D5 Remap

[GlasgowXC90]

Anyone with a D5 feeling brave?

This is the only tuning box or remap that I have seen so far -

https://en.bsr.se/tuning-kits/t/3374...017-d-4204-t23

Seems like a heck of a lot of power for a 2.0 engine.

[Fursty Ferret]

^^ you have to post your ECU to the tuning company...

Why not Polestar? About the same cost, and it does the gearbox too albeit with slightly less overall power than the map you linked to.

[S90]

Originally Posted by GlasgowXC90

Anyone with a D5 feeling brave?

This is the only tuning box or remap that I have seen so far -

https://en.bsr.se/tuning-kits/t/3374...017-d-4204-t23

Seems like a heck of a lot of power for a 2.0 engine.

Not that much, the T6 has 320bhp, its a 4 pot. I would agree tho, Polestar is the way to go.

The above will void your warranty, you'll need to remove your ECU, which would also void your warranty and when your car goes in for a system update it will likely overwrite their MAP with the Volvo one and you're back to square one.

I had a plug in DTUK box before I got polestar and it too was nothing but a pain, car used to throw errors all the time, despite the box being on its lowest setting.

Polestar, whilst not huge in the BHP improvement is a good improvement, your warranty remains and you don't have to dismantle anything.

[Haldex]

Why though?.. You really lack power? I have an XC60 D5 but I have tested the XC90 D5 extensively and I found this engine to be a perfect match (in terms of overall power/torque and power delivery..) for the XC90. What it lacks tough is refinement- and no remap can fix that..

[Deman77]

Looked into this quite a bit and it seems that remaps rely very heavily on placebo effect, can even result in worse performance than before. Have a read about the problems people have with remaps and blind tests or hp tests done by real users not hype by people promoting the boxes.

It’s generally accepted here that D5 doesn’t really struggle for shove. Lack of refinement both in engine and the gearbox are the larger culprits.

[MaDProFF]

@Deman77 there are good remapers and bad ones, as there are good programmers tuning, and some very very bad ones.

I have had several things in the past remapped by reputable tuners, and both times increase in performance overall and increase in fuel consumption, on an Audi S3, An Audi Engineer said there was no way to tell a car had been remapped by plugging it in, in the workshop, though coding can tell something not quite right sometimes on the Audi mainframe that workshop techs cannot see, but he said one thing is for sure you can tell by driving it, he had a set road test from point to point, and when a car is 20 MPH quicker to his point B he says no way is that standard (S3 2011) They certainly knew my car was not standard.

[Quacker]

Originally Posted by Deman77

Looked into this quite a bit and it seems that remaps rely very heavily on placebo effect, can even result in worse performance than before. Have a read about the problems people have with remaps and blind tests or hp tests done by real users not hype by people promoting the boxes.

It’s generally accepted here that D5 doesn’t really struggle for shove. Lack of refinement both in engine and the gearbox are the larger culprits.

I had a remap done on my 2006 Audi Q7 and it made an amazing difference to its performance and responsiveness at low revs. Before the remap it would hold on to too high a gear going up hill, but afterwards it changed down. There's no mistake or placebo about it, the difference was like night and day. It was a difference I really didn't expect and far far greater than the Polestar upgrade which is rather underwhelming for the price.

It also showed a better fuel economy after the remap. However I believe that the dash calculation was rather more optimistic after remapping than before. The economy certainly didn't get worse and, as with the Volvo, it got better as the miles piled on and things loosened up. In fact it got better all the way up to 50,000 miles or so. But 30mpg was about average with 32 being maximum, whereas driven in a similar fashion my XC90 will average 38 and fairly regularly get 42mpg. In case you are wondering, the D5 goes very nearly, but not quite as well in terms of performance to the remapped Q7.

It should be noted that later Q7 models had revised engines that performed almost exactly like my early remapped example.

Would I therefore remap the XC90? Only with Polestar for its gearbox responsiveness improvement, which really isn't worth the money asked for.

[mdmd]

Originally Posted by GlasgowXC90

Anyone with a D5 feeling brave?

This is the only tuning box or remap that I have seen so far -

https://en.bsr.se/tuning-kits/t/3374...017-d-4204-t23

Seems like a heck of a lot of power for a 2.0 engine.

Well, to me the modified power and torque curves seem much worse than the original ones. Although the maximum power (and torque) is improved over 3700 rpm, this is at the cost of making MUCH worse these values at low rev's, which is where we are 95% of the time!

[Quacker]

Originally Posted by mdmd

Well, to me the modified power and torque curves seem much worse than the original ones. Although the maximum power (and torque) is improved over 3700 rpm, this is at the cost of making MUCH worse these values at low rev's, which is where we are 95% of the time!

You must be seeing a different chart to what I’m seeing.

[karlak]

I prefer to trust what I experience myself, have had BMW, Audi's and Ford remapped and without doubt every time you can tell a big difference.


When my BMW 5-series went in to a BMW dealer, I turned up and it was just being brought back from the road test after some work on the brakes. Technician met me in the car park and handed the key to me, "see that is one of the 'special' Engines in that one then " - he said with a smile.

Anyone who has had a remap and not seen a difference needs to go and get it checked out, or use a reputable company.