ernestolopez

These forums are to learn and hopefully share information.To enjoy a brand of car.

So,what feedback do YOU have to support how someone would be INCORRECT?

The most important thing is to provide knowledge.-Is your car tuned?

How many Audis have you had?
What do you know of APR?

These are just a few questions that I think should be answered.Good luck anyhow.

JD15

Research the TD1 issue. Audi can automatically detect tunes when the car is connected to the diagnostic computer regardless of which mode the APR tune is set to, rendering stock mode mostly useless.

Unfortunately, these cars are too unreliable for me to risk losing the powertrain warranty; I was considering a tune at one time, but the tune would make a convenient scapegoat for the oil consumption issues I am having.

dscline

There are plenty of examples at multiple Audi sites of people thinking they were undetectable, then finding out the hard way when a warranty claim was denied. As JD15 suggested, do some research on TD1 flags. At first, APR thought their stock mode was undetectable, and in the beginning it probably was. But that's not the case any more, and they have admitted it multiple times. Here is one example. If you have a non-factory tune on your car, Audi can detect it, and as vtheman posted earlier in the thread, Audi appears to be checking for it every time your dealer connects to your car for diagnostics. In this post, Arin at APR suggests that they've been doing this silently for years.

So while the stock mode doesn't really hide anything, having your ECU flashed back to stock does. If you were to have your car flashed back to stock, completely removing the APR (or whatever) tune, Audi won't be able to tell that it's been tuned. But technically, they COULD tell that something has been done to it, because the flash counter has been incremented, but I haven't seen any info that confirms they're taking it that far. In this post, it appears that APR doesn't yet know if Audi checks for that.

The OP is out of his warranty anyway, so this is all moot for him. My problem, however, is I keep seeing people saying "don't worry, they won't know". Other people might read these posts and falsely believe there is no risk. Lots of people are willing to take that risk for the performance boost, and that's great if you're making an informed decision. But it's simply not responsible to let people believe that a tune doesn't have warranty implications. That could be a very expensive piece of misinformation. But don't take my word for it, ask APR.

gunsmoker

They just wanted the customers to believe that. Being a software engineer, I never thought for a second that APR's tune was undetectable and I pointed it out multiple times. It's so obvious to me and therefore it must have been obvious to APR, but people just wanted to believe that they can lock it out in stock mode and the dealer would not know a thing. Think about it this way - the dealer needs to program the ECU to a new version of the software. They do that, power-cycle the ECU and try to read the check sum and the version of the software (101 for all embedded systems to check if the flashing has completed properly) and then they see the program has the old version and check sum.

dscline

Well, perhaps undetectable in the sense that on the surface it appeared stock, and typical Audi/dealer procedures didn't do anything specific to look for it. But yes, you're right, it is naive to think that an aftermarket tuner can change the parameters of the stock ECU while keeping it impossible for the manufacturer to be able to tell. It's just a question as to how much effort Audi wants to put into detecting it. There was probably a window where it wasn't on their radar, but obviously it is now, and they have a system in place to keep track of which cars have been tuned.

Close Encounters

Well said...my sentiments are the same.I previously owned B5's and have had them all 'chipped' for better performance but I always have done this on the premise that it was a calculated risk worth taking to better enjoy the power the 1.8's had hidden.

As with everything, no action of this sort is risk free and though I do not track or drag race my present 2.0 which is STG 2 APR or even 'redline' the rpm's its a risk worth taking that the engine will be reliable as my 1.8's have been. So the heck with AUDI and their TD1, I will take the same care of my B8 as I did with my B5 and hope that I never will have to haggle with Audi over a power train warranty issue...nothing is risk free but no car in my stable stays 'stock'.

Macallan21

I say this with some love..

Jackasses, quit crapping in my thread.

I just wanted to know a bit more about to see what this tune could really do... I'm past the warranty, and none of this is germane to my original post.

Close Encounters

Hey Dude I hope you can chill just a tard and maybe even get over how terrible you feel about your post being 'crapped' on. Really sorry if your day got really screwed up by us going off topic slighty though I think most of the posts were 'tune' related somehow... Hey...you might even "learn" something new (as I have) from those posts that sometimes went off course a bit... And I really do say this with love and hope that this helps you feel better.

gunsmoker

You actually got me looking at the "Terms of use". I wasn't sure if the company that runs this site owned everything or not. You own only the posts that you have made. Going off topic means to me that there isn't much to say about the topic to begin with.
Just step on it and time your 0-to-60

Macallan21

I've been having some fun with Torque, driving around and logging different stats. I need to pull the data from my tablet to get a better look at it. The car hauls tail!