[PaulBailey@ltbmw]

Originally Posted by sc88

Make something a sticky so people can clearly see it!

good idea

[ontopofm]

Originally Posted by Donald-335i

Honestly i don't think so my boy on this forum had a JB3 1.1 on his car took it off before service and still found it thay said *The Ecu Was Messed With* and im pretty sure thay made him pay for his Oil Cooler :-(

i believe that no tune is undetectable....
my car is pre v29, took tune off before went in for service, somehow when they scanned it, it said it appears that the DME is chipped althought no fault code is currently presented

[Spoolin335]

^ so they saw that you had formally had a tune?
what did they say?

[ontopofm]

Originally Posted by Spoolin335

^ so they saw that you had formally had a tune?
what did they say?

my SA asked me if I had a chip on, of course I said no
but they agreed to work on my car if I take all mods off which I did

[Hit_Apex]

Originally Posted by ontopofm

my SA asked me if I had a chip on, of course I said no
but they agreed to work on my car if I take all mods off which I did

This is a very important point. The diagnostic routines a tech is trained to follow are not designed to consider additional variables. There's nothing a tech hates more than wasting time chasing a problem.

[SoCalTech]

As a tech, we get paid for productivity and efficiency. If I have to spend several hours chasing down a problem that you caused, I lose money. BMW won't pay to fix a problem that you caused, and customers fight us tooth and nail trying to get out of paying. Therefore, I did all that work for free.
We had one in the shop (thankfully I didn't work on it) were if the car sat for a few hours, sometimes it wouldn't start. If you got it to start, it would fire up every time until you let it sit for a few hours again. Turned out that the owner had a piggyback installed, messed up the connector, and took the piggy back out to bring it in for warranty work. What happened is that since he messed up the connector (and not in a visible way, it was messed up internally) the wake up line to the DME was loose, and only sometimes making contact. The DME didn't know it was supposed to wake up, and therefore the engine wouldn't start. The technician spent a very long time trying to figure out this problem, and ended up losing a lot of money because someone decided to be dishonest and screw someone else over. Please think of things like this when you're committing warranty fraud. We are just trying to pay our bills, and earn a living.

[David 12]

Very well put SoCalTech - Now if only BMW would not try to blame a tune for a totally unrelated failure, e.g., fuel pump, we would all be happy!

[Spoolin335]

Originally Posted by SoCalTech

As a tech, we get paid for productivity and efficiency. If I have to spend several hours chasing down a problem that you caused, I lose money. BMW won't pay to fix a problem that you caused, and customers fight us tooth and nail trying to get out of paying. Therefore, I did all that work for free.
We had one in the shop (thankfully I didn't work on it) were if the car sat for a few hours, sometimes it wouldn't start. If you got it to start, it would fire up every time until you let it sit for a few hours again. Turned out that the owner had a piggyback installed, messed up the connector, and took the piggy back out to bring it in for warranty work. What happened is that since he messed up the connector (and not in a visible way, it was messed up internally) the wake up line to the DME was loose, and only sometimes making contact. The DME didn't know it was supposed to wake up, and therefore the engine wouldn't start. The technician spent a very long time trying to figure out this problem, and ended up losing a lot of money because someone decided to be dishonest and screw someone else over. Please think of things like this when you're committing warranty fraud. We are just trying to pay our bills, and earn a living.

since your a tech... can bmw actually detect if you have a tune even after you take it off?

[Hit_Apex]

Originally Posted by Spoolin335

since your a tech... can bmw actually detect if you have a tune even after you take it off?

This has been answered before and it goes something like this. A tech is unlikely to spend the time required to analyze your car's data in a forensic manner to identify whether you've logged conditions only achievable via a tune. In fact, I bet most techs could care less provided their experience servicing and repairing your car is the same as an unaltered car. It's a transparent fact that never warrants consideration until you try to cheat the system. However, there is talk about FASTA data being uploaded to BMW where it can be processed more efficiently for out-of-range conditions which may result in flagging of your service file. I bet we will know a lot more over the course of this year as the popularity of piggy-backs have exploded and BMW is not likely to bend over for warranty claims.

[Morpheus]

I know a guy who knows a guy who works in a BMW dealership as a repair tech. He hooked a car up to the scanner with a JB3 still installed to see what would happen. Nothing was detected.

