Is a Malone tune right for me?

If you have a flashzilla you can just revert the car to stock before going into the dealership, then attempt to write your tune afterwards. If the tune doesn't match, the software was updated.

You can erase the device on your computer and read off the new ECU software then email it in for a retune.

andreigbs said:

Again, the issue being discussed isn't about getting your original ECU tuned then deleted/reverted back to factory by the dealer.

The issue is, can a 2nd ECU be matched to the car that you then get any tune you want on it. If an engine/tranny/emissions issue comes up that requires dealer service, you simply swap the tuned ECU for your factory original.

That was the point of debate. In fact, going this route means you don't need a flash loader at all. Just send in the spare ECU to get whatever tune you want, install and run it as long as you have no problems. If one does pop up, swap ECU with stock one and go to the dealer for repairs.

Granted, it may not be "honest" but then again VW isn't one to be preaching on honesty, are they?

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Rightt on the money.

Owain@malonetuning said:

If you have a flashzilla you can just revert the car to stock before going into the dealership, then attempt to write your tune afterwards. If the tune doesn't match, the software was updated.

You can erase the device on your computer and read off the new ECU software then email it in for a retune.

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I like like the flashzilla, but wonder if the orig ecu aswap would eliminate chance loss of coverage.

BobnOH said:

Original post was whether or not a Malone tune was right for Jason's 2015, be we can wander, looking at various methods to tune. Flashzilla is the coolest, most expensive, multiple tunes at your finger tips. But if dealer wants to reflash, you're screwed. But tuner will likely work with you on something like that.[/QUOTE

Thanks, I e mailed Malone and havent heard back yet.I realize they are great/responsive here on the forum The customer service was great @ kerma, but I wasnt ready with questions @ the last perchase

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I wonder if there would be a odometer reading discrepancy between the 2 ECU's. For instance, if you ran a 2nd tuned ECU for X miles and then swapped back to the factory original ECU for emissions or CPO warranty work, would there be a discrepancy between the mileage the car has told the tuned ECU and what the original ECU would have recorded? And would that be visible to a dealership service manager or mechanic?

I hate to assume the worst in people and I'm sure every dealership is different in how rigorously they check, but if there's only a handful of things they'd have to check to be able to verifiably deny service and save themselves costs/time in labor and lost service bay time for other vehicles (even though VWoA should reimburse for all this) wouldn't they be inclined to do so?

Good point, although warrenty work pays, its not the same as charging inflated customer pay, along with the headache of a snoopy factory rep asking questions. I wrenched for GM & Ford for 7 years and experianced the better ones had good warrenty/customer experiances.

So maybe the take away is having a 2nd "tuned ecu" may still put up a red flag due to mileage discrepancy.?

Pharcyde145 said:

I wonder if there would be a odometer reading discrepancy between the 2 ECU's. For instance, if you ran a 2nd tuned ECU for X miles and then swapped back to the factory original ECU for emissions or CPO warranty work, would there be a discrepancy between the mileage the car has told the tuned ECU and what the original ECU would have recorded? And would that be visible to a dealership service manager or mechanic?

I hate to assume the worst in people and I'm sure every dealership is different in how rigorously they check, but if there's only a handful of things they'd have to check to be able to verifiably deny service and save themselves costs/time in labor and lost service bay time for other vehicles (even though VWoA should reimburse for all this) wouldn't they be inclined to do so?

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Odometer readings are captured in the instrument cluster, not the ECU.

Since the dealers don't share information between each other - there is NO record at any one dealer of what any other dealer may have done... If they come back with a "question" about the file update count or anything related to the tune, you may have an answer by suggesting that it may be from visiting another dealer, but you "don't know" what they did or didn't do.

Except they are now scanned and sent to the "home office" is my understanding. If marked TD1, I would bet that would show up anywhere. Cars marked TD1 before dieselgate were known to still show up as TD1 with a new owner and after the fix. There have been posts here about this happening.

What is TD1?

yes everything is cloudbased now
td1 is flagging warranty for a modified car, can happen automatically based on expected flash counters.

