JCW Dinantronics Elite a scam?

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Old 04-20-2018, 09:19 PM
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Dinantronics Elite a scam?

starting to think Dinan mods are a scam. They don’t answer or return calls. No power gain. WTF do they really do that I couldn’t have done already. Hope I can get my money back.
 
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Old 04-21-2018, 05:05 AM
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There was a thread on here earlier with a similar situation and Dinan moved to a completely different state and that was the reason for the delay for a fellow member.

Did you by the Dinan from them directly or from a shop/vendor? You might be able to get a refund from a vendor. Did you try to see if one of their authorized installers could look at it to make sure everything is ok?

They definitely aren’t a scam company, I, along with many other members have had or have their systems. They just seem to be in some sort of transition as a company and aren’t doing a good job of it.
 
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Old 04-21-2018, 06:59 AM
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I bought directly from them. Took forever to get. All it does is make the engine make more noise.
 
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Old 04-21-2018, 08:22 AM
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My Elite produces lots of extra power and torque. They do seem to have a problem getting back to people quickly. Although I did have a question up something and they were back to me quickly.
 
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Old 04-23-2018, 05:43 PM
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I finally got ahold of someone. Of course they couldn’t find where I registered it. Partially my fault since I had one letter of my MAC address wrong. Sent a picture to them. Sounds like they for got to load a map or the unit is faulty.
 
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Old 04-24-2018, 10:55 AM
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They clearly have some major QC problems with whatever Chinese company is making the tuning boxes for them. There are a lot of people reporting failed units.
 
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Old 04-24-2018, 11:03 AM
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Originally Posted by charrigan
They clearly have some major QC problems with whatever Chinese company is making the tuning boxes for them. There are a lot of people reporting failed units.
Where is that? Can you link to those instances? I've only seen one or two issues posted on NAM.
 
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Old 04-24-2018, 11:16 AM
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It sound like a bunch of there problems right now is moving their company either out of California to Alabama or The other way
 
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Old 04-24-2018, 11:41 AM
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Hard to imagine that Dinan has become a "scam" company. One would assume that they will make things right if the unit is defective.

They are going through a transition and a geographic move, as others have noted.

Back in 2017 they were extremely responsive to my many inquiries. And my Dinan Sport has, other than funky blue tooth connectivity, thus far been issue free and certainly delivers added boost as promised.
 
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Old 04-24-2018, 11:50 AM
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Originally Posted by Scottkenny
It sound like a bunch of there problems right now is moving their company either out of California to Alabama or The other way
Dinan is undergoing a complete consolidation of the business. The HQ in California is being moved into APR tuning's headquarters. I would assume a large portion of Dinan's employees are gone and APR will be taking up the slack or developing new products for mini/bmw.
 
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Old 04-26-2018, 05:25 AM
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Originally Posted by Scottkenny
starting to think Dinan mods are a scam. They don’t answer or return calls. No power gain. WTF do they really do that I couldn’t have done already. Hope I can get my money back.
I'm going to assume that OP has gotten with warranty and whatever course of corrective action needed to be done is well on its way. If not, please let me know.

In general, I apologize to everyone for not being around much (or at all really) for the past month or 2. Have had a lot of transition going on and forum stuff was pushed to the back burner on my plate. So I have been derelict in my duties and will try and be around a bit more now. That said there is still a lot of things still in transition mode so please be patient. Direct messages will still get quicker responses since I get those notifications directly.

As other have said though Dinan has relocated to Alabama from the Bay Area and now share a campus with APR (VW/Audi Tuners). We are still independent companies and function as such with a few shared resources (HR, Shipping, etc). Engineering, marketing, sales, warranty and all the bigger departments are independent from one another. Although, we now can bounce ideas off one another and save ourselves a bit of time if ideas work for both entities. In the long run it will be very prosperous for both companies and also at the end of the day, the consumer.

