Race Chips Tuning Box On Test

[Uncletone]

Hi Guys

If anybody is interested earlier this year I had a "Race Chips Tuning Box" on test in my Seat Arona 1.0 95bhp, same engine as the Polo. It came with an engine warranty and was the middle of the range offering 19bhp and 40Nm for £199.00.

The Race Chip site is

https://www.racechip.co.uk/shop/seat/ar ... 160nm.html

and the link to my post is below if you're interested.

https://www.aronaforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=739

I thought it was very good but lacking the full fat of the top model in the range

Hope that helps

[AND_031]

How come Race Chip offers a chip that bumps Torque from 160Nm to 200Nm when my 95hp has 175Nm at start?

[l3rady]

How come Race Chip offers a chip that bumps Torque from 160Nm to 200Nm when my 95hp has 175Nm at start?

Maybe a mistake in their listing. Could be that they took the 160Nm reading from the 1.0 TGI 90bhp engines

[monkeyhanger]

Looking at the Race Chip warranty terms, there's a lot of wriggle room for them.

If you put one of these boxes on and have a drivetrain component failure, they are detectable by VW, if they take the time and effort to look hard enough. Piggybacking or intercepting MAF sensor/fuel rail/turbo boost sensor wiring and modifying signals is detectable (since Golf/A3 facelift) by way of feedback to the sending source and the box causing implausible values for sensors.

If VW know you have one of these, your drivetrain warranty is toast. The warranty terms for race chip are that they've got to directly attribute engine component failure to the use of their box. But what about the box cooking your gearbox? Seems that's not covered.

These boxes have varying levels of cover depending on how far up the range you go. The extra money is going to the warranty pot.

That could leave you in a situation where VW blanket deny you warranty on the drivetrain and race chip say their product didn't cause it.

I'd have hoped that the race chip warranty would take over all drivetrain warranty that VW would now deny once it's fitted. Prove you tried and got denied with VW and then race chips pick up the slack- that's the way I'd want it to operate.

[Uncletone]

Very viable comments regarding Drive train warranties etc etc.

If you want the extra power, no matter how small it's the risk you take.

From experience, not with this particular box, but with the other boxes I've used I've covered many thousands of miles and I mean many thousands of miles the last three vehicles I've had in the last 10 years all covered in excess of 90000 miles each and I never suffered any Drive Train, (Clutch, Gearbox, Drive Shafts) or Engine Issues (Turbos) in fact two dealers, a Ford and Peugeot both serviced my vehicle with the Box in view and operating. And one Dealer, who was an Audi Garage servicing my A4 & A6 requested details from the Manufacturer and I believe offered them to their customers. That particular box was installed on a 2.0ltr Tdi manual and also a V6 Tdi Auto requested the manufactureres details and I beleive he offered them to his customers.

I'm not in anyway saying you should rush out and get one. All I'm doing is relaying my experiences of running my Seat Arona with the VW 95bhp engine that you have in your Polos etc.
Whilst my car has only covered 37k miles in its first year, and only 3k miles with a Tuning Box fitted (1k with a Race Chips Box and 2k with the Synergy 5 Box) I have yet to experience any issues. I'm sure with the built in Electronics, so rightly pointed out by our friend "monkeyhanger", if there was any sign of over-boost or the engine was to operate outside it's parameters, it would flag it with a light and possible put it in limp mode, so I am reliably informed.
When I raised this at the recent service with my dealer, I asked if they could check to see if the engine was running OK as I had experienced (allegedly), surges in power and I thought I saw an engine light flash up.

I was happy to be told the dealer couldn't identify anything amiss. Read into that what you will. By the way I had removed the box prior to the service, I don't know my dealer that well yet.

As with all these things, I'm sure if you constantly drive the car as if you've stolen it, then the chances of something going amiss increase. But use the torque, drive as you normally would using the additional power and torque to get up those long climbs, carry out overtaking manoeuvres safely, then you should be alright.
I tend to change the oil regularly, in my case every 9k miles oil and filter change, not that that should matter, but I do, and I also tend to add decent fuel and as I said in my report I use the following additive in the petrol

https://www.powerenhancer.co.uk/shop-by ... hesis.html

and use this in the oil

https://www.powerenhancer.co.uk/shop-by ... -5644.html


and I've had no issues.

You fit one of these at your own risk, but this engine has an amount of inbuilt safety, VW obviously think so to run Long Life Service Intervals 160k mile Cam Belt change.
Obviously if anything should go amiss I'll let you know. But I expect to run the car for another two years, expected mileage 110k miles with no issues only enjoyment.

