Quote:
Originally Posted by dme123
Polestar have the benefit of access to all of the design specs of every part of the engine; do you think Rica or Shark know, care about, or even have the means to calculate the turbine speed of the turbo to avoid overspeeding it?
Polestar also have access to OEM level calibration tools and testing environments, rather than "drive a couple of thousand miles and if it doesn't go bang then it's fine" testing that aftermarket tuners have to rely on. I am sure none of them even have an engine dyno, much less proper CFD simulation software to have the first idea what's really going on in the combustion chamber. Do they have the software to accurately calculate torque spikes and the means to then measure them so they know that they are not doing long term damage to the DMF and gearbox?
I'm afraid that if you think the work of aftermarket tuners can even come comes close to the quality of an OEM or in house tuner (Polestar) calibration then you do not have the first idea what is involved in modern powertrain calibration.
So yes the Polestar maps are more expensive, and with a lower power output, but given my experience of "reputable" tuners it's the only option I'd consider now.
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No offence, but I think your imagination of the aftermarket world of tuning is somewhat myopic - yes there are shady people offering 'low cost remapping' on Facebook Marketplace and there are plenty of tuners out there who get it wrong (but in the public eye more often get named and shamed by the disgruntled customer), but there are many, many out there who have a high regard and reputation. If you've been stung then I somewhat empathise, but when I broke up with my first girlfriend it didn't deter me from finding another!
So if Joe Bloggs doesn't want to pay 'Only £695 for a discounted Polestar upgrade' from the pulpit of the Volvo marketing team and would rather pay at least half of that for an equivocal and if not better remap then why have your pants pulled down and for what? So you can have a 'quality assurance' certificate, a correct software checksum, and a Polestar badge worth £12?
To imply that Shark and RICA did not care about customers cars or had the requisite calibration equipment for the cars they tune is dismissively and ignorantly presumptive, they both have (or had in Shark's case) dynometers, my car was tuned by Shark and had been on it's Bapro dynometer, they owned several Volvos over the years and tested and tuned them extensively, as did RICA. Shark's mission statement was that they aimed to provide tuning for vehicles that was within safe limits at the expense of willy waving peak figures.
One point about RICA and it's famous Sports Tune for the D5 - people were uploading these maps onto the Euro III D5 which had indequate clutches and intercoolers to support the power and torque increases. That was a mistake on their behalf for offering that particular map to those customers, but alas they are still going and providing very good remaps for Volvos and beyond.