CPO and Toons?
 

G'Day all... new Panamera Turbo owner here looking for a little advice and counsel. Considering an ECU tune and am looking for experiences that someone might have regarding the potential impact on said "tune" to the CPO status of a car. For the record... 2013, with 35K, Porsche CPO and the vender, VR Tune (aka: Vivid Racing) claims that their software is "invisible" to Porsche. Thanks in advance!

If it causes problems that can be attributed to the tune, they can deny warranty coverage for those items.

Here is the deal. I had a VR tuned piggyback on my S7 for a while. Yes since the tune is a piggyback and not a true ECU flash it is easy to take off for service and undetectable in the sense that the flash counter on your stock ECU is not changed. So your chances of your car getting flagged are a lot less than your typical ECU flash. If something major does happen to your car, your car will definitely be plugged in to the system and if they want to dig and look through boost logs and stuff like that they could technically find something. So its a pay to play type deal but you are minimizing potential loss of warranty with the VR option but also not getting the refinement of a true flash.

I had an FVD tune on my 2010 PTT and one on my 2013 PTTS they were both installed by my local dealer and required shipping the ecu to Germany for tuning. I believe they can do it stateside now - I would highly recommend them - it made the car drive exactly as you wish it would have from the factory with zero down side. In fact one of the reasons I don't like my 2018 is because of the ecu/tcu tuning and I can't wait for something to become available

Thanks all for your valuable input... report to follow.

What was pricing like on it?

Porsche is not looking for the specific tune in the system but how many times the ECU has been flashed.

I used to work for another manufacture that was popular for tuning their diesels and as a technician we were taught to look for the ECU flash part number and number of times the ECU had been flashed. If the manufacture put out 5 updates and the flash part number was the most current with only 5 times being flashed or less than there was not cause for concern. If the ECU showed the car had been flashed 20 times and still had the original part number for the flash, than this would send up red flags. The reason for this is that the Aftermarkets have you download the flash program in your ecu and is saved as the "original file", they will tell you that before taking it into the dealer for service or updates to then use the supplied scanner to revert to your original file before going in. Every time you do this the ecu counts it as a "flash" and it adds up if their are updates to the AF flash or changes in the mapping you want.

Ultimately it is up to the manufacture and dealer to prove the fault is caused by the flash before they can do anything. Most manufactures have taken a hard nose approached to this and will decline warranty coverage if they see anything. Buyer beware, but if you have a good relationship with your service department and most importantly with the technician that works on your car, they might turn a blind eye (MIGHT). All comes down to money and relationships like with everything...

If you are adding significant horsepower over stock with a tune or piggy back, there is always a risk that is some major, expensive part or system fails, they will deny your claim. Its pretty easy to use performance modifications and a horsepower bump to void just about anything on the car regardless of the Magnussen Act or whatever. I'm sure if the PDK or motor fails, they are going to look. The airide or emissions maybe not.....but its all a risk once you start tinkering.