Matrix Meanderer Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 Contemplating the cost of 2012 motorhoming my eye was caught by a fullpage advert in one of the mags selling diesel tuning electronic bits of kit. With claims of "up to" (inevitably) 40% more BHP/torque and 20% improved fuel economy it set me thinking of pay back periods and the realities of driving with such an engine alteration. Mindful of the excellent advice given by Barry Norris in the Jan 2012 MMM (Page 190), I wondered if Forum readers have experience of actual long term improvement in fuel consumption with this gizmo (apart from keeping your foot off the pedal!). My Matrix is a 2.3L 130 multijet 130PS automatic which we manage to get about 26mpg on average over the season. With the fuel saving bit of kit costing over £200 I reckon it will take far too long to break even, unless Forum readers know better! Any comments and installer recommendations would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colin Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 There are other threads about such products, so a search for them may give you some answers. As you have the auto, I would be looking very carefully at how this might be affected, so you realy need members experiancies with this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hallii Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 If it is so good why don't the manufacturers use it as standard? Engines are set up by the manufacturers to be as economical and mechanically reliable as they can be. There is a trade off between extra power and economy and reliabilty, so it's a balancing trick. I had a T4 VW with a "chipped" engine and boy, was it fast. To get economy you had to keep your foot "off the gas". So the extra power was produced by using more diesel. Is it worth it? Yes, if you need the extra power, but not if you need the economy. By the way, your MPG seems quite good, why spend good money on trying to acheive better? H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 Don't forget also your legal obligation to inform your insurers of this performance enhancing modification - BEFORE you go ahead and get it done, in case the insurers say they will either decline to continue cover, or load your premium substantially if you go ahead. To my mind, the whole idea of "chipping" is loony. If you wanted a racing car, you should have bought a racing car. You didn't; you bought a white-van-man chugger, with a massive box stuck on top. Live with it. You really want to improve your fuel efficiency by a massive 20% at a single stoke? At no capital cost to you, no increased insurance, and no extra strain on your engine? Drive 10 mph slower. Job done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Peter James Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 I don't know much about retuning, but I know the big commercial fleet operators are understandably obsessed with fuel economy so if it saved fuel they would all have it - and I have never heard of any fleet operators who do have it. Since its obviously not worth fitting to courier vans doing 60,000+ miles a year, you can be sure it isn't worth fitting to motorhomes. Unless perhaps if you just want more power at the expense of fuel economy, engine wear, and reliability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Peter James Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 BGD - 2011-12-27 11:26 PM Don't forget also your legal obligation to inform your insurers of this performance enhancing modification - BEFORE you go ahead and get it done, in case the insurers say they will either decline to continue cover, or load your premium substantially if you go ahead. To my mind, the whole idea of "chipping" is loony. If you wanted a racing car, you should have bought a racing car. You didn't; you bought a white-van-man chugger, with a massive box stuck on top. Live with it. You really want to improve your fuel efficiency by a massive 20% at a single stoke? At no capital cost to you, no increased insurance, and no extra strain on your engine? Drive 10 mph slower. Job done. Absolutely. A lot of Boy Racers have come unstuck with that one apparently, when they have had a prang and the insurers have sent their ECU away for testing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Newell Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Are you sure its a 2.3 with auto box? I was led to believe Fiat had only mated their auto shift manual to the 3 litre motor. As for chip tuning or adding an electronic tuning box personally I would steer clear of them. There are two ways to get more power out of a modern electronically managed diesel without major engine mechanical mods: 1, alter fuelling, I believe this to be quite difficult to achieve successfully as modern diesels can make multiple individually timed injection events per cylinder per firing stroke. Can a man in a field with a laptop really do better than the factory? 2, increase turbo boost pressure. Modern diesels handle turbo boost in the opposite manner to how the mechanical systems used to. On the old mechanical system the boost was allowed to build until inlet manifold pressure opened the wastegate to limit it. On modern engines the wastegate is normally open until you raise the engine speed then the ECU will close it to build boost, if the upper limit for boost is reached the ECU can open the wastegate. This method gives much more accurate boost control and is by its nature failsafe. It also makes it very easy to increase boost pressure by altering the max boost pressure in the ECU mapping. The potential downside is damage to the engine due to running higher boost and increasedd fuelling and therefore higher combustion pressures. D. In edit, also bear in mind the new MOT rules regarding "illegal engine tuning", a "black box" attached to the engine is pretty easily identified as a tuning device and could lead to a failure in future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly58 Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Most of the major haulage companies offer their drivers a monthly fuel saver bonus which speaks for itself the smoother you drive the better the fuel economy also in addition to driver ability the vehicles are goverened to drive at the most economical speeds. In the green your bonus will be seen in the red your bonus is dead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek pringle Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Hi Ian, I must agree