"Bmw 5 Series 520d 190 Ps"

24th Feb 15 Good afternoon, I recently purchased a tuning box for my BMW 520D – 190ps version. I thought I was getting a twin channel but when I phoned up to upgrade my order to the pedal package (thanks for allowing to do that!!!) I was informed I would be getting a new 3 channel system that also had a camshaft sensor as well. I rang up on Friday afternoon and spoke to a chap with strong regional accent (work has sent me on a diversity course so I am trying to be PC) regarding what program was what on the controller and he asked if I would ring back with my views. When I did ring back he had left for the day so I can only assume he is the boss (or the apprentice I guess????) I’ve run my car for about 6k miles with someone else’s twin channel tuning box fitted (not a cheepy version either!), it’s been back to them a couple of times as I always felt there was more to come from the engine. When I first fitted their module I could only run the lowest 2 tunes supplied as the car would go into limp mode. The car was quicker but there was hole in the power at the lower end and it only really made decent power between 3k-4k either side was a little lifeless. This was ok if you were always pressing on but it meant it also drank fuel. To their credit they did adjust the maps to stop them going into limp mode but it just meant they were detuned. Which made me decide to take the plunge and try one of your units. Not really a plunge as you offer a 14 day refund I guess… First impressions. Ordered just the unit and then the day of despatch I decide I do want the accelerator thingy. Decide to phone up late afternoon and I am told it is no problem added to order. Good start. Get home from work on Friday (I work away during the week) and there’s a nice parcel waiting for me. The actual tuning module is a little bigger than previous one but you can change programs on the outside, no opening it up and moving jumpers which is nice. Aesthetically it is a lot more pleasing ( for something that you will never see!) Fitting is dead straight forward, 5 minutes and it is fitted and ready for test drive. I look at the settings and have to phone you for advice on which map is which… As I had a module fitted that I wanted to compare against I deliberately didn’t fitted the accelerator booster as I know this will give the impression of a more urgent driving experience and I wanted a back to back comparison. I start off using map 1 as that was suggested as the best power/rev map. Short drive, I stop and up the anti. I press and hold P thinking I have saved the setting. Hmmm not quite what I was expecting. Then follows a serious of short drive, stop change the settings and press and hold P to save them. Less than impressed, seems to drive very similar to previous module. Not great. Little disappointed I stop and read the instructions to try some more settings. Light bulb moment. Hmm press and hold P puts it to standard. That would explain it. Try P1 with 3 greens lights and the car goes into limp mode. Take it back to 2 green lights. Whoah here we go this is more like it. Nice solid power from tick over all the way to the red line, in comfort mode with the auto gearbox I don’t think you really need anything more for every day driving. …But need and want are 2 very different things. Hence the pedal booster. After driving about 40 miles have a play I realise I am very happy. The difference between the 2 tuning modules are night and day. I then went and fitted the pedal booster. If I ever change just one thing on any of my cars it will be this. Brilliant device, so simple in theory but it makes such a huge positive difference. I’ve mounted the control module for now on the dash so I can play to get the favourite setting. Sport selection turned down by 1 is perfect for me. I’ll stop waffling now and move on to overall impressions/conclusions. Over the weekend I covered 400 miles on a family outing. 4 up in my car and a boot full of crap associated with family covering fast a road and motorway driving, fair bit of traffic and a slow drive for a couple of hours. The weekend gave me the opportunity to see how the car performance in a variety of driving situations. As previously mentioned, the new tuning box is so much smoother. The low down grunt is hugely up on stock. Mid range is up, top end is up. The car pulls very smoothly from tickover all the way. In some ways doing an accel run from 1K to redline disguises the extra power as it is so smooth. I’ve since covered a further 200 miles, 150 of them last night on a very fast blast from the south coast to the midlands. My journey up the A43 last night was very entertaining, previously I would have the car in sport and change gear manually to keep the car between 3k and 4K to keep it on the boil. I left it in auto and comfort last night and progress was considerably quicker and smoother. Fuel wise over the weekend I average high 30’s. Previous journeys in similar situations would result in low 30’s. Last night I averaged 41. Again an improvement on previous journeys. I don’t doubt that with a lighter right foot I can improve on this. But I wont J As you can probably guess I am very happy with my purchase and definitely won’t be taking advantage of the 14 day money back guarantee! I wish when I had been choosing to buy a tuning box in December I hadn’t fallen for the higher headline figure of your competitors tuning box. I will be putting a tdi-tuning module on ebay to see if I can recoup some money. I’ll stop there, apologies I meant to drop you a concise mail with my findings/thoughts and seem to have ended up writing war and peace. To paraphrase the above I am very happy with your products and it seems you can have your cake and eat it. More power and better fuel economy. Thanks, J.