge that.
I'm not basing anything on second hand information Tom, especially things posted on this forum, whilst my experience was ok, I'm afraid there is a serious aftersales issue that is undeniable, this is plastered all over the internet and has being suffered by personal friends also.

Lets just agree to disagree on this as I can't be bothered running round in circles. I think there's a problem with the aftercare/service side of the business as do many others. Which is a tragic shame when the product in question is very good.

Well I still haven't had any luck had no reply to my emails no one is answering the 2 numbers I have for them really don't have a clue what do its nearly been 3 weeks now and iv had no contact what so ever just worried it may take as long as last time (nearly 7 weeks). I no some people on here have is mobile number and I no that no one will give it me but if there is anyone on here with it is there any chance they could give him a call for me and ask him to contact me and let me know what's going on or even better just fix the ecu and send it back. The annoying thing is that it went in because injector driver for no1 had gone down so he put four new injector drivers in and sent it back I fitted it fired it up and it was still missing so I checked all injectors and now No3 has gone down so you would of thought he would of done it for me right away because if he would of just repaired what was broken my car would of been on the road 3 weeks ago, I no he was only trying to do the right thing by putting 4 new ones in but you just would of thought he would of jumped straight on it as it was his fault. Just getting really p***ed off with it now and really do not no what I am supposed to do iv got to have the car back on the road I can't keep getting lifts and buses to work it's a joke and costing me a fortune

Id be spitting feathers if i had sent off an ECU i had paid good money for the "Manufacturer" to fix and got this treatment !!

So he took your money, now the product and your left hign n dry !

Nice fella there

I no I'm f***ed basically mate don't have a clue what to do

He has a private number that his chosen few have, seems a ridiculous idea tbh, ****ing sort ya **** out tbh.
I'd be livid, process a court claim to get your money back and go elsewhere ffs.
Nice person, good product, just missing the vital part of customer service.

Fair play for having the patience to last this long. This has made my mind up about Alcatek, and never to buy one!!

You could send a letter via Post Office which requires a signature from him.
If he's a reasonable man and he has the letter in his hand you might get a result and at least you would know he'd got it and take it from there.
Just an idea mate.
Trev

Il give that a go getting desperate now

You mapped, used Simtek pro? Very good Ecu and excellent support from Steve Simpson. Had one on my sprint car for a while and no issues, logging is excellent and has all the features you would need.

alkatec is a good ecu and very capable, used one for years. However no logging is a major issue for a Motorsport based car. Service is awful, only mapper I know how gets a quick turnaround from Andy is Martyn Jeffrey.

Oh and I use Syvecs in my drag car so I fell reasonably comfortable commenting on all 3 ecus.

Cmon corky, the guy is entitled to have a personal phone number, irrespective of what's going on

Ive heard its ok tbh but never had 1, and agree steve is easily accessible but i know it had a bug a while back as mentioned above but id think thats sorted by now.
Yes martyn has no problem getting sorted with andy but you have to go through him and buy from scratch if using him so perfect if having work done via him or if close to him then you may have more benefits;).

Yes i know joe, not knocking that at all, still doesn't justify the rest of the sinario

You buy the ECU through a dealer, so the after sale 'duty of care' is their responsibility

example: buy an audi from your local dealer, you dont start ringing the Audi factory to get a problem sorted, you go through the dealer

You could try going through a different dealer/tuner and explaining the issue, saying you've had enough of 'Billy Bob Tuning' as they've kept you waiting xxx number of weeks

Just to let you all know I have still had no response from andy I have emailed him 10 time and called him a few times every day for weeks now. The mapper I use has been trying to contact him daily as well as he is waiting for a code off andy also. Beyond a joke this is just wish I never bought an Alcatek worse decision I have ever made hope everyone learns from my mistake!!

As a last resort, maybe you could ask Martyn Jeffery from engine tuner to contact Andy on your behalf?

have you tried messaging/adding him as a "fiend" on facebook to help with a response?

He will have to pay the full whack I'd of thought if going through martyn, as in pay for a full map and code.
But I think that's the only option left to him.