[Vudoo4u2]

free post in yet another...detectable or not thread

[SoCalTech]

Originally Posted by Spoolin335

since your a tech... can bmw actually detect if you have a tune even after you take it off?

Haven't gotten the chance to mess with a tuned car personally. There are ways that have been mentioned about how tunes will mess with certain things, and to check those functions through the testers, but I'm not sure which tunes would cause that.

[stimpy]

Originally Posted by David 12

Very well put SoCalTech - Now if only BMW would not try to blame a tune for a totally unrelated failure, e.g., fuel pump, we would all be happy!

+1 - goes for all dealerships.

Originally Posted by SoCalTech

Haven't gotten the chance to mess with a tuned car personally. There are ways that have been mentioned about how tunes will mess with certain things, and to check those functions through the testers, but I'm not sure which tunes would cause that.

If you've worked on 335's, I can guarantee you you've touched a tuned one :P

[JDLM]

Totally new and original post

[SoCalTech]

Originally Posted by stimpy

+1 - goes for all dealerships.



If you've worked on 335's, I can guarantee you you've touched a tuned one :P

Doing an oil change and diagnosing a problem are two separate things. I might have done minor services on one that was tuned without my knowledge (and if that's the case, then the tunes are really unimpressive...), but I have not had to diagnose a problem with a car that has been tuned, or been screwed up by a tune.

[R3NEGADE]

Originally Posted by SoCalTech

As a tech, we get paid for productivity and efficiency. If I have to spend several hours chasing down a problem that you caused, I lose money. BMW won't pay to fix a problem that you caused, and customers fight us tooth and nail trying to get out of paying. Therefore, I did all that work for free.
We had one in the shop (thankfully I didn't work on it) were if the car sat for a few hours, sometimes it wouldn't start. If you got it to start, it would fire up every time until you let it sit for a few hours again. Turned out that the owner had a piggyback installed, messed up the connector, and took the piggy back out to bring it in for warranty work. What happened is that since he messed up the connector (and not in a visible way, it was messed up internally) the wake up line to the DME was loose, and only sometimes making contact. The DME didn't know it was supposed to wake up, and therefore the engine wouldn't start. The technician spent a very long time trying to figure out this problem, and ended up losing a lot of money because someone decided to be dishonest and screw someone else over. Please think of things like this when you're committing warranty fraud. We are just trying to pay our bills, and earn a living.

I am sorry but people pay a lot of money for these cars and their warranties and if they did not have the fear of going in for an oil change or something completley unrelated that they were having issue with and their car being flagged for a tune, they would be more inclined to be honest about their modifications. I understand your frustration, but your opinion is biased and you need to understand where people who take their tunes out are coming from, after all you are posting in a forum dedicated to tuning this engine.

I for one was going to dish out the money to my dealership and have them do the dinan tune so I would have the piece of mind of dealing with them for any warranty issue...but now it seems like I could get it done one week and the next they are no longer working with dinan and who knows where their closest dealer will be then, and they will probably each try to blame the other if I do have an issue.

[Unky]

I would second that SSTT is the way to go

[Presidio335xi]

OP.....you could always spend more and get a Dinan tune. Middle of the road power gains and no worry about warranty.

[stressdoc]

I continue to hold out hope that the accountants will get fed the right #s and decide that BMW Performance can make a lot of profit if they are allowed to market a tune.

Ditto for sales of the ZMP. A mild tune -- say 12psi boost -- with 30-40 hp would be irresistible to many buyers. It would keep the 335 on top of the challenges from Nissan, MB, & Audi. It would guarantee the BMW 335 ZMP the title of "ultimate driving machine" in any comparison test in the auto rags.

[Mr. 5]

Originally Posted by sc88

Make something a sticky so people can clearly see it!

You know guys...I'm just as sick of these warranty questions as you but if you guys think that the forced induction forum is the only forum in e90post then you're far from wrong.
Warranties deal with other e90s as well.
This is why the sticky is in the general e90/e92/e93 forum.
For those who are lazy to look, I'll post the thread for you:
http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66970

But, I'll tell you right now that it won't work.
People will always overlook the stickys and they won't search around and they will post whatever they want.

How about if we post a sticky about common sense?
Because that is what most of the warranty questions are.