Hello all. Welcome to the Chef's ramblings and a crappy week.

I wasrearended last friday by a young girl in a new 5 series BMW. Luckily my wife asked if she could borrow my car for the day and I reluctantly said yes. Her van was the vehicle smashed. Poor Bimmer didn't stand a chance. Check out my photo gallery if you want to see the pics.

On Tuesday, the parking brake on the A3 stopped working properly. It didn't latch in place anymore. Fortunately, Pacific Audi gave me a time the next morning to bring the car in. No problems, rental was set, then he informed me of the ECU upgrade. I told him immediately that I wasn'tinterested in the ECU upgrade and he instantly pulled out a form and told me to sign it. He told me that Audi needed to know that my car was "tuned" and I needed to sign the form to avoid any liability on Audi's part if the reflash fried my ECU. We went into a long discussion about how I didn't want the upgrade and therefore there would be no reflash, so the ECU wouldn't be fried. We danced this tango for a while and got no where. Eventually, I had a further discussion with him regarding the upgrades to my car and how the ECU was changed to accomidate the after-market exhaust and intake. While there may be limitations to my warranty coverage, I had an agreement with him that everything else not touch by me would be covered. It basically took me being mad at him and about 30 minutes worth of conversation before we made it to this point, but it worked.

Now my car is still at Audi and I have the rental from Budget to cruise around. Hopefully it will be done by the end of the day tomorrow, but I sweet talked the rental company into giving me the best car on the lot. It was an Eclipse GT with a V6. The car is pretty quick and with the traction control off, I can roast the tires and leave some serious smoke through 4th gear. Can we say torque steer?!? (yet another reason not to buy a used rental car!) The rest of the car is a POS. The whole back of the car is a blind spot, the interior sucks, and the handling is way too soft, especially at 100+ MPH. Talk about a TT wannabe.

So the morale of my ramblings:

1) You can always be touched by a rich beautiful young woman, but you might not enjoy it.

2) Car manufacturers will always find ways to make your life more difficult.

3) Rental cars suck, but who cares, you can do whatever you want to them!

BTW, homemade pizza and a beer do wonders to brighten your mood.

 

Too bad about your van. I wonder whose Bimmer it was....daddy's or boyfriend's.
So did you end up signing anything at your dealer? What benefit were they promising with the reflash?
BTW, made your Carne Adobo recipe (simmered in coke) the other night. Very tasty.

 

Mmmm, pizza and beer.....



I think I mentioned I've got the ECU tango to look forward to pretty soon. I will be able to flash my car back to stock before it goes in so hopefully I shouldn't have any problems but as you say

2) Car manufacturers will always find ways to make your life more difficult.

[:@]

 

Hey Chef, so are they still going to do a ECU reflash on your car? Did you sign the paper?

I got my car at Pacific Audi also, so I'm going to have to prepare to talk to them too.

 

FYI, I did end up signing a paper, BUT not as they had it laid out. The service rep hand wrote on the bottom of the sheet that I had some aftermarket parts installed on the car and the ECU was modified to adapt the aftermarket parts. SO, yes I did sign a sheet, and yes they can call my car "tuned" for the purposes of denying warranty coverage, but what else can I do with the number of obvious mods to the car? I DID NOT have them reflash my car, so I'm not sure what that would do to a chipped vehicle? I don't plan on getting any reflash upgrades to my ECU unless it comes from the chip manufacturer. My car is running awesome and I don't see the reason.

The service rep did tell me that Audi wanted to know how many people had reflashed their ECU's with aftermarket companies and to have them listed. Seems like a campaign to deny any warranty service to me. So, I'm half way through my warranty now as is and not a problem with the engine at all. Knock on wood.

Hope this helps each of you as you face the man. I played the straightforward approach, so we'll see where it leads me.

Cheers!

 

Wow- this is really awful news to this perspective buyer. It seems that Audi has caught on to people tuning their ecu and is cracking down on these owners with what may amount to denial of warranty claims. I really like the A3 and it is on the very top of my list if I decide to buy new. I definitely plan on getting my ecu tuned but wouldn't want all the dealership hassle. Don't companies like GIAC allow you to swip-swap the factory and reprogramed chips? Is there a way to hide ecu tuning from the dealer? I would hate to buy a brand new car and get denied warranty coverage on everything related to the ecu. I would most likely be dealing with Pacific Audi as well.

 

Chef, why exactly didn't you let them flash it?

I specifically asked my local REVO dealer about this issue, and they assured me they would reprogram the ECU if the dealer flashed it, free of charge. I'm pretty sure any reputable REVO/APR/GIAC dealer would do the same.

Basically flashing involves them overwriting the existing program on the ECU, just like any aftermarket dealer does. There shouldn't be any side effects, or "frying" of the ECU, since the whole ROM is re-written.

 

So the decision now is:

1. Let the dealer reflash the ECU and do NOT mention you have a chipped ECU, so your car will still be covered under warantee. You just have to reflash with APR or REVO after the dealer reflashes it. Although I heard from other forums some cars may not be able to do a reflash with APR or any other chip again after the flash from dealer.

2. Tell them you are chipped and sign that paper saying about warantee issues with chipped ECU

Which way to go?

I just did a APR Stage 2 upgrade and the mods are pretty obvious too. They have to know that I'm chipped with the APR Exhaust. If they reflash the ECU, Won't it throw a CEL on the APR Downpipe? What will they do about it?

 

That was my problem with the full exhaust. I might have gone with the stock REVO program and told them go ahead, the car is stock and no ECU mod. But, like I said, I went the honorable route which is usually the time you get screwed. Only time will tell.

 

that bascially happened to me a week ago on that Saturday morning at Pacific Audi, car needed to be reflased cos' the CEL kept coming on once a while. I signed the paper for the modifications I've done to my car, basically they werent that happyafter i told them I had modded the car.

I got my car chipped at Eurocode, so ya'll think they will reflash back my car if they dealership reflash my car?