porsche1234

I can't find any tuners who offer warranty on their products, which I feel is not a good sign for reliability. On one hand I see that people could falsely claim warranty coverage, but why can't there be some verifiable process that in the case your engine breaks from a tune a Porsche service person can verify that the tune caused the issue? I am not a huge fan of the fact these tuners don't offer any sort of recuperation if your engine fails. Most companies offer refunds and warranties for other products. Come on tuners someone figure it out and get your stuff together now!

rk-d

APR

shrimp money

Ain't no one actually paying out on a tuned engine, even if they say they will.

A customer pay longblock is like $83k based on another poster's experience.

John Mclane

APR has an insurance type policy, they "help" up to 10k if you go with APR plus, AFAIK. That's regardless if you install it at a dealer. Read the fine print, lots and lots of exclusions (eg track use).
Key factor is that the tune voids the entire engine warranty, independently of being the cause of a failure. The factory sees ECU tune as engine tune.
Some of the coding cannot be seen by dealers but the factory scopes deeper. Sometimes, all it takes are parameters out of boundaries for them to suspect.
Yes, long block quote was 86k, short block about 45k. Very murky findings actual values.

reddsektor

APR for the 992, and Dinan on BMW’s. Their tunes are also much more conservative. But that’s it. Don’t expect all tuners to bow down to you for warranty or “figure their stuff out”. They’re not gonna change their successful business motto for you.

If you’re uncomfortable, simply DON’T tune and live happy. The overwhelming majority of Porsches, Audis, BMW’s, Mercs don’t have major issues from tuning with reputable tuners.

detansinn

When you have your car tuned, you are the warranty. That doesn't mean it's going to be unreliable, but it does mean that if something goes wrong, it's on you. If that risk is too rich for your blood, don't bother with a tune.
There are some brands like Subaru where the dealers won't even diagnose an issue on a car that has been modified with a tune. I've ridden the tune, break, fix merry-go-round and sunk unthinkable amount of monies into the cause across multiple cars. Now, I'm far enough into middle age that while I can afford it, I don't bother with that stuff anymore.

If you think that you need more power, turn off traction control. You'll learn pretty quickly that these cars all make plenty of power. If you want the best bang for the buck, invest in a set of high performance tires that will let you truly get the most out of the engine that you've got.

22992

Racechip offers a piggyback tune with a 10k warranty and a 30 day money back guarantee if you don’t like it.

HooosierDaddy

detansinn

Racechip’s warranty has a bunch of outs and doesn’t appear to cover US cars.

22992

If you go to the US site it says cars are covered. Looks like it’s down to 5k now, I looked about a year ago and it was 10.

detansinn

A $5k warranty won’t make much of a dent in the engine replacement costs …for a KIA, let alone a 911. It’s certainly not enough to go with a piggyback gimmick solution vs a proper tune.

ipse dixit

The words “tuner” and “warranty” should never be used in the same sentence

22992

Agreed- But OP asked so……

Tupper

After hearing about John Mclane’s experience on here, and his tune wasn’t even all that aggressive, I would certainly be wary about tuning if you are worried about drivetrain warranty. Period. End of story. Don’t delude yourself.

If you don’t care about warranty then tune away.

I tuned, had fun, and sold a mere 3 months later (having removed the tune). I never had a bad experience, but of course I didn’t own a tuned car long enough for that to happen. Most of my fun with my 992 was during the period I owned it before the tune, and upon retrospect it was already more than fast enough. I am not going to knock the tuner, who made a fantastic product. But when I think about it, after the tune I really didn’t find that I was smiling any more when driving than before the tune.

rk-d

Another aspect that is never discussed. Even if you revert to stock tune, ethically you should disclose the fact the car was tuned. This will affect resale value. If the second buyer runs into a major issue, Porsche will figure out it had been tuned and they probably won't care that it was the previous owner who did it.