If anybody is willing to try the Race Chips Box I still have it boxed up and I'll be glad to post it out its done only 1k miles approx and you can have it all intact with Instructions etc etc for the Princely sum of £100 including P&P

[monkeyhanger]

Your biggest risk here is the unknown reliability of your engine, before or after modification with these tuning boxes. Unless the enhancement in power and torque is huge (>25% increase on stock) and crudely or aggressively delivered, the box is unlikely to damage anything but the clutch. If the engine and fuelling ancillaries do fail within the warranty period, it's likely they would've failed even without modification, but VW won't entertain a warranty claim if they can show or strongly suspect (through implausible logged values) you've upped your output.

The selling point on the boxes were that they're transferable and undetectable once removed. For the newest wave of VAG engines these are no longer undetectable.

Me and my Dad have ran boxes on our Golf TDIs for many miles and had no issues, but I do consider TDI drivetrains far more robust than TSI.

In recent years, VW have been putting very weak clutches on manual TSIs. Pretty much everyone on the Golf GTI forum that got their manual GTI up to Golf R levels of output have cooked their clutch within 10k miles of upgrading. DSG seems much more resilient. My manual Golf R managed to slip its clutch in the cold a few times on stock power, a common complaint for manual R owners.

I don't know anyone who cooked their clutch in their modified manual GTD though.

There are definitely good and bad boxes out there. Had great times with a DTUK box on my GTD, but got a TDI-Tuning one first and it ran like a bag of hammers as it was so crudely over fuelling.

If you get a box on your manual Polo, with high gearing already on the 1.0TSI, you're highly likely to cook your clutch, with a DSG, much less likely.

During a service, no garage will care that your tuning box is there. It will get a different story if it's there when you claim warranty on a blown turbo though (my Golf R had turbo failure at 6k miles).

Doing 37k miles a year does mean you're more confident that the components weren't defective when fitted and are going to last than someone doing 7k miles a year.

If I could get a solid warranty replacement or a 100% verified undetectable system, I'd get my GTI+ up to 250ps without hesitation, but 7300 miles in, it's just too big a risk for me.

[Griff74]

I'm kind of with Monkey on all this, I wouldn't do anything to boost power on a call that is still under warranty. I have had a few cars remapped over the years (never liked the way plug in boxes work) without any issues but these cars were out of warranty, I also know many people who have done the same with no issues apart from one. My best mate many years ago had an Astra SRi 1.9cdti 150 as his work hack car (he gets a car allowance), he bought it pretty new but high'ish miles for it's age (it was 3 years old and had about 50k on it) as he was going to be putting 30k+ a year anyway. He had a tune put on it which gave it around 190-200bhp if I remember correctly, it went really well (maybe better than his weekend toy Z4 3.0s!), that was until the clutch died about 2 months after having the tune on it, it just couldn't handle the extra torque.

Now my 07 Mazda 3 2.0d that I had also had a similar gains map put on it and never caused me any issues in 5 years of ownership, no clutch or gearbox issues because I had investigated the car before buying and discovered that due to Mazda being a small manufacturer with limited budgets that when they stuck the 2.0d in the 3 they just used the gearbox and clutch from the much more powerful Mazda 3 MPS and the clutch\gearbox could handle much more power than any standard remap on the 2.0d could push out, but I waited to get it re-mapped until it was out of warranty.

[Uncletone]

Hi Guys

I really appreciate your comments, certainly ref the clutch, and as of yet no issues but will monitor it.

I suppose we'll only find out long term in general use. Like I said, I'm not advocating that everybody should run out and buy one. But I just thought that somebody out there is bound to post a thread at some point and ask the question

"anybody stuck a tuning box on their car and which one"

I don't mind being the guinea pig here, and I thought I'd just relay my experience with one or two different tuning modules to give them their correct title, and give my verdict on how I found them. That at least gives the forum members the opportunity for them to make their own minds up.

The post has done what I wanted it to do, in that it has generated valued comments from members relating to the possible issues involved,regarding warranties and the like, possible drive train issues and so on which is healthy,and has given people that were thinking about installing one, and I'm sure there are many out there who have looked at this, and their "leetle grey cells" have begun stirring.

Once again thanks to everyone who commented the forum needs members like you with honest comments and experience that way we all learn.

Enjoy your weekend and safe motoring