Remapping or adding a super chip, to your car is a performance upgrade. A remap can add a considerable amount of extra power, some times remapping can also increase your fuel economy.
So it adds power and saves fuel, why wouldn’t i remap my car?
There are a few pros and cons in which i will explain why, you should or shouldn’t remap your car.
It will void your warranty, if your vehicle still has the manufactures warranty remaining, or a third party warranty, the remap will void your warranty, due to not being part of the manufactures spec.
As a remap is a program, added to the ECU of the vehicle, it’s not very obvious that it has been done and the manufacture won’t necessarily know that it’s there. I have known many of people to get away with this. One of my friends added 150 bhp, through a remap on his BMW M5, pretty much blew the car up, took it to BMW and they repaired it under warranty.
In this case my friend was very lucky they didn’t notice the modified remap. So if you decide to remap your car, there is always a risk, if discovered it will void your warranty.
It will void your insurance if not mentioned, exactly as the point above, it can also void your insurance if not mentioned to them and it’s discovered by you insurance company.
The only way they would find out, is if your wrote the car off and for whatever reason they had a look at the ECU. This would be incredibly rare for this to happen, but it is possible. As your insurance will be void it means the insurance won’t pay out.
It is also illegal to not declare it, to you insurance company, so it could also open up loads more legal issues.
Some insurance companies are incredibly reasonable, sometimes declaring the remap will only increase the cost of cover by £100 pa.
To be honest, i would highly recommend if remapping your car, declared it, to the insurance company.
It can cause mechanical faults, now lets say, you can remap your car and give it another 50 bhp, there is a reason why the manufacture never added it themselves.
When you add more bhp, it also adds more strain on the engine components, meaning the risk of faults increase. Like stated above when my friend added 150 bhp on to his car, it pretty much caused the engine to blow up.
There are many remap companies out there and they will all state how much power they can add to your car, some companies will state only a little, where others will state a lot.
There is a limit on how much power you can add for it to be deemed as safe and the companies that state huge power gains, will most likely blow your engine up. It all depends on who wrote the program for the ECU.
If you add power sensibly, it can almost be deemed as safe. Each car and engine is different, so how much power can be safely added varies on each car. A good rule of thumb, is on average 10 – 15% power increase, can be deemed as the safer side.