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Originally Posted by pyaap
Indeed, that is the crux of the matter which I believe Don was trying to re-inforce. Given you have an interest, and do a fair bit of reading around all the various fora about ECU upgrades, but still did not know that RICA employ these methods, I think it is fair to say that there may be other forum members who also do not know what is involved in selected ECU upgrades. For the reasons which you have described, I do wonder whether companies who employ such tuning methods would openly disclose and warn customers about the potential risks involved.
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When it comes to TME vs RICA I think some of you chaps are more than happy to argue about what day of the week it is ;-)
You are correct inasmuch as I have thoroughly researched re-mapping and had done so long before I found this forum. Initially I found companies who specialised in piggy back extra chip sets which were either soldered or plug-in. Some also used mechanical devices but in all cases the intricacies of the workings were the knowledge edge of the tuner and sure they were going to tell the world about how they did it. Some part of their process was obvious and that was if a piggy-back chip set was soldered directly or via a plug-in carrier then the circuit boards had to be accessed and soldered connections made. I chose not to use any of those companies for no other reason than the massive chorus of warnings from two main dealers and the techs at the place I bought the car from.
As for soldering circuit boards etc. ( I cannot believe we are discussing such a ridiculously mundane subject), my comments to Bobcat were generalisations. I did not have the pleasure of studying for an electronics degree but worked hands-on in electronics for 15 years. I replaced more components than I care to remember and providing the correct care was taken with heat dissipating sinks\shunts and precision kit was used then the risk was controlled by the person carrying out the task. The same is true of static discharge protection and all it takes is the correct layout, proper procedures and the problem is zero. I made my living out of design, diagnostics and repair of circuits and circuit boards and had both the kit and training to carry out such work. It would be reasonable to expect that anyone else who's livelihood depended on those skills to achieve a zero failure rate. For the buyer\ end-user why would they need to know of a risk which for them was\is not going to exist. Risk is a factor of probability and if it diminishes to zero it loses the classification of risk.
As there appears to be an attempt to create paranoia about a non existent risk I would challenge those making the claims of risk to find and url claims of ECU failure due to such work. We can all imagine risk bounded only by our imaginations:-)
If of course the concern is that an opened ECU might reveal new solder then it begs the question of who is trying to deceive whom.
One year on from my round trip to Bromsgrove I am still strongly of the opinion that the holistic tuning, fault diagnostics and fault clearing was a wise decision. IMO there is a risk in tuning and a very serious one and that is that a pre-existing fault or condition is made many times worse by someone without the ability to recognise the problem or correct it before serious damage is done. I do not know how far other tuners have moved toward VT's holistic approach but for me it was the only choice and still would be now.