Short term... its been painful but we are finally starting to turn a corner and things are normalizing again. Our biggest challenge beside the physical move has been in the production side of things. We essentially started from scratch in the staff for that department and had to retrain from the ground up. There are a lot of processes and nuances to things here at Dinan in the VERY diverse catalog we have so the learning curve has been steep.

It should also be noted that we now have a bigger warranty/tech support staff then we have ever had in the history of the company complete with a group of guys that have proven to be very good in the limited time they have been here. So, please feel free to reach out to them if anyone has any issues. They are very responsive and typically will get back to you within an hour or 2 if you don't get someone right away.
 
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  #12  
Old 04-26-2018, 05:35 AM
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Glad you're finally getting settled in at your new location.
 
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Old 04-26-2018, 05:59 AM
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To Dinan: I still have a Dinan 4th Generation chip in my ‘88 M5 and I remember buying it direct from Dinan about 25 years ago. Back then someone simply picked up the phone! lol! Good luck with the transition out of that ridiculous high tax State to Alabama where you will feel right at home! 😉
 
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Old 04-26-2018, 06:07 AM
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Originally Posted by vetsvette
Glad you're finally getting settled in at your new location.
Originally Posted by 02fanatic
To Dinan: I still have a Dinan 4th Generation chip in my ‘88 M5 and I remember buying it direct from Dinan about 25 years ago. Back then someone simply picked up the phone! lol! Good luck with the transition out of that ridiculous high tax State to Alabama where you will feel right at home! 😉
Appreciate it guys. Alabama is... different. But, we live like kings out here compared to CA so that's good. =)
 
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Old 04-26-2018, 07:12 AM
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@Dinan, any updates on timing of software for the Elite?
 
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Old 04-26-2018, 07:18 AM
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Originally Posted by Minnie.the.Moocher
@Dinan, any updates on timing of software for the Elite?
Software? All Elite variants for current generation MINI's have been released so I am not quite sure what you are referring to.

The apps maybe? I have heard next to nothing recently on app development. There was some scrambling when we first got here to update some of the current apps (SPORT and the BMW ELITE) for some compatible issues with the newer phones that arose but that's the extent I have on anything app related.
 
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Old 04-26-2018, 07:26 AM
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I was thinking of an app. As I recall ECS tuning made mention of it on the website when I bought the unit.
 
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Old 04-26-2018, 08:11 PM
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Originally Posted by Dinan Engineering
I'm going to assume that OP has gotten with warranty and whatever course of corrective action needed to be done is well on its way. If not, please let me know.

In general, I apologize to everyone for not being around much (or at all really) for the past month or 2. Have had a lot of transition going on and forum stuff was pushed to the back burner on my plate. So I have been derelict in my duties and will try and be around a bit more now. That said there is still a lot of things still in transition mode so please be patient. Direct messages will still get quicker responses since I get those notifications directly.

As other have said though Dinan has relocated to Alabama from the Bay Area and now share a campus with APR (VW/Audi Tuners). We are still independent companies and function as such with a few shared resources (HR, Shipping, etc). Engineering, marketing, sales, warranty and all the bigger departments are independent from one another. Although, we now can bounce ideas off one another and save ourselves a bit of time if ideas work for both entities. In the long run it will be very prosperous for both companies and also at the end of the day, the consumer.

Short term... its been painful but we are finally starting to turn a corner and things are normalizing again. Our biggest challenge beside the physical move has been in the production side of things. We essentially started from scratch in the staff for that department and had to retrain from the ground up. There are a lot of processes and nuances to things here at Dinan in the VERY diverse catalog we have so the learning curve has been steep.

It should also be noted that we now have a bigger warranty/tech support staff then we have ever had in the history of the company complete with a group of guys that have proven to be very good in the limited time they have been here. So, please feel free to reach out to them if anyone has any issues. They are very responsive and typically will get back to you within an hour or 2 if you don't get someone right away.
Thank you for responding. I will admit I was very discouraged and disappointed with the experience both in ordering process, issue resolution after installation, and now RMA. This was the most exciting piece I was looking forward to add to my Mini, which I am sure added to the disappointment.

