[timmay77]

Just giving the other 328i xDrive owners a heads up.....

As of late, I notice the car had a very, VERY, slight shudder when I accelerated hard. Usually when I was following someone, they would slow to turn, I'm coasting at like, 20mph, they turn, I then accelerate to 55mph again, I would feel a slight shudder. I originally thought it was a plug or coil pack intermittently acting up. So I took it in for service. I took the Master Tech at the dealership on a ride. He felt it in the passenger seat, then drove it and confirmed my complaint. Turns out the front transfer case was bad. $1100 in parts.

Everything was covered under the 50k mile, 4 year new car warranty. I also have the extended CPO warranty until Nov 19......

Car drives totally different. Shifts smooth and accelerates normally.

BTW, I was running a JB4 stage 1. I removed it, they didn't notice a thing. I was always told they could detect it when they read the ECU for codes or an update, which they did both.

[BunkerJ]

Originally Posted by timmay77

Just giving the other 328i xDrive owners a heads up.....

As of late, I notice the car had a very, VERY, slight shudder when I accelerated hard. Usually when I was following someone, they would slow to turn, I'm coasting at like, 20mph, they turn, I then accelerate to 55mph again, I would feel a slight shudder. I originally thought it was a plug or coil pack intermittently acting up. So I took it in for service. I took the Master Tech at the dealership on a ride. He felt it in the passenger seat, then drove it and confirmed my complaint. Turns out the front transfer case was bad. $1100 in parts.

Car drives totally different. Shifts smooth and accelerates normally.

BTW, I was running a JB4 stage 1. I removed it, they didn't notice a thing. I was always told they could detect it when they read the ECU for codes or an update, which they did both.

Regarding the dealer and tunes: The dealer (as in the foreman, mechanics, service advisor, etc.) cannot see if you had a flash tune or piggyback if they were properly removed. Piggyback being the easiest, but for the flash tune, you flash to the stock map and lock the DME. Once that's done and you ensure you don't have a tamper code, the dealer will not be able to tell.

Now, the gimmick is up the moment you go in for a repair that costs BMW (since remember, warranty work is paid for by BMW to the dealer) a lot of money or is extremely rare, there is a high chance that a field service engineer (Separate from the dealer, this guy works for BMW) will come out to inspect your car. During that process, he essentially has access to a ton of information that a dealer does not and cannot have access to. For a piggyback, he's going to notice your car calling for extra boost and other values changed by the piggyback. For a flash tune, he is going to see the same thing OR see that the history was wiped and know that you had a tune. At that point, he can tell what you had and tell the dealer that BMW is not going to pay for it.

Viola.

[timmay77]

Originally Posted by BunkerJ

Regarding the dealer and tunes: The dealer (as in the foreman, mechanics, service advisor, etc.) cannot see if you had a flash tune or piggyback if they were properly removed. Piggyback being the easiest, but for the flash tune, you flash to the stock map and lock the DME. Once that's done and you ensure you don't have a tamper code, the dealer will not be able to tell.

Now, the gimmick is up the moment you go in for a repair that costs BMW (since remember, warranty work is paid for by BMW to the dealer) a lot of money or is extremely rare, there is a high chance that a field service engineer (Separate from the dealer, this guy works for BMW) will come out to inspect your car. During that process, he essentially has access to a ton of information that a dealer does not and cannot have access to. For a piggyback, he's going to notice your car calling for extra boost and other values changed by the piggyback. For a flash tune, he is going to see the same thing OR see that the history was wiped and know that you had a tune. At that point, he can tell what you had and tell the dealer that BMW is not going to pay for it.

Viola.

Everything covered under warranty. No one noticed.

I get it, you're the BM3 fanboy, we ALL get it. No need to continually bash JB4 in EVERY thread that talks about tunes my friend.

This thread wasn't written to be a BM3 vs JB4. Had I known you were going to try and turn it in to that, I would have left that out......

[BunkerJ]

Originally Posted by timmay77

Everything covered under warranty. No one noticed.

I get it, you're the BM3 fanboy, we ALL get it. No need to continually bash JB4 in EVERY thread that talks about tunes my friend.

This thread wasn't written to be a BM3 vs JB4. Had I known you were going to try and turn it in to that, I would have left that out......

I'm sorry... what? I'm sorry if you somehow misread that. I literally did not mention BM3 a single time nor did I compare the pros/cons of either. Hell, I literally told you that either way, flash or piggyback, you will be found out by a field service engineer.

Please show me where I apparently turned it into a JB4 vs. BM3 debate or even bashed JB4. I'll wait.