Had a golf R customer recently have their warranty voided because he didn't revert it back to stock when having a windshield replaced. Didn't even tell him until he went in for repair, had previously reverted to stock multiple times without issue. I guess the tune was responsible for their crappy water pump design

Owain@malonetuning said:

td1 is flagging warranty for a modified car, can happen automatically based on expected flash counters.

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Would re-flashing back and forth between a custom tune and the stock tune over the warranty period of the vehicle be enough to reset flag the ECU TD1? Roughly how many times can you reasonably expect to re-flash the ECU before it becomes flagged? Not looking for a specific number, but a handful, more, less? Has this ever been tested or how was it discovered?

Always trying to learn more, so I appreciate other folks time spent and knowledge invested into these forums. ??

If you've done custom modifications to your car why would you revert it back to stock for servicing? It's better to be honest with technicians or do your own work.

Yes you can flash back and forth using the device. If your warranty is vital, it'd probably be best to leave the car alone.

Pharcyde145 said:

Would re-flashing back and forth between a custom tune and the stock tune over the warranty period of the vehicle be enough to reset flag the ECU TD1? Roughly how many times can you reasonably expect to re-flash the ECU before it becomes flagged? Not looking for a specific number, but a handful, more, less? Has this ever been tested or how was it discovered?
Always trying to learn more, so I appreciate other folks time spent and knowledge invested into these forums. ??

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I believe every time you flash the car it updates the counter. If that is so, one time flashing it yourself is enough, let alone multiple times. The VW home office keeps track of the counter (in the cloud) and if a mismatch occurs you are voided. That is my understanding of how it works. It wouldn't surprise me if every car in the shop is scanned regardless of the work done. Customer may or may not be told. When you have a future issue you will then find out if the code has been set and they refuse warranty work. It has been said many times if you value the warranty, leave the car alone. If it means nothing to you then do what ever you want. Don't complain afterwards though if you get caught. Being that one of the tuners has just basically said the same thong I would take it to heed. I have liked the tunes I have had before but not with this car right now. I want the warranty to last as long as possible before doing anything to it.

Owain@malonetuning said:

If you've done custom modifications to your car why would you revert it back to stock for servicing? It's better to be honest with technicians or do your own work.

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Just trying to keep to the spirit of the thread with my question.

Before I bought my car, I did weeks of research between several forums and previous owners to understand what I would be getting myself into and I came across a lot of situations, specifically the buyback, where folks would have to revert their vehicle back to stock as as near as acceptable to be eligible for the fix or $. So my question might pertain to someone who tuned their vehicle to stage 1, then added supporting mods and went another stage higher each time flashing their ECU. Hence the question. It only helps someone make a more informed decision, however good or bad it may be in other people's eyes.

It probably wouldn't be too far to think there are folks who wish to either tune, or tune with accompanying mods on a vehicle bought on loan from a bank/creditor. Exactly like the Golf R owner you spoke of.

I bought my car with the intention of running out the extended emission warranty, so I could catch up on maintenance and service items, have a record of doing each one myself and learn how to properly care for my investment. I'm old enough to know there are very few people in life you can trust implicitly and not many of them will want to work on your car for you when you're on a student budget. I don't plan on voiding the warranty because I'm trying to maximize the things already available to me, but there are and will be others who might have more financial freedom and less concern for the consequences.

I bought mine with the intention of getting the best mileage and fuel consumption from it, and that was not in line with what VW had or had not done with it. They "fixed" it and sold it with what I strongly suspect was the original DPF, b/c the car was doing regens almost constantly while driving, and did 2 active regens within 2 days and 20 miles of each other - that I let both of them fully finish until the fans spun down... And it wanted to start a THIRD active regen just the next day!!!

That was enough for me. I've just about driven out the miles on that "warranty" anyway, and don't anticipate anything happening that would make me even THINK about bringing it to a dealer pretty much ever again.

I understand that I'm a bit more than the average user though... But that warranty only has another 7.5k to go, so I don't really care. I've only had the car just about a year to the day, and already soaked up 42k of the 48k. Doubt it will make it to groundhog day with the warranty by mileage.

Keep in mind that these cars weren't driven any distance for some time between the buyback, storage, transport to dealers, idling around dealer lots, getting fixed, test drives, etc. They all probably did multiple regens when put back into regular use.

