Warning to all thinking of re-mapping their motorhome engine

[The Grand Wanderer]

I wanted more miles per gallon, I wanted to change gear less often, I wanted money to fall from heaven. (well it would be nice)
Had van re-mapped last year at the Western Motorhome Show, went to Portugal for winter and have had my Mercedes based van going into Limp Home Mode when under hard uphill acceleration ever since. Took it to a Merc dealership today they put it on the Computermebob and guess what, nothing wrong with any sensors or the PDF or EGR.
Fault code stored in memory was P 0406 PD ( this means EGR valve A circuit- high voltage)
As it happens there was an outstanding recall on the van which included a software update, which included flashing the ECU with updated Merc software. It's now restored to back to Merc Specification.
I am poorer by 70 squids but at least my van is now behaving as it should.:scared::wave::lol-053:
Moral of this sad story is the manufacture knows what is best for their vehicles.
Or do you know different?
Wanderer

 

[donkey too]

Eh? I no speak a da English I come from Barcelona and my name manuel.

 

[maingate]

£70 for a remap sounds suspiciously low, even for a Motorhome Show offer. Can I ask which company did it or would you rather not say?

I am pleased it is sorted anyway.

 

[The Grand Wanderer]

£70 for a remap sounds suspiciously low, even for a Motorhome Show offer. Can I ask which company did it or would you rather not say?

I am pleased it is sorted anyway.

£70 was to Merc Dealers to sort out van. Remap was £255. Won't say which company as trying to get my dosh back.
Wanderer

 

[The Grand Wanderer]

Dare I ask how much to diagnose? When our SLK went into "Limp Mode"cost £150 just to plug the puter to car, I'm to embarrased to say what the problem was

Oops, £70, nice one!!

Think it's down to how long it takes them to find the faults. Maybe your SLK is more Techie

 

[Funky Farmer]

Dare I ask how much to diagnose? When our SLK went into "Limp Mode"cost £150 just to plug the puter to car, I'm to embarrased to say what the problem was

Oops, £70, nice one!!

Go on. Be a devil and tell me. I promise to keep it as our little secret:lol-053:

 

[n brown]

mine started going slow on any slope or hill,finally took it into a garage who told me it took 3 hours to find a sticky fuel shutoff solenoid.these are the experts? my fault for assuming it was electronic

 

[Smaug]

The Merc remap was due to a recall, so maybe the original tweak company will do you a cost price deal to redo it? It wasn't their fault or yours. Bit of bad luck really, but not actually a problem with the remap.

 

[Deleted member 12539]

At the Shropshire show last year we were considering a 'fuel miser' on sale, which was a clamp on magnetic affair, promising more mpg. It sounded too good, too cheap, to be true, so we moved on....and bought a set of 'windbreakers' which we have used twice in one year!.......

 

[al n sal]

At the Shropshire show last year we were considering a 'fuel miser' on sale, which was a clamp on magnetic affair, promising more mpg. It sounded too good, too cheap, to be true, so we moved on....and bought a set of 'windbreakers' which we have used twice in one year!.......

thats the trouble, a lot of this super stuff is mixed or rubbed with magic snake oil......

 

[canalwheeler]

Anyone remember the old vacuum gauges that came out in the 60/70s?

They certainly reduced fuel consumption. Just keep the needle out of the red.

Problem was, you got to a hill, kept the needle in the green or orange, and you stopped!

But find out what your optimum fuel consumption speed is, and stick to it on the flat, even if it's with the trucks. It won't be anywhere near 70. Don't ever accelerate hard. Cruise gently. It'll all help.

Tone

 

[maingate]

Anyone remember the old vacuum gauges that came out in the 60/70s?

They certainly reduced fuel consumption. Just keep the needle out of the red.

Problem was, you got to a hill, kept the needle in the green or orange, and you stopped!

But find out what your optimum fuel consumption speed is, and stick to it on the flat, even if it's with the trucks. It won't be anywhere near 70. Don't ever accelerate hard. Cruise gently. It'll all help.

Tone

I fitted one to my car!

I had a Mk2 Cortina and I bought a Cortina GT dashboard top (with the 4 gauge pod) from a scrapyard. To fill the 4th hole I put a vacuum gauge in and drove to get good mpg. I was doing a round trip of 60 miles a day, petrol was cheap but you never have much money left over when you have a young family.

To this day, I still drive the same way. When you see a hill ahead, you gradually increase your speed beforehand and let it carry you up the hill. Don't waste money by braking hard, anticipate changing road conditions.

I don't do any car maintenance nowadays and I have a mechanic friend who is first rate. When we had the Peugeot 206 he said the discs were slightly pitted. His advice was to stop using the engine to brake the car and drive like a boy racer for a few weeks. It worked and was good fun while it lasted.

 

[Teutone]

trouble with remaps is that it's soooo easy to do it. There are just too many "specialists" out there with a laptop and a set of copied generic files to fit every car on the planet. You can buy the stuff on the internet!

Done correctly a remapped engine will just drive like a factory mapped, in many cases even better (not talking of more power here) because manufacturers have to stick to emmission laws which are sometimes in the way of mapping an engine for best drivability.

Engine systems / hardware / software move on very fast these days and that's a problem for unqualifed mappers, they are not able to see this in maps. They just have a generic file for the type of engine in question. If there was a slight change in programming or parameters, the generic file for engine A will not work perfect on engine B

You just need to find a mapper who knows what he is doing and understand how a modern diesel works.

Learned a bit of new stuff the other day myself. My car needed new glowplugs because it had a slight judder when driving with little throttle. Hold on, glow plugs for DRIVING? Yes, in modern diesel engines the glowplugs are on all the time and not just to start the engine. they support the combustion process on light throttle.

And there is soo much other stuff in the programming which can go wrong, the manufacturers are not stupid. Overboost safety, max air intake temperature, torque limiting. Get any of these values wrong and you may end up in limp mode.