Gutmann pug

Mate just told me about this .......May have already been done but I missed it.

He said that in Auto express it was saying that Subaru are going to install a 'black box' into new cars which is read by dealers at service / warantty time. If the box records that the car has been tampered with, your warantty goes out the window. I guess this is to combat aftermarket ECU re-maps and people who de-cat and then put orignal parts back on when a problem occurs claiming its been standard all its life guv.

Dont ask me how it works or if its true, it was a passing comment from a friend just now.

I reckon that will move more people towards buying OUK cars with shorter warantty coz I reckon a large protion of cars have mods of some kind done to them in the first three years of life, other than PPP

PLease ignore if this has been done before

What say you?

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

Hi Gary

I'm not sure about scoobs but VAG ecus seem to be pretty sneaky

If you hit the limiter twice or something daft like that then when they plug in the diagnostic computer it tells tails on you and your warranty is void

On VAG cars though you can buy the software and lead to clear these things down so I guess someone will do the same for anything

Paul

Danny B

I can understand them doing it, but I bet you there will be some kind of fix, crack or whatever you want to call it to erase the blackbox if it ever went into production cars.

Miniman

iTrader: (2)

Er, isn't the point of a limiter to limit the revs thus saving the engine from damaging itself (by over revving)?

Also how will they know if bolt on parts have been bolted on then removed. There are far too many parts that can simply be bolted on, and putting some sort of sensor on all of them is uneconomical.

Gutmann pug

I guess the box will monitor the engine performance from one service to another and if adjustments are made it will tell tales on ya ......

It was specifically for Subarus that it was seen Paul....oh there there are a couple of old people along my road whose VAG warranty must be up the swany then.......first gear....raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa at 30 miles an hour in first coz there is a junction in 100 yards and they cant be bothered to change gear on there 1.4CL golf...lol

bits'n'pieces

Hondas have one of those on, when the company car clutch/flywheel became one, try explaining away 13.5k in first gear from the honda printout... oh at 88mph as well which i thought of as kinda funny as i was going forward not back to the future.

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

Did you miss 3rd?

hawkeye

is your user name a clue to the state of a 13500 revs honda gearbox then??????

Rewolf

I read the artical too...here is the wording:

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The fight to beat unscrupulous tuners is being stepped up at Subaru. Plans are underway to fit its cars with 'black boxes' to record engine and ignition data to better protect its customers.

The systems will be specifically developed to spy on drivers who fit so-called 'invisible' tuning parts, including removable engine ECU chips and easy-to-change performance components such as exhausts. Usually, fitting non-standard parts like these will immediately invalidate an engine's warranty protection, and reduce a car's resale value.

Drivers fit them to improve performance, but remove them when making fraudulent warranty claims or before selling the car. "Black boxes are inevitable," said a Subaru UK spokesperson. "We'll have them fitted to all cars in the next two years."

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I think the intention is that it will allow them to identify those people who used unoffical ECU upgrades, exhaust changes etc, and then put all the originals parts back before making a warranty claim for the destroyed engine.

It might be related to the "Subaru Impreza is most expensive car to repair" issue, as this is something that they are quite sensitive about, and the majority of those very expensive repairs were engine related.

If they did add this recorder to new cars, but increased the warranty to say 5 years, I doubt if most people would complain.

hawkeye

hmmmm interesting article that one i never thought about the impact of people putting mods on their cars damaging them then takin them off and claiming obviously its a lot higher than any of us thought hence why Subaru's r expensive to repair


when they go bang the go bang big time, in perspective though NO THER MANUFACTURER has a model which is MODDED so much from new... Evo's would be next choice id say???

Gutmann pug

There will always be a big market for after market exhausts etc. You only have to look on here at the number of people with these parts on MY02-03 cars for instance.
I for one have accepted that my warranty dont exist anymore but I would suggest a massive proportion of scoobs have the odd tweek or two which users reckon to change back if a problem occurs.

The other question is what happens to cars supplied by NON UK dealers who are less sensitive to mods. My car was infact de-catted from new by my supplying dealer. I guess the warranty i had was through a warranty house rather than IM so the black box would become irrelevant.