Coding and grief from Service dept

[websterize]

I've been thinking about all the coding I've done to the i3 in the past week and how much of it (in the form of errors?) the tech will see when he replaces the KLE next year. I assume it will be obvious in his software diagnostic that the files have been monkeyed with, by the monkey owner.

How much grief will I get, if any, from the dealer? For those of you in the know (Vinny; Godfollower?), any thoughts? I'm hoping it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. :?

 

[mindmachine]

I've been thinking about all the coding I've done to the i3 in the past week and how much of it (in the form of errors?) the tech will see when he replaces the KLE next year. I assume it will be obvious in his software diagnostic that the files have been monkeyed with, by the monkey owner.

How much grief will I get, if any, from the dealer? For those of you in the know (Vinny; Godfollower?), any thoughts? I'm hoping it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. :?

Well it's your car unless you are leasing it, is anything not working correctly because of a coding error you are aware of. All they can do is void your warranty or not some others on this site have said. That would be my biggest concern. The owners manual says the OBD2 port is to be used only by BMW technicians. That's not an exact quote, but It says something to that effect.

Lots of BMW owners with other BMW models code their cars for variois reasons, so I am sure they have encountered this before. In in fact there is a coding forum. You might find something there as to how BMW service dept might react or what they might say.

http://www.bmwcoding.com/forum.php

 

[mindmachine]

I've been thinking about all the coding I've done to the i3 in the past week and how much of it (in the form of errors?) the tech will see when he replaces the KLE next year. I assume it will be obvious in his software diagnostic that the files have been monkeyed with, by the monkey owner.

How much grief will I get, if any, from the dealer? For those of you in the know (Vinny; Godfollower?), any thoughts? I'm hoping it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. :?

Here is a link to some discussion about coding and warranty.

http://www.bmwcoding.com/showthread.php?3227-US-Warrenty-issues-with-changing-the-VO-and-retrofitting&highlight=Legal+issues+coding

 

[Glisicusa]

Unless they can show that u caused damage with your codings i would say you would be ok. I work on audi's and get a car that has coding changed for somthing and never gave anybody hard time. And unless your codings cause faults i would never notice it with scantool alone. And just like bmw all codings and parameters are stored on main server and assigned to your vin and you it will reset the car to facory codings at any update or if spec/actual comparisson is requested. I did have a customer give me hard time cause he had to go back in and redo his codings which was not cool on his part.

 

[websterize]

Thanks for the bmwcoding link — what a thriving community.

I joined and hope they get a BMWi sub-forum soon. I tried to message the moderator about creating one, but you need at least 20 posts on the site to talk to the man.

 

[mindmachine]

Thanks for the bmwcoding link — what a thriving community.

I joined and hope they get a BMWi sub-forum soon. I tried to message the moderator about creating one, but you need at least 20 posts on the site to talk to the man.

I know, I joined the site too but am not up to 20 posts yet. Having a hard time with posting there as all I am interested in is coding my i3 for the Rex hold, removing the confirm screen at start up and seat belt warning.

 

[rtanov]

Thanks for the bmwcoding link — what a thriving community.

I joined and hope they get a BMWi sub-forum soon. I tried to message the moderator about creating one, but you need at least 20 posts on the site to talk to the man.

There is a post asking for that, I just added my vote to the requests.
http://www.bmwcoding.com/showthread.php?9337-Can-we-get-an-i3-i8-subforum
Other than this, I could not find any other posts that would be of interest to us there.

 

[websterize]

I sent the bmwcoding man, Dennis, a little PayPal love. Maybe he'll create that BMWi sub-forum soon.

 

[Vinnie50]

I wil be honest. It really depends. I personally haven't seen a coded car yet. The problem you are going to run into isn't with the dealer. It's with PUMA. In order to work on any high voltage system on the car the technician must first submit a PUMA case as soon as they run faults on the car. As soon as the tech ends the session BMW will receive all the info from the car. I have seen BMW pull warranties from regular cars. I actually am working on an M5 that is highly modded with methanol that they pulled warranty from. It's not really the dealer call in a situation like that. But I will tell you BMW is keeping a close eye on all the I cars that come into the dealer.

 

[Tomasz]

How about reversing the coding right before service visit?

 

[WoodlandHills]

This is my first BMW in years: what is PUMA?

 

[Tomasz]

Quoted from somewhere else:

PuMa is a worldwide BMW database of all reported problems and most with the their appropriate fixes.

Before Germany will listen to the dealer a PuMa case has to be opened. If u went in for a problem and they did not fix it right off, they most likely created a PuMa case to get help from Germany. Generally older established problems have ready fixes available to the tech even though that dealer has not seen it before. If some new issue arrises, it may take a while to start to get tech support.