My experience with the LAST three active regens on this car was after driving it 800 miles home from buying it, and driving it around just about daily for close to a month. It had plenty of time to re-acclimate to being used.

Their programming is just designed for excessive fuel usage, perfectly in line with the EPA "logic" that pissing 30% of your fuel mileage directly into the exhaust as 100% CO2 and other exhaust gas somehow makes "less" overall emissions than making the fuel DO SOMETHING USEFUL and burning a whole lot less of it.

According to the EPA logic, my diesels sitting outside OFF right now are making more emissions than the EPA wants, b/c I'm not wasting the fuel. Yes, this might be hyperbole, but only a little.

The ACTUAL results: With EPA programming.... My TDI consumes an average combined mileage of about 30mpg with how I drive (85mph on the highway). With a tune and everything "fixed" after hitting that pothole.... 37mpg with the same driving. That's better than a 20% increase in mileage, or a 20% reduction in total emissions b/c the engine is just running that much more efficiently.

There are two primary ways that the EPA can clean the air the most effectively. Coincidentally, these are the two ways that they have completely AVOIDED doing anything about.
Force industry to develop cleaner fuels (like the ULSD is much cleaner than the older high sulfur diesel), and encourage / force mass adoption of biomass recovery and conversion to fuel feedstocks.

On my most recent trip, I filled up with 100% biodiesel in two places. With WVO biodiesel in Oregon, and with VVO (Virgin veggie oil) biodiesel in Seattle. The car performed GREAT on the WVO biodiesel, there may have been a small mileage penalty but overall the power was the same as pump diesel. With the virgin oil however, the car was NOT happy, the power was down and so was the mileage. I didn't like that stuff at all, and this has mirrored my experience with VVO every time I've come in contact with it.

Recycled oil sources don't just have to be the local fried food truck, but clearly there is more energy available in recycled waste oil. This also would pull an otherwise waste product from the planet and put it to good use. Oil can be sourced from landfills, biomass recovery and fermentation... Lots of sources. But that requires encouraging industry to do something they don't want to do, and industry has bought congressmen to avoid having to do anything other than dig up "cheaper" oil from the ground.

So the EPA follows along with policies that make us use ever more of the stuff. This does not compute.

One thing we've heard from customers is that cars with DPFs that have a lot of soot accumulation will suffer frequent regens as the system tries to reduce the soot load and back pressure. Replacing the DPF brings things back to normal. I suspect your car wasn't running as it should. However, it sounds like you've already moved on.

I ran between b20 and b50 in my ALH for years. Always liked it. Engine (pump, actually) was quieter, smoked less, FE was pretty much unaffected at those percentages. I got away from it when I got a car that had a DPF because I have a diesel tank at my house and if I put B20 in I couldn't use it in all the cars. And it's gotten a lot harder to find around here. (New England).

It's always seemed counter intuitive to me that you an engine needs more fuel to be cleaner. But I guess it depends on what you measure.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

Keep in mind that these cars weren't driven any distance for some time between the buyback, storage, transport to dealers, idling around dealer lots, getting fixed, test drives, etc. They all probably did multiple regens when put back into regular use.

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bingo

Diesels do not like city use or being driven lightly for long periods of time. CJAAs should be able to get 100k+ miles out of DPFs easily if they're driven right, EGR flow being under requested is another story.

A good Italian tune up, to the point of driving it like you stole it with sustained 500C+ (1000f) EGTs for at least 15 minutes can help clean things out. Spirited pulls onto on ramps aren't a bad thing, same goes for the older motors, they're bored at light throttle.

For comparison normal DPF refurbishing involves cutting the ends off by the filter material and putting it in an oven at 1000-1400f for 10+hrs then running compressed air through each individual hole.

Here's an example of a regen on a GTB1756VK stage 4 CJAA on my way to work. approx 25 min drive, regen occurred during stop and go traffic after some 60mph cruising and shows sustained 500C+ with light driving and speeds under 30mph.

https://log.malonetuning.com/chart/239515

https://log.malonetuning.com/chart/...Mw7jDj3RNw5M3w43CoWnDhmrDtAfDs8KXwpPCuhsBAAA=

Owain@malonetuning said:

A good Italian tune up, to the point of driving it like you stole it with sustained 500C+ (1000f) EGTs for at least 15 minutes can help clean things out.

