Cheap tuning module off eBay

G

goosey

Member
Hi All,

I've recently acquired a 2002 1.4 TDi A2. I'm fairly happy with it apart from the dodgy convenience control unit that was sapping power from the battery, juddering wiper and the ARB bushes which need replacing.

I've been lurking the forum a little so will have a look into the wipers and I'm getting the bushes done for £60 and the control unit has already been done at the stealers.. They tried to charge me £850 when I was quoted £400! Needless to say I wasn't too happy and made that clear and ended up paying £400.

Anyway, I've noticed a number of tuning chip modules on eBay and was wondering what your comment were on them??

Cheers
Goosey
 
Short answer: don't waste your money, even if it is cheap!

Reason: most of these cheap tuning boxes are merely cement wound resistors that fool the engine into thinking it is running lean, so more fuel is squiretd in per cycle, hence a bigger bang and more power.

In the short term, all you'll see is a little more power and a lot higher fuel consumption. In the mid to long term, you'll destroy the inlet and exhaust valve seats and possibly hole a piston, hence wrecking your engine. It'll make a £400 bill look tiny!

Cheers,

Mike
 
Right! I'll swiftly stop watching that item then! Thanks Mike.

So, without going to a remap what can I do to improve the performance? The reason for this is, well, I was thinging about selling it but I do like the car and I'm thinking if I can make it a little more fun to drive I'll probably keep hold of it..
 
If you want to make a serious improvement to the performance of your TDi, get down to Stealth and have an off-the-shelf remap - it's the only way to make a definite change and will set you back a couple of hundred quid or so.

There's no cheaper way to make a safe performance improvement to the A2, forget air filters, exhausts and the like (unless you are going to have a remap as well, in which case you shoulf do the ancillaries first, so that the map can take them into account).

Cheers,

Mike
 
Welcome Goosey - to echo Skipton's comments - get a remap done you will have no issues trying to re-sell the car with one and they transform the drivability of the 1.4TDi. Stealth are one of several suppliers who can do re-maps, there are many many threads about re-mapping on here.
 
As you can see from the sigs from Skipton and I, we've both had re-maps, although Skipton's car is several steps beyond mine!
 
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