fast1

My experience is diametrically opposite to yours. Although I've never owned an Audi my wife has been buying them for over twenty years, and generally keeps them for at least six years and a minimum of 120K miles. Other than normal maintenance, she has had virtually no problems with any of the Audis she's owned. She never even had to have a clutch replaced after all those miles, even though she encounters stop and go traffic on a daily basis. Over the years she has owned an A4, A5, and currently S8. Now of course she didn't rush off to APR to get the ECU reflashed to increase the engine's HP by 30%, so maybe that has something to do with it.
As to resale value I can't make a judgment, since there aren't many cars that retain much of their value when you have more than 120K miles on the odometer.

Archimedes

I've had the same experience owning multiple Audis. They've all been bulletproof cars. Biggest expense I've ever had was a new clutch at 100k on a B5 A4 (which incidently was waaaay cheaper to repair than the blown clutch and synchros on my 911SC).

The only 'bad' Audi I've owned to date is our current Q7, and the 'bad' hasn't been anything major or any issues with the powertrain. It's just a ton of little things that indicate a much poorer build quality than I've experienced on any of my other Audis.

fast1

Let's face it, any time you buy a used car it's a risk, and that goes double with a turbo charged sports car. An ECU reflash is relatively inexpensive, and you can get significant HP increases. So lots of turbo charged cars are reflashed. Google APR and you'll see the HP increases they offer for Audis.

ChoyV

So I assume that you made some coding to reflash an ECU. It is true that turbo cars have some headrooms to work with. But how much is that headrooms? So the moment you start to reprogram that ECU, you are now decreasing that headroom that it leaves you less safety net.

I remember my Machine Design Professor stating that Mechanical Engineer don't design and make parts that will last a lifetime. Or else we will loose our job. Each mechanical parts has some time-span designed into it with a certain loading on a particular material. Even for planes but with higher loading and longer length of time before failure. The failure here is not a breakage but some out of tolerance measurements. This is were those noise will start to show up.

So Porsche engineers designed their drive train on a certain parameters that will last for a certain period of time. Changing those parameters will definitely change their life span. You can change those parameters if you want but there is no guarantee that it will last as long as a non-chipped cars.

Just my $0.02 opinion.

cloud9blue

Yes, all mechanical parts are wear and tear items. Increase in performance will often lead to decrease in lift expectancy of the components. However, modern engines and turbos really shouldn't wear much if good oil is used and frequent oil change is made (as in no more than 3-5000miles if your car is driven hard). And if you drive the car hard, it is always good practice to log the vehicle's performance (as in timing advance, AFR, fuel pressure, along with the coolant, oil temp that is already displayed on the multifunction display on the 991).

Tuning isn't for everyone, and if you are not willing to understand how the engine works, while blindly pursuing more powers, you are bound to blow your engine sooner or later. The key here is gather your own data, which we shall see when these cars start to hit the shore, and correctly interpret these data and make the necessary changes to the ECU software.

Tapeworm

Most modern ECUs will record a permanent flag if you ever flash them. We had a 2012 Audi S4 with an APR tune (and supercharger pulley). It made great power, but even after APR 'flashing it back to stock' (which cost more money), the dealer was able to detect this, it gets flagged permenantly for the car and cost me at least $1,000 on trade in.

Honestly, just buy the car you want, don't modify them, they are almost never 'better'

I had a GTR and used a COBB to flash it, I ended up putting it back to stock. Why? Because what the tune did was removed the nice flat torque graph and replaced it with a big bulge around 3,500 rpm. Sure, on a highway, in ideal conditions, this gave about 80+ additional hp, but it also overwhelmed the car in any bad weather. Stock, you could floor it anytime, any weather and it would grip, modified it would just spin all 4 wheels in anything but bone dry conditions. Fun? Yeah, faster, better? Nope. I ended up much happier with stock where the tires, grip, suspension and engine were all nicely matched.

MKW

chipping a turbo is easy power ..it just basically turns up the boost ..but Porsche has had brief overboost on the Turbo since the 997 and has this feature , limited to 20 seconds at a time, on the coming 3.0l 991.2s . How often are you at WOT more than 20 seconds at a time in a powerful modern sports car on public roads ?

It is the increased stress and heat to differentials , axle shafts , gear sets , coolant system , rubber items etc. etc, that are not designed for the extra chipped 50-100 hp that is potential problem for a used turbocharge super high performance sports car ( like 911) buyer who has no way of knowing if car had been " undetectably chipped and then returned to stock " and for how long and hard driven .... if you even ignore the engine itself .
Worse case scenario is a " kick the can down the road " previous owner who put a chipped turbo sports car to bed wet every time .




VWAG already requires the OBDII port be queried for any Audi vehicle at every service visit ( or else dealer does not get paid for doing any type of warranty work that visit ) to check for and patch any software updates BUT also to snoop for current or PAST ECU tampering and immediately FLAGS that vehicle if it does detect it...I am sure Porsche will require that soon , if not already on its curent Turbo since they are under VWAG now . That ensures you cant bribe the service tech with a nice box of chocolates to " forget " to do the query .

I think the temptation to buy with the intention to " chip " a " cheap " base 991.2 ( to out accelerate a stock 991.2 S or current GT3 ) to the next offramp will be what drives any interest for this in the aftermarket , esp once these start appearing in four years as used cars after warranty .


Until that then , I suspect no dealer will take in trade a flagged and tagged 991.2 and would anyone here buy that car used , even someone who would chip / dechip their OWN 991.2 ?
Good luck selling it !

cloud9blue

Again, the thread is full of comments from those with little experience on the actual subject matter. ECU flash may and may not void your powertrain warranty, I have no first hand experience. Perhaps some of the 991.1 Turbo owners who flashed their car can chip in. But if that's indeed the case, ECU flash is probably out of question, so you will be limited to piggyback tune that doesn't actually mess with the stock electronic. Consider the chassis, drivetrain, and suspension is fully capable of handling extra power as in the Turbo models, I don't see how a conservative tune with a health power increase of 40-50whp is going to affect any mechanical reliability of the car.

Cobb "off-the-shelf" maps are always more emphasized on power than actual drivability. You should have spend the getting a custom tune or even learn how to make your own map according to your driving style, just FYI... Also, increase in power will reveal other weakpoints in the car, as in the case of your GTR, I don't know why you would expect anything else... If you are not even willing to upgrade to better tires, I don't see why you bother with a tune in the first place...

Honestly, everything I heard so far in this thread is a bit silly, aside from the justified fear of void warranty. But unless you are leasing the cars or like switching out to cars every other year or so, I doubt it is big enough problem for those long term owners who are actually educated on tuning.