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Try that in a tuned 335d. I'll end up in jail.

It's true that diesels like to work. My ALHs never ran better than after a track day, where I'd get EGTs to 1600 on every straight. After I'd swapped tires back on and loaded the car, I'd start out for home and always be surprised at how much more power the car had then when I arrived.

Yeah those things are completely different animals. Ours is down to 3200lbs and ran 106mph in the 8th @ 3600lbs with a bit of spray. wheel spin is a bit of a problem until 80+mph on fresh nittos

I agree that the DPF regens will be more frequent as the DPF comes closer to the end of it's useful life. The car had 168k on it when I bought it, I tend to believe that VW did NOT replace the DPF during the "fix" as they were supposed to. While I don't remember the actual number that Vag-com showed, I do remember thinking that it was a lot higher than a "new" DPF should have been showing for the soot loading.

The thing that most people don't understand about the DPF isn't a "filter" it is a TRAP. The entire point for the regen is to create heat and turbulence to break up the soot particles that are sitting on the front end of the filter and force the now-smaller particles down the blind passages where they can be stored until the DPF is eventually replaced.

So this isn't so much an emission reduction, as it is just a change on where and how the engine is able to exhaust what it is producing. Some poor schlub is going to have the nasty job of being in close proximity to all that ultra-fine carbon as well as everything else that might be in the DPF... I'd wager there will be cancer lawsuits about THAT job in the coming years!

What’s the warranty cover anyway? Just the emissions equipment? What’s the chance of that breaking down? Pretty slim so I’m leaning on running a stage 1.

Emissions warranty is pretty comprehensive. DPF, CAT, the whole fuel system including HPFP and injectors, and the turbocharger. If you get a '15 with 50K on it it would be covered until 2026 and 162K miles, if I recall correctly (not sure about the miles). So it's not nothing.

Having said that, I had my GSW tuned with RC2 at 875 miles. It makes me miss my ALH less when I drive it.

I think I’d be willing to run stage one then if I ever had to bring it to the dealer just flash back to stock. I believe it’s a pretty slim chance they look at the flash counter. Stage one Malone seems to really wake the car up. I’ll def miss my ALH golf, but feel satisfied I was able to run her up to 440k.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

Emissions warranty is pretty comprehensive. DPF, CAT, the whole fuel system including HPFP and injectors, and the turbocharger. If you get a '15 with 50K on it it would be covered until 2026 and 162K miles, if I recall correctly (not sure about the miles). So it's not nothing.

Having said that, I had my GSW tuned with RC2 at 875 miles. It makes me miss my ALH less when I drive it.

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How did you decide on rc2? Where are they located?

The VW mother ship more than likely checks the flash counter every time it is connected to a dealer service tool automatically. If it finds flash counter differences they can and have rejected warranty claims due to this. Expect it to happen more as the more they can exclude the less it costs them. Think hard about doing anything before the warranty runs out.

52172 said:

How did you decide on rc2? Where are they located?

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Jeff at Rocketchip has tuned all my cars since 2004. I had an Upsolute tune on my Wagon (that's going way back!) and when I went to a dyno day and saw how Jeff's tunes performed I switched. His work is very impressive.

I tell Jeff what I'm looking for and he picks the tune, typically. His estimate is RC2 makes about 180/300 with all emissions intact.

I had the GSW tuned in April of '17 right after I bought it, but I recently sent the ECU back for an update because he's learned a lot about tuning the '15s since then. The driving behavior is night and day over fixed stock. I found that the manual GSW was low on torque on tip-in after the fix, and it also didn't like to accelerate in 6th at under 70 MPH. The tune made all that go away, and it really does drive more like a rotary pump TDI than an emissions controlled common rail.

You'd have to send him your ECU, but he'll turn it around quickly.

I’m thinking of buying a second ecu just in case I’ll need to use the warranty. Can you buy a new ecu or would finding one used on eBay be an option and send the spare ecu to Jeff?

You could go the full monty and do CP3, EGR/Race Pipe, DPF delete and a tune. Then you've eliminated most of the things you'd need the warranty for anyways.

I’m in Ca and it’s my commuter so need to be able to pass our emissions test. Otherwise I would for sure!