Has anyone done an install while still under warranty, and if so, did it cause you any problems with warranty service/repairs? My limited legal research suggests that it shouldn't, but I am curious to hear real world stories.

Also, do you need to do an ECU tune to allow the car to compensate for the extra "oomph" shall we say, or can the stock ECU tune figure it out well enough to not cause any problems and get some of the gains, just maybe not everything that a specific tune could do?

I haven't gotten a totally straight answer on the second question especially, and since I am considering putting a kit into my F56 (which as of yet no one has figured out how to ECU tune) that answer will weigh heavily on my decision to put in the kit.

Finally, anyone have any real world numbers for fuel economy/power/acceleration gains with a kit? Seen lots of numbers online, very few of them MINI specific. Again, trying to see if the gains I can expect in a MINI are worth the risk to my warranty.

thanks in advance!

 

If you really need legal info, Look up Magnuson Moss Act Federal Law protecting you as a consumer


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuso...s_Warranty_Act


Hope this helps.


Call Matt Snow at Snow Performance. Great people and really know there stuff.

 

I have read up on the law, but I also understand it is probably not uncommon for dealers to kind of ignore that in favor of voiding your warranty, which would be a huge pain to fight them over.

 

unless they can prove that the meth kit did damage to the motor, they cannot deny warranty. if you have a meth kit and your steering linkage breaks, they cannot deny that.
if you have water meth and you locked a cyclinder, you may have done that, and void the warrantly of the motor, not the whole car


as for the tuning aspect, you don't need to tune the car. the only oompf youll get is reduced intake temperatures. and the ECU will read those. to fully use meth, under full load the tune will pull back fuel, since meth is fuel and can load up more timing. otherwise you run a bit rich w/o a tune (tough luck)


although if you ever run out of meth while under WOT, you can grenade your motor if the proper safety check isn't there.


short answer: ECU wont change anything. a tad more power w/o tune. load of power w/ tune

 

so basically, If I am running a conservative setup and make sure that I don't run out of water/meth I shouldn't really run any serious risks and would gain a little extra performance with the stock tune... but without a tune most of the gains of meth injection are going to be out of reach.

Sounds like a good argument to not install a kit until aftermarket tuners have figured out their thing, because before that happens I would be accepting some potentially very costly risk if the engine dies on me with the kit installed for only a marginal performance benefit. Maybe when the performance benefit increases with aftermarket tuning I will revisit the idea...

thanks for the input

 

there is performance without a tune, little extra octane and lowered intake temps. this will help the car pull timing when running at WOT.


where as if your tuned for it, you could advance the timing even more and that's how you get the big power


youll make a bit of power untuned, and keep the power if you lose any w/o water/meth


tuned youll make an extra 40-50hp more