Benefits of remap?

[ihadablackdog]

So my insurance is due for renewal on the 18th and I'm still undecided which way to go:

Stay with current insurance at £180 but no option for remap, or jump elsewhere, I think LV were about £240 and remap makes no difference (so in reality, an additional £60).

If go with LV and dont remap, then thats a wasted £60, but if I stay where I am, and decide to get a remap, then that could be costly to change at that time.

Was looking at the Celtic stage 3 (take my 20i to 280bhp for c£300 I think). So, apart from bhp and torque, what other benefits are there to remapping? Do they improve mpg?

Does it put a 10yr old engine under too much stress?

Is it the same map that a 28i has, or tweaked?

[enuff_zed]

Mine wasn't Celtic but similar, taking it to a rolling road figure of 279bhp. That is over the 28i figure but still well within safe tolerances.
I find the extra torque a revelation and makes the car what it really should have been in the first place.
Day to day, on my local back roads I am not finding more than about 1 mpg improvement, mostly due to the joy of driving it.
However, a long run from Norfolk to the Lakes, on major roads all the way, and with economy in mind, I sat around 80mph the whole way and returned an average of 48mpg, including the run back home and one day of pottering around the area.
I believe the extra torque does help as it saves the odd gear change without placing any extra stress on the car.
Remap plus insurance is going to equate to around £30 a month for the first year, then just a fiver a month moving forward.
Go on, you know it makes sense.
You can always have it returned to standard at any point.

[ihadablackdog]

Thankyou

[rdgreen]

Not that I'm advocating law breaches etc but how would any insurance company know that you have remapped your car, in the event of an accident, unless you tell them beforehand? Do they confiscate the ECU and test it? I would imagine that would only occur in the most extreme incidents involving serious injury or death? I had an MGB that was hotted up considerably internally, but looked stock. When I asked my insurance company if they needed to be notified the response was that "if it's not externally obvious (turbo/supercharger/NOS etc, how would we know?" I took the hint.

[mmm-five]

In modern BMWs it's relatively simple for BMW to check if the ECU map is standard or not, and it even records number of times it's been flashed on the 'ECU Flash Counter'.

Some tuners claim to be able to lock the counter, so that it doesn't increment each time you change it...but others have countered that if BMW/insurer is suspicious, they can interrogate other sensor logs to see if the engine has been producing more boost than standard.

Whether this applies to the e89 generation or not I could not say, but I know BMW are checking this on later F3x models (N47/B47, etc.).

If this is the case, then a simple check by the insurer would let them know whether they need to investigate further. Probably not worth it for a £1000 claim with a £500 excess, but for a potential write off or 3rd party claim they may think it is worth it.

Probably not worth lying to save a few £££ per year.

[ihadablackdog]

Yeah, my thoughts exactly, would rather declare it and know I’m covered in the event of an accident as we all know they will use any excuse to wriggle.

So I took the insurance with LV (had to phone up and pay, pesky website kept rejecting my payment last night).

So I now have the option to remap without having to change insurer. Would just need to ring LV and make the change over the phone.

Incentive to get it done sooner rather than later in case LV change their minds haha

[Pondrew]

The 'generic' maps; Celtic, Superchips (remap kings) and the like are probably the same software, as they all quote exactly the same figures. I would say pay your money and take your pick (depending on their policy if it all goes pear-shaped shortly after).
If you want to see your car being thrashed to within an inch of it's life on a RR while they upload the program (and potentially tweak it), you can pay more and go that way.
I had my car serviced and given a once-over by my local BMW independent guy before I booked the remap, just in case. I also changed the plugs and air filter. My attitude was that I wanted my car to be in the best shape it could be before adding 100bhp and 150nm of torque to it.

I don't see the age of the car really being an issue. I, however, would not increase the power on an engine with high miles. That is, of course, just my opinion.

[ihadablackdog]

I was thinking of asking a local garage to give it a check beforehand. Would probably only check obvious things, but what’s obvious for a mechanic is wizardry to me

My car has about 75k miles.

Would want a generic one that has been tried and tested.

[ihadablackdog]

So 280bhp and 290lb/ft is ok on this engine (20i).

I guess they install the software that they know works on other cars and my car would be “around” those figures.

[ihadablackdog]

Out of interest, why do they offer different levels of tuning, ie stage 1,2 and 3?

Why would someone do stage 1 and not a higher one? Is it purely personal preference (how do you get a preference without trying them all) and does the higher one imply other work is required or ok with an otherwise standard car?

[Stevo1987]

Out of interest, why do they offer different levels of tuning, ie stage 1,2 and 3?

Why would someone do stage 1 and not a higher one? Is it purely personal preference (how do you get a preference without trying them all) and does the higher one imply other work is required or ok with an otherwise standard car?

Err.....Money?

[ihadablackdog]

Out of interest, why do they offer different levels of tuning, ie stage 1,2 and 3?

Why would someone do stage 1 and not a higher one? Is it purely personal preference (how do you get a preference without trying them all) and does the higher one imply other work is required or ok with an otherwise standard car?

Err.....Money?

Didn’t think of that.

Pretty sure I had a quote from Celtic a few years ago for the stage 3 and iirc it was in the £300 range. Don’t know what the stage 1 or 2 cost.

[Pondrew]

Pretty sure I had a quote from Celtic a few years ago for the stage 3 and iirc it was in the £300 range. Don’t know what the stage 1 or 2 cost.

Think there is a bit of marketing in there. I know that Remap Kings (they now own Superchips who are the godfathers of plug and play software remapping) do 2 maps. One is to improve MPG, the other is the 'performance' map; same figures as all the others (280ish BHP, 290 torques).

TBH they can tell you any figures they like, as you are never going to see your printout. It also doesn't matter. What matters is it will transform the performance and driveability of the car across the rev range. You will very much notice the difference.

I have an 18i, so the factory figures were 156bhp (can't remember the torque). I equate the remap to like the car being released from a forced strangulation. The N20 was designed by BMW to have 250bhp as standard, the lesser models were 'held back' for purely marketing reasons.

[ihadablackdog]

Yours is now 280bhp?

[Pondrew]

Yours is now 280bhp?

That's what they told me it would be; I have no idea and don't really care. All I know is it goes much better at ALL revs and speeds. These people do seem to like to impress with 'headline' figures, so I would guess these figures were achieved with high octane fuel. Normal unleaded (95 RON) probably drops this off quite a bit. My guess is a max of around 260 at 6000rpm on 95 RON. As has been said many times it's the much higher and more linear torque which is more noticeable throughout.