does a remap lower the life of the engine

[blackd81]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum, own a standard mk5 2007 Golf Gti, am interested in a remap, but a friend says this will decrease the life of the engine, he says that if increased performance/fuel consumption could be easily gained with no negatives, then the manufacturer would roll them out like this from the factory.

What are your thoughts, are there disadvantages to remapping? grateful for any answers 

[maxp]

Your friend talks sense.

Think about an f1 car, it will run within 99% of it's limits because each engine is only supposed to do a few thousand miles tops before it craps its pants and gives up.

The gti however is probably built to do 100,000 miles over the course of 8 years (total estimates here). Its not just the bare engine block youre stressing when you map a car, its all the related components. These are engineered within a tolerance level - when you map it, you are getting closer to these tolerance levels.


Having said that, you will *probably* be fine, as you arent exactly gonna be sitting in an f1 car after the remap, and these guys generally know the ins and outs of the car so well that they understand where there is safe room for more oomph.

Just my 2pence.

[blackd81]

cheers Maxp,

it's an interesting topic

[nick30]

it is an interesting topic that i thought long and hard about before going down this route. personally i am planning to keep my car for 5 or 10 years so the last thing i want is problems. after reading up a lot about longevity etc i decided i would take the risk and make sure that i dont thrash my car all the time but open it up occasionally. i commute in my car 50 miles a day and normally aim for 30-37 mpg's because im poor! im no expert but i would say if you start to mod your car you need to be prepared to pay the extra insurance and get it serviced regularly. my car came out of the factory at 230ps and i have added atleast a ton on to that but i know that i need to keep my common sense about me all the time. i check my oil every week and warm the car up and cool it down after a blast. at the end of the day you make your choice dependant of a number of factors but the cars come out of the factory ready to be thrashed for 100k and if you map it but look after it it should last much longer. well at least im hoping mine will! 

[topher]

As above poor maintenance and cold thrashing is more harmful than any remap.

I tend to find the type of people who are interested in tuning are also interested in looking after their cars so in general an enthusiast driven remapped car will last longer than one owned by someone who doesn't know how to check the oil level.

[Jimp]

As above poor maintenance and cold thrashing is more harmful than any remap.

I tend to find the type of people who are interested in tuning are also interested in looking after their cars so in general an enthusiast driven remapped car will last longer than one owned by someone who doesn't know how to check the oil level.

Seconding this. For example, my last two Ventos. My first was owned by some farmer who didn't really care and it was in poor shape and got poorer quickly. My current Vento was owned by two enthusiasts before me and it is flawless. 16 years old with 90k miles and not a single hiccup.

[maxp]

...i check my oil every week and warm the car up and cool it down after a blast...

How do you cool it down?

[topher]

Stay off boost for the last mile of your journey and let the engine idle for a minute or two before switching off.

[Stitch]

I suspect on the balance of probability it has too. Working the same engine harder will concieviably reduce its lifespan subject to "normal" maintainence etc. However, you could be talking about the difference between an unmodified engine lasting say 250k miles without rebuild with the modified lasting 200k miles say which may be more than the car will ever do.

[Harris GT TDi]

Whats the verdict then guys?

re-map or not to re-map?