Volkswagen Mark IV Forum banner

Remaps And Warranty/future Servicing

3K views 14 replies 9 participants last post by  gerrywac 
#1 ·
My 3 year manufacturers warranty is due to expire in March 2015 and I have been considering a remap since owning the car.
My question relates to servicing in the future with VW as I want to keep the full dealer history for when I sell ( I know I'll pay more but I have a mate who works there so can get a bit of discount).
Will VW do anything to the ECU when servicing like reset etc or will they just check for errors and leave it?
Don't want to pay for the remap if they are just gonna wipe it back to factory settings at every service.

Cheers????
 
#3 ·
My VW dealer (Listers Worcester) always asks if the car is remapped before servicing it.

And your dealer servicing need not be expensive - after 3 years there is a VW extended servicing package with MOT's for 2 further years. It costs about £400, and includes the big 5-year service (which is about £300 by itself).
 
#5 ·
Risk is if you suffer any engine problems just out of warranty they will be less likely to consider any goodwill gestures etc. Remapping leaves a 'TD1' flag on the ecu apparently which dealers can see. Thread on another forum I frequent where someoene has a new Mk7 R with a blown turbo and VW are refusing to fix under warranty due to that flag been present.
 
#7 ·
If you choose to re-map and then take it to a main dealer it is as well to mention the fact to them It is not uncommon that VW will issue new maps during a models lifetime and the dealer will re-flash the ECU with the latest update.

If you do have a post warranty problem on the engine in particular that might affect how they consider any "goodwill" outside the 3 year standard warranty

Can't complain too much about goodwill/extended warranty, my car came down with the not uncommon G201 sensor fault on the ABS unit at over 4 years and 65k miles and VW picked up most of the tab
 
#10 ·
Can't they track boost pressure etc from previous journeys
Just a thought

Golf mk4 1.8t AUM
Don't think there is any facility on the car to store or log any historic data other than uncleared fault codes.

when i bought VCDS and tried it out couldn't find any historic data other than a load of faults some with multiple occurrences. Once cleared I had a clean slate
 
#12 ·
Don't think there is any facility on the car to store or log any historic data other than uncleared fault codes.

when i bought VCDS and tried it out couldn't find any historic data other than a load of faults some with multiple occurrences. Once cleared I had a clean slate
This is correct as far as I'm aware,without a specific OBD live data logger,there just isn't enough internal memory to store this sort of thing.
 
#13 ·
Does it not store anything if pressures/settings have been exceeded. I was told by someone (maybe not reliable) but they said audi told him where to go after he had a problem on the car with a tuning box on his a5, he never told them and took it off before they ever saw it.
I'm not stirring I just don't 100% know myself

One thing for sure tho if I found enough money to buy a new car I would not risk the warrenty by putting chips or tuning boxes on, I'd wait until warranty is up or buy a 3 year old one to start with

If my golf blows up now I know I can go buy another cash no problems now but if I had a mk7 gti I couldnt

Golf mk4 1.8t AUM
 
#15 ·
Does it not store anything if pressures/settings have been exceeded. I was told by someone (maybe not reliable) but they said audi told him where to go after he had a problem on the car with a tuning box on his a5, he never told them and took it off before they ever saw it.
I'm not stirring I just don't 100% know myself

One thing for sure tho if I found enough money to buy a new car I would not risk the warrenty by putting chips or tuning boxes on, I'd wait until warranty is up or buy a 3 year old one to start with

If my golf blows up now I know I can go buy another cash no problems now but if I had a mk7 gti I couldnt

Golf mk4 1.8t AUM
My own experience is that any faults will be stored until such time as the memory is cleared regardless of whether they were not serious enough to trigger a dash light , limp mode etc or it is an isolated instance and self clears. If codes are not cleared before presenting the car to VW they will be revealed when they plug in their diagnostics computer. That's possibly what happened with the Audi you mentioned that although he removed traces of the tuning box he didn't clear old codes before going and the code set up the tech to say no

As you say anyone who has a car within or close end of warranty does need to think carefully about tuning boxes, re-maps. performance mods etc and how vw might regard these if you present it to them for work under warranty.

I cant say if VW Group are better or worse than others in accepting claims but my own experience is that they don't need any help in finding dodgy reasons for denying claims on the slightest excuse. My Golf suffered the fairly well known G201 Pressure sensor failure in the ABS pump and VW trotted out the stock "there's no problem, just wear and tear" or that it was due to failure to replace the brake fluid (despite that not being a service item or requirement but a recommendation) and it having no bearing on the failure. They only caved after I presented supporting cases fronm the net and made it clear I wasn't giving up without a fight
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top