Updating Chips on TDi
Im looking at a G270 CDi this evening, and I've seen on the net some companies selling tuning chips to upgrade the performance of the CDi models. Seems pretty reasonable at about £300. My question is what are the risks and downside of updating the chip? Has anyone had any experience of this, and can this be done by a non mechanic like myself, as the websites seem to claim?
Well not MB products but VAG products..
1. Clutch may exceed max torque... but I guess you are Auto so should be OKish
2. Surging with dual mass flywheels... but Autos don't have so OKish
Basically .. you need to find someone who has it and knows.. most are just a general turn up boost and tweak fuel delivery to match .. so you should get the power. The question is the margin of safety you are biting into.. factory cars are designed to last say 100k miles in 50C 90% humidity while driven like it was stolen... in most of the world the ambient temps are no where near that so you can skip some of the factory protection as you have excess thermal capacity in cool countries... your issue is that you are in a very hot country so you need that thermal capacity... now it may work fine if you do not drive it everywhere like you stole it.. and only use the power occassionally.. but if you are hard on the throttle and light on reading gauges .. or want to it to tow without everyone in the household reading gauges :roll: :oops: .. then don't do it. Other parts of the world I would have less issues .. but a program/hack done in Germany/UK/US is probably going to make an unreliable hack in Saudi .. with dealer visit who will pull everything apart (as is habit over there..) so any MB quality is compromised and you enjoyment tails off very rapidly...
So risk verus life .... if you can read gauges and be sympathetic in your experimentation.. it can be fine .. but you are at the outer limits already due to mid summer temperatures..
...and Sprinter Van CDi engines talk of injectors being replaced at 60k miles :cry: :shock:
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Thanks for that. Well given that the temp here at the moment is 25C and in the summer it goes up to 50C, I think not! I drove it today and its very torquey. Plus the speeding penalty over here is three nights in jail, so maybe a G500 would not be a good idea.
BTW the Sprinter going at 60K... Is that with the chip replaced? I hope so!