Talked to service rep about whether JB4 detectable

[ChristianReyess]

So Yesterday I was talking to my service rep at Irvine BMW. And I just have been tired of hiding my jb4 and I've been testing this guy out with different warranty questions and I finally popped the question.
I had just changed my rotors and brake pads and the light/on screen message that warns me about my breaks being too thin was bugging me and wouldn’t go away, so I took it to my service man. As he was sitting in my car and turns it on, I see the speedometer do their little awesome sweep and all I could think to myself was “fuck my life” so at that point I just went ahead and asked;
“Does a JB4 void my warranty and is it detectable?”
As I popped the question he gets pretty stiff and un-comfortable. (Immediately I regret the question) He continues to tell me that The JB4 “ARE” in fact, detectable.
The cars have a fall safe reading for psi levels off the ECU and what not, and if they are screwy they are inclined to flag your car even before you come and claim warranty.
They are able to actually read these levels when “hooked up” and by “they” I mean BMW USA not the dealer, whenever you take your car in for anything else and are put on their “readers” computers…. Now, Idk anything about dealerships or how any of this works, but I’m sure someone on here will know if this all sounds right or made up to scare me.
So by the time something anything goes wrong the dealer will send in for the work only to get rejected by BMW. Because of the previously detected psi levels and all that jazz.
Even though some dealers are dicks, they still get paid out on warranty work, so it essentially benefits them when BMW covers work. So I do not know if this guy is pulling my leg or if he truly believes this.
I like to believe he wouldn’t screw me over, but know the fuck knows when it comes down to money.
So I have read very similar explanations about this. But then I have heard/read about other members having luck just taking it out when their turbos, pumps or anything in their engines fail. Specially since most of these issues are known issues anyways regardless from factory…

I just wanted to get some more input, and “newer” input as I’ve read about this before but some threads are pretty dated and wanted to know if anything has changed or anyone else has experienced this situation lately! With turbos and what not going out!

[dpert1]

subscribed to this gem

[awns729]

From what I've read, the ECU will store codes if a JB4 is installed, but those can be cleared. However, other metrics, like you said, such as max boost pressure are stored, and I think the techs can look at those and infer that the engine had an aftermarket chip based on boost pressure way out of stock range. I'm not sure if those metrics can be "reset" after uninstalling a JB4.

So from what I know, sometimes uninstalling a JB4 and going in for warranty work goes fine, but sometimes uninstalling and clearing codes is not enough because of the hidden metrics the ECU is tracking. I think it depends if a tech looks for those (and if they actually exist).

But I've just begin to read up on it, and this may be misinformation. I'd love someone who knows for sure or can speak from first hand experience to chime in.

[b1aze]

So my first oil change after buying my new-to-me 135i was interesting. I installed a JB4 and DCI before I even gave the car a chance in stock form. I also had a few weird occurrences but nothing major but I asked them to take a look at them. When I got there to pick the car up, the tech was standing in my SAs office with her. As I came in and sat down, shook his hand and asked what's up, he basically started with "look, I know you have a JB4. Is it the PnP version or pin-out." My heart kinda sank a minute because they mentioned that the car had stored a bunch of fault codes and they couldn't figure out why. He finished the statement before I could answer with "it's fine if you do, I have one too and I advocate them to people with this motor. I just want to make sure something didnt pin-out wrong if you don't have the PnP harness. I screwed up my pin-out install at first." I confirmed it was PnP and asked what the fault codes were. They mentioned hvac controls and a few other things and I told them I disassembled parts of the dash to get the trim wrapped. They looked at each other and said "that's what it is!" I got a little 1er in my pants knowing that my tech AND SA was ok with the tune at least and I started to pick his brain about "what's ok to mod?!" And his words were "as long as you aren't injecting into the intake tract, I'm pretty much ok with it. No meth, no NO2. FMIC is fine, DPs are ok."