It took me about a week to get ahold of them and now another week for them to get my shipping address correct. I still have not been provided a shipping label. But I am guessing since it was late in the day I will see it tomorrow. The funny thing is I sent 4 different emails to the support@dinancars.com and the warranty specialist I was working with said he never saw them, which might be an IT glitch caused by inbound mail size limits on the Exchange or what ever mail server is used since I was told to send photos since we had problems finding the unit I registered (although I was able to pull it up fine on the website).

I am just hoping that the end result once I finally get the new Dinantronics Elite will be worth the wait. If you could send the new one a little hotter to compensate for the larger FMIC I wouldn't mind.
 
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Old 04-27-2018, 07:07 AM
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Originally Posted by Scottkenny
Thank you for responding. I will admit I was very discouraged and disappointed with the experience both in ordering process, issue resolution after installation, and now RMA. This was the most exciting piece I was looking forward to add to my Mini, which I am sure added to the disappointment.

It took me about a week to get ahold of them and now another week for them to get my shipping address correct. I still have not been provided a shipping label. But I am guessing since it was late in the day I will see it tomorrow. The funny thing is I sent 4 different emails to the support@dinancars.com and the warranty specialist I was working with said he never saw them, which might be an IT glitch caused by inbound mail size limits on the Exchange or what ever mail server is used since I was told to send photos since we had problems finding the unit I registered (although I was able to pull it up fine on the website).

I am just hoping that the end result once I finally get the new Dinantronics Elite will be worth the wait. If you could send the new one a little hotter to compensate for the larger FMIC I wouldn't mind.
Talked to Gary this morning (the warranty guy you are dealing with) and he will send out the shipping label this morning. He's just waiting on shipping to get him an updated one. support@dinancars.com is not a valid email address--- should be techsupport@dinancars.com so that probably wasn't helping matters any. =)

Regardless, you should be back up and running with a tuned car in the near term it sounds like.
 
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Old 04-27-2018, 08:38 AM
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Originally Posted by Dinan Engineering
Talked to Gary this morning (the warranty guy you are dealing with) and he will send out the shipping label this morning. He's just waiting on shipping to get him an updated one. support@dinancars.com is not a valid email address--- should be techsupport@dinancars.com so that probably wasn't helping matters any. =)

Regardless, you should be back up and running with a tuned car in the near term it sounds like.
That would definitely be the problem. I guess there was confusion when he gave me the address. Hopefully I can get it out today and the turnaround time isn't too bad.
 
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Old 04-27-2018, 09:10 AM
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Back in early email times I set up my email server to forward any emails that had the correct @xxxx to my computer. so anything @dinancars.com should be going directly to someone who cares. Whomever admins your server should be brought up to speed in race mode!
 
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Old 04-29-2018, 06:02 PM
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Still waiting for a shipping label that was supposed to be sent to my personal email. Day 16......
 
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Old 04-29-2018, 08:30 PM
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It's a sad and poor way to treat a customer. They screwed up multiple times, should have just sent you a new unit with a return label for your old one.

I've got two Dinan products, might be the last two I ever buy. I hate the screw ups and excuses routine, just fix the guys problem. You'll lose more sales from this kind of crap then anything else.
 
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Old 04-29-2018, 08:38 PM
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Originally Posted by Minnie.the.Moocher
It's a sad and poor way to treat a customer. They screwed up multiple times, should have just sent you a new unit with a return label for your old one.

I've got two Dinan products, might be the last two I ever buy. I hate the screw ups and excuses routine, just fix the guys problem. You'll lose more sales from this kind of crap then anything else.
Thats what I was hoping for but even the warranty guy again gives m the wrong email address to send things too. I only know that a shipping label was created because I am a premium UPS subscriber. If they would have emailed it too me I would have printed it already. I really hope it doesn’t take another 30 days to get the new one since that is how long it took to get the original.
 
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Old 04-30-2018, 04:33 AM
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Getting restructured two times in 3 years is a big negative sign for the future of the company.
 

Last edited by charrigan; 04-30-2018 at 04:48 AM.


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