A4 Avant 2.0 TDi 170 remap findings –
09-08-2010,08:58 AM
Ok. I had my Audi A4 Avant 2.0 TDi (170) remapped on Saturday and I thought I would try to share with you what effect it has had on the car and my overall experience from the garage. I am not a mechanic in fact I am not even close so bare with me if I get some of the technical things wrong and feel free to correct me or add explanations for my findings if you understand them.
Firstly the garage; I had the remap done at Gorse Motors in Thetford. The guy who runs the garage is called Jason and he could not be more friendly. He explained everything to me with the patience of a saint (as I said, I am no mechanic). The garage its self was spotless and everything was neatly organised. There was a nice comfortable waiting area with a coffee machine and freeview tv. Even the toilet was spotlessly clean which considering its age I thought was nothing short of a miracle. The garage has been on site for about 20 years and they have been doing remaps for about 4/5 years. The company they use to do the remaps is called Viezu and the chief engineer, who writes the maps there, has around 22 years experience. Jason hooked my car up to his laptop via a little connection under the steering wheel. He turned off all my electrical equipment (internal light, radio, hands free, aircon etc) and hooked a charging device up to my battery to keep the power steady. He then downloaded the existing map from the car and emailed it off to Viezu. Viezu then made a copy of the map and saved the original before they started to manipulate the copy. After the copy had been re-written with the new data that new copy was emailed back to Jason and he copied it on to the car hence ‘re-mapping’ it. In addition a copy of the original map was also sent to Jason for him to store locally. Jason has been down to the Viezu headquarters a fair bit and explained the set up they have there to me with the rolling roads etc. He has an Audi A3 2.0 TDi himself and has had a ‘dealer remap’ on it which they done for him while he was there one time. Very very fast!
The remap itself; the first thing I noticed is the smoothness of the gear changes. There is absolutely no jumping as I change up through the gears. I wasn’t sure what to expect with the changes to power. The remap will not make your car feel like a Ferrari so don’t expect that! The only way I can explain it is to say that the power is delivered a lot better. The car pulls for longer and across a larger range of the revs. Pulling out to overtake lorries is no longer a problem and the car will pick up from 40-60 with no problems, and then you arrive at 80 before you know it. I think I heard it described as ‘pulls like a train’ before and I suppose this is a good expression of how to describe it. As for changes to fuel economy I guess time will tell. I know the 170 has terrible mpg as standard and my average on the trip was 38.8mpg set over the course of the last month. I have now reset all of the trips and I will post my findings after a couple of tanks of diesel have gone through.
Overall, I am very happy with the remap. I know it is still early days but having it done has gone along way to getting the car performing closer to what my original expectations were when I bought it as it had disappointed me as I have stated on other posts.
In conclusion, would I recommend a remap to other 170 drivers? Yes, definitely. Would I recommend Gorse Motors in Thetford? Yes, absolutely without hesitation.
Chris Mason
Audi A4 Avant B7, S-Line, 2.0 TDi 205bhp (remapped from 170), Bose, iPod, Parrot Bluetooth, DIS, Parking Sensors, Cruise Control, De-Badged, Tinted Windows.