Flash forward 5 month and at a meet I was able to ask a self-proclaimed BMW service manager at a dealership a few states away. I asked him if BMW can see that the ECU was flashed with a Cobb tuner if its uninstalled and unmarried. He shook his head and said "nope, they can't tell at all." This may be different than the JB4 in terms of storing and wiping shadow codes but it was reassuring either way.

Now a week or so ago I took my car back to the same SA and Tech for a lumpy and rough almost misfiring idle. My SA had the shop foreman take my car for a ride with me in it to try to replicate the issue. He asked me "now, I forget if you said if you have any performance software in this." I assured him I took it out a while ago and I felt the car was sufficiently fast stock. I did say that these cars can make really good power modded and he agreed. He also said that the motors are rock solid with a ton of potential in them. He never said "yes, get a tune, its all good" but by his tone and body language made me think that a simple few bolt on mods would be OK with him. He approved a walnut blasting of the intake valves and I told him I would install an OCC ASAP to prevent the buildup in the future and he didn't have a problem with that.

Sorry for the long reply but I felt it was directly applicable to the discussion! And I did it all with my thumbs....

Edit: I do not have any real info about if everything here would hold up when the chips are down and I need, say hypothetically, turbos or transmission. I did however get all 6 injectors, plugs, and valve cover (crack apparently?) replaced under warranty after they knew I had a tune and at a minimum FMIC, chargepipe and intake.

[Bmwbreed]

Originally Posted by b1aze

So my first oil change after buying my new-to-me 135i was interesting. I installed a JB4 and DCI before I even gave the car a chance in stock form. I also had a few weird occurrences but nothing major but I asked them to take a look at them. When I got there to pick the car up, the tech was standing in my SAs office with her. As I came in and sat down, shook his hand and asked what's up, he basically started with "look, I know you have a JB4. Is it the PnP version or pin-out." My heart kinda sank a minute because they mentioned that the car had stored a bunch of fault codes and they couldn't figure out why. He finished the statement before I could answer with "it's fine if you do, I have one too and I advocate them to people with this motor. I just want to make sure something didnt pin-out wrong if you don't have the PnP harness. I screwed up my pin-out install at first." I confirmed it was PnP and asked what the fault codes were. They mentioned hvac controls and a few other things and I told them I disassembled parts of the dash to get the trim wrapped. They looked at each other and said "that's what it is!" I got a little 1er in my pants knowing that my tech AND SA was ok with the tune at least and I started to pick his brain about "what's ok to mod?!" And his words were "as long as you aren't injecting into the intake tract, I'm pretty much ok with it. No meth, no NO2. FMIC is fine, DPs are ok."

Flash forward 5 month and at a meet I was able to ask a self-proclaimed BMW service manager at a dealership a few states away. I asked him if BMW can see that the ECU was flashed with a Cobb tuner if its uninstalled and unmarried. He shook his head and said "nope, they can't tell at all." This may be different than the JB4 in terms of storing and wiping shadow codes but it was reassuring either way.

Now a week or so ago I took my car back to the same SA and Tech for a lumpy and rough almost misfiring idle. My SA had the shop foreman take my car for a ride with me in it to try to replicate the issue. He asked me "now, I forget if you said if you have any performance software in this." I assured him I took it out a while ago and I felt the car was sufficiently fast stock. I did say that these cars can make really good power modded and he agreed. He also said that the motors are rock solid with a ton of potential in them. He never said "yes, get a tune, its all good" but by his tone and body language made me think that a simple few bolt on mods would be OK with him. He approved a walnut blasting of the intake valves and I told him I would install an OCC ASAP to prevent the buildup in the future and he didn't have a problem with that.

Sorry for the long reply but I felt it was directly applicable to the discussion! And I did it all with my thumbs....

Great info buddy thanks

[thehalcyon]

Originally Posted by b1aze

So my first oil change after buying my new-to-me 135i was interesting. I installed a JB4 and DCI before I even gave the car a chance in stock form.

