Pro's & Cons of Remapping

[Dave_Bounce]

I was considering getting my A3 2.0TDI 140 BKD engine professionally remapped. I was talking to a few fellas that did it before and they said its well worth doing...the car is more responsive and the fuel economy is also improved. However when I mentioned to my local mechanic that I was going to get it done he recommended I stay away from getting the car remapped.

He claims the egr valves cause problems, the clutch, dual mass flywheel and gearbox can all suffer from a remapped let alone other things.

I had been thinking about remapping it from 140bhp to 170bhp as there are factory A3's with that sort of power so I'd imagine they would be the same car as my own just tuned or mapped differently during production.

I see a sponsor of the site specializes in remapping so I thought people on this forum would have good knowledge about this.

Of course I'd love extra power and fuel economy but not at the expense of having trouble with other parts of the car.

Any insight would be appreciated

[zollaf]

your mechanic is just being a boring killjoy.
of course with more power things will take more strain, if you use that extra power all the time. in reality you don't because you are driving on streets not a track.

[panscrub]

I'm a mechanic myself & even though i don't disagree with remapping i have had cars in of all makes which have suffered from the procedure,it all depends on your self discipline.Use the extra power all the time & you're asking for trouble.Use it now & again when needed or just concentrate on the better economy aspect & you should have no problems.Also you must remember that if you up the power a lot then you should also upgrade the brakes,more horsepower needs larger brakes,suspension suffers too,no one ever mentions this.Another consideration is the insurance aspect.A remapped car which isn't notified to the insurance company is NOT insured & if you have a serious accident where the car undergoes an engineers report & is found to be none standard & none insurer declared could cause you very serious repercussions!!!!!

[Dave_Bounce]

I would like the extra power for overtaking and what not but I wouldn't be one that has their foot to the floor half the time driving the sh*t out of the car. I have heard about the brakes and the suspension before also, would the brakes be larger in the A3 170bhp compared to the 140?

Insurance is also something I hadn't considered, if the car is plugged into the ecu can it be read the car was remapped?

[TH Performance]

There are pros and cons to having a proper remap and there are also as many people in favour as there are not in favour.

Pros include the increase on power, torque, better mpg etc.

Cons can be anything that could possibly go wrong after a remap however the caveat to this is that these things could go wrong regardless of the remap or not.

A well maintained vehicle should be ok to tune and a professional company should ensure that your vehicle is ok to remap before and after.

We check as much as physically possible beforehand and then we check it all again after.

You need to make sure you use a reputable company, my company is checkatrade approved and we carry indemnity insurance just in case so - please note we have NEVER had to use it though :-)

Another thing to bear in mind is that many vehicles leave factories down tuned for servicing and insurance reasons. There's a huge competition amongst these companies for your money so down tuning them helps them sell.

You need to check the company, check its feedback, research them etc and make sure you're happy.

I can't speak for anyone else and I would never speak bad of other companies however I can assure you that I have never had one issue with a single vehicle I've tuned because we don't do boy racer, we do safe reliable tuning. Maybe that's why we're the UK's no 1 VW Transporter tuning group.

I've tuned a number of these 140bhp units with no problems.

Personally, both my vehicles (t5 and Seat) have been tuned and years later they are still running with no problems, in fact my T5 had an mot a few weeks back and the mot people commented on how clean the emissions were.

:-)

[TH Performance]

In fact, only 2 weeks ago we rejected an A4 as the turbo wasn't boosting properly. We won't tune vehicles unless we are 100% happy they are good to go. :-)

[NHN]

however the caveat to this is that these things could go wrong regardless of the remap or not.

A well maintained vehicle should be ok to tune and a professional company should ensure that your vehicle is ok to remap before and after.

Nail & head, well said.

[kalniel]

The 170ps engine is rather more than just a remap - completely different injectors etc.

[TH Performance]

A proper remap would take all this into account.

[Dave_Bounce]

TH Performance, what would be the recommended remap for the A3 2.0TDI 140...would it be around 170, 175?...I would'nt want one where people remap a 140bhp to something like a 190 and then wonder why the clutch burned out ha

[TH Performance]

Hi mate. We have tuned these units up to 185. You could go more but we wouldn't do it, we've tested these at this level and we know they're good to go.

[Brodster]

Shark Performance Stage 1 takes the standard 140 to 180/185 and I have never seen any of my customers change a clutch after a remap on a diesel. S3 yes but not a diesel so as TH Performance states your good to go.

[alankru]

I'm just interested; on a newer common rail 140 engine, what sort of mpg increase would you expect from a remap? and what if it were an auto?