ebay tuning box

I bought a tuning box off ebay from a german company. I figured for $100, worth a shot, and they offer 30 day money back.

Plugged it in (after getting the engine cover mostly loose - holy crap is that a project just to get the cover off on a 2011 335d!). Went for a drive, seemed about the same. Parked, drove it again, this time went WOT on the way home, yep, that's a lot faster.
Next day, turned on the car, "service engine soon".

OBD2 codes report P3001 which according to the translation in my VCDS tool is Operating RPM Regulation: Control Difference.

Can't be a coincidence right? Thought I would post here before returning the box and calling JBD to order theirs.

Originally Posted by danix

I bought a tuning box off ebay from a german company. I figured for $100, worth a shot, and they offer 30 day money back.

OK, I'll start with saying that don't take what I am going to say personally. You're driving a $40,000 car and you go and spend $100 on a tuning box that throws a code. Rather than spend the extra $200-300 to get a tuning box from a known, reputable company (JBD) that you know will not throw codes (unless you go wild with it)? Sorry, I don't get it. I guess I am just getting too old for living on the edge.

Putting my flame suit on...

The cost of the box and/or the car are irrelevant. Is it possible that a German company sells an equivalent box at a third of the price? Yes, it's possible, and their feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

If I had posted here reporting it has amazing performance and throws no codes, you'd want to know the brand wouldn't you?

Look at it this way - someone had to try it, so I did

Now - can anyone comment on whether or not this code is related? I'm 99% sure it is.

Hi,

Agree with the above - Get a reputable product made by people who know what they're doing and can prove what they're doing as well.

Interestingly, these 'Diesel Tuning Boxes' have been around for a long time here in the UK, and amongst the BMW enthusiasts, not very many people use them. The reason is that the few companies doing plug in boxes like these are using very old maps and they were also 'basic' in their execution. I had one for a few months from one of the UK's biggest known Diesel Boxes sellers and all it did was over fuel - to the extent my computer was showing 21 mpg! I quickly ripped it back out and sold it off circa 2006, and did what I should've done in the first place and get a proper specialist to do a re-map. Since I had that done, and some tweaks to the parameters of the map to suit my very high miler engine, I've had zero issues and the performance increase, power and torque delivery has been fantastic. My car even gained some extra MPG as a result too.

Bottom line - get a proper re-map done to your car and leave the tuning boxes alone.

Cheers, Dennis!

As implied above, maybe outdated or for Euro ECU?

Vendor specifically shipped me a version for US model per my request. I agree a remap is the best overall method, but for customers still under warranty and/or lease, it's not ideal.

As far as the JBD goes we've designed our unit to be compatible with all of BMW's newer software so you won't have any issue at the default setting.

Thanks Terry. I will be returning this one and ordering yours instead.