Thanks for sharing, sounds like you will get a different response depending on the dealership and the techs there. Some may be ok with it and others will probably flag your car. I was tempted to ask about mods at my last visit but so many things went wrong that I said "F*** it!"

[Joeyb7]

Great thread. After having scoured so many threads about tuning/warranty issues I don't recall having read too many threads about actual interaction with techs/SA's. still curious to hear more about experiences at the dealerships after uninstalling accessports.

[Trptguy]

Originally Posted by b1aze

So my first oil change after buying my new-to-me 135i was interesting. I installed a JB4 and DCI before I even gave the car a chance in stock form. I also had a few weird occurrences but nothing major but I asked them to take a look at them. When I got there to pick the car up, the tech was standing in my SAs office with her. As I came in and sat down, shook his hand and asked what's up, he basically started with "look, I know you have a JB4. Is it the PnP version or pin-out." My heart kinda sank a minute because they mentioned that the car had stored a bunch of fault codes and they couldn't figure out why. He finished the statement before I could answer with "it's fine if you do, I have one too and I advocate them to people with this motor. I just want to make sure something didnt pin-out wrong if you don't have the PnP harness. I screwed up my pin-out install at first." I confirmed it was PnP and asked what the fault codes were. They mentioned hvac controls and a few other things and I told them I disassembled parts of the dash to get the trim wrapped. They looked at each other and said "that's what it is!" I got a little 1er in my pants knowing that my tech AND SA was ok with the tune at least and I started to pick his brain about "what's ok to mod?!" And his words were "as long as you aren't injecting into the intake tract, I'm pretty much ok with it. No meth, no NO2. FMIC is fine, DPs are ok."

Flash forward 5 month and at a meet I was able to ask a self-proclaimed BMW service manager at a dealership a few states away. I asked him if BMW can see that the ECU was flashed with a Cobb tuner if its uninstalled and unmarried. He shook his head and said "nope, they can't tell at all." This may be different than the JB4 in terms of storing and wiping shadow codes but it was reassuring either way.

Now a week or so ago I took my car back to the same SA and Tech for a lumpy and rough almost misfiring idle. My SA had the shop foreman take my car for a ride with me in it to try to replicate the issue. He asked me "now, I forget if you said if you have any performance software in this." I assured him I took it out a while ago and I felt the car was sufficiently fast stock. I did say that these cars can make really good power modded and he agreed. He also said that the motors are rock solid with a ton of potential in them. He never said "yes, get a tune, its all good" but by his tone and body language made me think that a simple few bolt on mods would be OK with him. He approved a walnut blasting of the intake valves and I told him I would install an OCC ASAP to prevent the buildup in the future and he didn't have a problem with that.

Sorry for the long reply but I felt it was directly applicable to the discussion! And I did it all with my thumbs....

Edit: I do not have any real info about if everything here would hold up when the chips are down and I need, say hypothetically, turbos or transmission. I did however get all 6 injectors, plugs, and valve cover (crack apparently?) replaced under warranty after they knew I had a tune and at a minimum FMIC, chargepipe and intake.

blaze

are you still under warranty? I took my car to BMW PEabody for the same issue ( i am out of warranty but the car is CPO warranted until 2014) They told me that it would need a walnut blasting but that it wasn't covered and would cost me $800.

The dealers seem to be all over the map on this particular service.

[Venom]

I have had both turbos replaced which took a couple days to get approval from BMW NA. I also had my clutch replaced under warranty(which required a BMW NA representative to come out and go through my car's records and examine the clutch in person) so I can say without a shadow of a doubt on my 08 135i that no shadow readings are stored when using a Cobb AP as far as boost levels are concerned because they looked for reasons to void my warranty. during these inspections they found that an indy mechanic had installed my PE and have since voided warranty relating to my axleback.

[FIRST1]

What I'm taking away from this so far is that, for my next BMW, I'm actually going to ask the tech what his limit/policy is on mods. That way everything is straightforward, and if he's extremely strict, I'll go to a different dealership (3 of them within 20 mins from me)

[vertebra]

Originally Posted by Trptguy

blaze are you still under warranty? I took my car to BMW PEabody for the same issue ( i am out of warranty but the car is CPO warranted until 2014) They told me that it would need a walnut blasting but that it wasn't covered and would cost me $800. The dealers seem to be all over the map on this particular service.

Would the walnut blasting normally be covered under warranty, free maintenance or not at all?

[awns729]

I just wanted to add on some information from this thread: http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...-Dinan-vs-Cobb
Post #7

Originally Posted by mryakan

Just to give you an idea, the car records how many times I turned on the radio, and how long it was on for while the car was running/off and how many trips I have taken and how long each trip was. I discovered this when my car was in for battery issues. Some of this data cannot be retrieved by the dealer but was retrievable by BMW engineers remotely when they were asked to get involved. So if they keep track of such "trivial" data, I will let you take a guess a to whether they keep track of more important data.

and Post #8

Originally Posted by NFerber

^ That is correct. There are 2 locations of stored data.

1 is ODB codes and shadow codes. This is something that you can clear yourself before going into the dealer. These codes are the ones you generally hear about. One of these codes is a 'tuner' code, that will throw a code if the turbo PSI is above a certain threshhold. But again, you can clear these codes before going into a dealer.

The second is stored deeper in the ECU (CanBUS I believe). These are more warranty related codes in a way. They will track over-revs, over-boost, ect. These are codes that you can not see, or clear. The good thing, is that the dealer can also not see these codes. The bad news, is that if you ever have a bigger warranty issue where BMWNA get's involved, then these codes get sent up to corporate for them to review.

So it is pretty rare for these codes to ever be sent to BMWNA, but it does happen. But for your routine issues, this information will never be sent, and thus not be seen.

[vertebra]

I read somewhere from a Cobb rep that the ecu would have to removed and sent to BMW which was highly unlikely. I will try to find the thread.


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[Trptguy]

Originally Posted by vertebra

Would the walnut blasting normally be covered under warranty, free maintenance or not at all?

i think that some are doing it as a goodwill service. It is not part of their normal warranty to the best of my knowledge.

[rking117]

as far as mods that are covered by BMW i cannot say enough for Dinan. I havent foudn one they dont cover yet.

[JZWBMW]

My tune works very similar to the Cobb system, its a true ecu flash that makes good power and I tested this and it was not detected, I put it back to stock of course before bringing it in to have it checked for a "suspected" misfire problem.

From what I understand, they will not normally look for or have a reason to look deep into the ecu, but what they can do is link up to BMW North America and they can see high boost levels, so if they see its been running 18psi, then they will know it has been tuned.

The only time this would happen is if something went terribly wrong and they were looking deep to try and figure out what happened. The chances of blowing a motor are slim with a solid tune and a true ecu tune is much safer than how those piggy back tuners run in my opinion. These motors are very strong and I think its worth the slim chance of having an issue with warranty. It is a slim risk, but well worth it in my opinion.

I put my car back to stock on the way in and it was boring and much less fun, so to me its well worth it :-)

Here is my own I flash tuner, very well tested and very safe !

JZW

[AKopp]

I sat in the parking lot of my dealer yesterday for about 20 minutes uninstalling my AP. I'm FBO, and never got a call for anything. They performed all warranty services, oil change, brake flush, micro filter, etc. The car was in for the battery cable recall, not any problems otherwise. I uninstalled the AP at the dealer and no SES light with catless downpipes. It would have to be driven quite a bit to get those to go through the cycle. They did perform a scope analysis on the car, everything passed okay. When I went to pick up my car, no issues and I reinstalled it there for about 30 minutes. Off I went. I'm sure they know, they're not dumb... I think they look the other way and are good people.

[dknl]

if you don't remove the JB4 at least disable steering controls and switch to map 0

[Naoto]

i removed my jb4 when i took it in for warranty work a few months ago. the car was flagged and my warranty was/is voided

[b1aze]

Originally Posted by Naoto

i removed my jb4 when i took it in for warranty work a few months ago. the car was flagged and my warranty was/is voided

Any more information? Warranty work that was declined? Reasoning or documentation of the declined warranty work? Other mods?

[135iMike]

Originally Posted by Naoto

i removed my jb4 when i took it in for warranty work a few months ago. the car was flagged and my warranty was/is voided

That is scary. Details?

[alexmtl_135i]

Originally Posted by b1aze

So my first oil change after buying my new-to-me 135i was interesting. I installed a JB4 and DCI before I even gave the car a chance in stock form. I also had a few weird occurrences but nothing major but I asked them to take a look at them. When I got there to pick the car up, the tech was standing in my SAs office with her. As I came in and sat down, shook his hand and asked what's up, he basically started with "look, I know you have a JB4. Is it the PnP version or pin-out." My heart kinda sank a minute because they mentioned that the car had stored a bunch of fault codes and they couldn't figure out why. He finished the statement before I could answer with "it's fine if you do, I have one too and I advocate them to people with this motor. I just want to make sure something didnt pin-out wrong if you don't have the PnP harness. I screwed up my pin-out install at first." I confirmed it was PnP and asked what the fault codes were. They mentioned hvac controls and a few other things and I told them I disassembled parts of the dash to get the trim wrapped. They looked at each other and said "that's what it is!" I got a little 1er in my pants knowing that my tech AND SA was ok with the tune at least and I started to pick his brain about "what's ok to mod?!" And his words were "as long as you aren't injecting into the intake tract, I'm pretty much ok with it. No meth, no NO2. FMIC is fine, DPs are ok."

Flash forward 5 month and at a meet I was able to ask a self-proclaimed BMW service manager at a dealership a few states away. I asked him if BMW can see that the ECU was flashed with a Cobb tuner if its uninstalled and unmarried. He shook his head and said "nope, they can't tell at all." This may be different than the JB4 in terms of storing and wiping shadow codes but it was reassuring either way.

Now a week or so ago I took my car back to the same SA and Tech for a lumpy and rough almost misfiring idle. My SA had the shop foreman take my car for a ride with me in it to try to replicate the issue. He asked me "now, I forget if you said if you have any performance software in this." I assured him I took it out a while ago and I felt the car was sufficiently fast stock. I did say that these cars can make really good power modded and he agreed. He also said that the motors are rock solid with a ton of potential in them. He never said "yes, get a tune, its all good" but by his tone and body language made me think that a simple few bolt on mods would be OK with him. He approved a walnut blasting of the intake valves and I told him I would install an OCC ASAP to prevent the buildup in the future and he didn't have a problem with that.

Sorry for the long reply but I felt it was directly applicable to the discussion! And I did it all with my thumbs....

Edit: I do not have any real info about if everything here would hold up when the chips are down and I need, say hypothetically, turbos or transmission. I did however get all 6 injectors, plugs, and valve cover (crack apparently?) replaced under warranty after they knew I had a tune and at a minimum FMIC, chargepipe and intake.

Very nice info !

I also talked to a mechanic at my dealership a year 1/2 ago, while shopping for BMW Perf Exhaust. The guy had all BMW Perf mods on his car, and we started talking about modding casually. I asked about the PPK and he told me something like "Don't say I told that to you, but if I were you I would go for a JB4". As we talked more he said one of the mechanics here had a 1M and modded the sh*t out of it, with JB4 and meth and it was doing crazy power.

Too bad I didn't ask him what their policies were for warranty work, at that time I wasn't considering the JB4 yet o_O.