with Dave as when I ordered our van and wanted Auto I was told I had to upgrade to the 3 litre jobby. Very pleased I did and the onboard computer shows 25.4 mpg, I hope this will improve when the engine wears in a little. good luck derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Peter James Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 derek pringle - 2011-12-28 10:50 AM onboard computer shows 25.4 mpg, Onboard computers tend to show lower fuel consumption than you are actually getting. Especially after a remap when they remap your mpg meter as well as your engine. *-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Like Dave, I understood that a 'robotised manual' (automatic) gearbox had been offered solely on Ducato X250 models with the 3.0litre motor. I believe that a similar transmission will be available for Ducatos with Euro 5-compliant 2.3litre motors, but (as you obtained your Matrix in early 2011), that won't (or shouldn't) be applicable to your vehicle. In the past, French motorhome magazines have published fairly comprehensive articles relating to 'tuning' the diesel motors fitted to modern motorhomes and measurements have shown that it's possible to obtain significantly improved power and/or fuel consumption. However, the cost of the tuning has varied from relatively cheap (for an add-on 'black box' or simple downloadable remap) to expensive, where a specialist hooks up a lap-top computer to the vehicle, checks how the motor is behaving and modifies the software settings accordingly. There's a French report on the following link http://www.flashtuning.fr/FR/Essais/LMCC%20Oct%202008/lmcc_oct_2008.htm and before-and-after figures are provided for a Ducato X250-based motorhome with the 2.3litre 130bhp motor. I'm certain I could improve my motorhome's average fuel consumption by 20% purely by driving it in a more economical manner, but I wouldn't enjoy it. If I were on a tight budget, then I might be inclined to drive the thing with fuel-economy high on my priority list, but I'm not so I don't. (And, if I were on a very tight budget, I sure wouldn't be running a motorhome!) Performance-wise, I don't exploit the vehicle's full capability, so I don't feel any great urge to have more power available from the motor. The motor's power and torque are adequate to pull the vehicle along rapidly enough for me and its acceleration is sufficient (for a 3-tonne vehicle) for safe-ish overtaking. If I wanted to cover ground quicker A-to-B I'd just brake less and ignore my wife's stamping on an imaginary brake-pedal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek pringle Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Hi Peter, I understand but would have to do a long series of mileage checks and tanks of fuel to get an accurate reading or figure. Just using the onboard at least gives an indication of whether the useage is increasing or decreasing. From what I have read the 'proper' remapp, using the rolling road and adjusting the parameters of the software can result in better performance and increased mppg,but for my vehicle the cost would be about £350/400. This coupled with different stories as to whether or not the remapp is detectable following any major engine problems and possible warranty knock backs puts me off the idea of going down this route. cheers derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Peter James Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Derek Uzzell - 2011-12-28 11:13 AM There's a French report on the following link http://www.flashtuning.fr/FR/Essais/LMCC%20Oct%202008/lmcc_oct_2008.htm Is this is a magazine that gets its income from adverts for this sort of stuff? With lazy journalists who are content for advertisers to write for them? When I see the commercial fleet owners buying this I will believe it works. Although it still may not pay at the mileage I do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Peter James Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 BGD - 2011-12-27 11:26 PM You really want to improve your fuel efficiency by a massive 20% at a single stoke? At no capital cost to you, no increased insurance, and no extra strain on your engine? Drive 10 mph slower. Job done. Sounds about right. I can still remember the telly adverts during the 70's oil crisis when they brought the speed limit down to 50 to save fuel. the slogan was 'Seventy may be nifty, but fifty is more thrifty' Must be even more so with motorhomes which, despite their rounded front, are about as aerodynamic as a barn door. They still have the flat square back that gets a vacuum behind it at speed, causing about as much drag as a flat square front would do. Now the Government is making so much on fuel tax they are putting the limit up to 80 instead, and bringing in crazy congestion causing traffic schemes, and emmission regs, so we use even more fuel and pay them even more tax *-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Peter James - 2011-12-28 12:00 PM Derek Uzzell - 2011-12-28 11:13 AM There's a French report on the following link http://www.flashtuning.fr/FR/Essais/LMCC%20Oct%202008/lmcc_oct_2008.htm Is this is a magazine that gets its income from adverts for this sort of stuff? With lazy journalists who are content for advertisers to write for them? When I see the commercial fleet owners buying this I will believe it works. Although it still may not pay at the mileage I do. "Le Monde du Camping-Car" is a very reputable, well-established French motorhome magazine and this was just one of the 'tuning' articles that have been published in that magazine in the last few years. This article is accessible on-line via the Flash Tuning website, but (to the best of my knowledge) it wasn't written by Flash Tuning staff. The article is reasonably well balanced as far as I'm concerned (I assume you've read it?) with both pros and cons covered, including a guesstimate of how long it would take for the initial cost of the tuning to be recouped by fuel savings. (Last time I was asked a peculiarly provocative question like that was years ago during a security interview when the 'normality' of my sexual activities came up. "What's 'abnormal?'" I asked. "Whips, bondage, rubber, bestiality - are you into anything like that?" "No, " I lied) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 The calculated approximate payback, on an initial cost of around €600 for the service, was about 2 years, assuming a gain of 2L per 100km, a 90L tank, fuel at €1.40 per litre, and an annual mileage of 12,000km/7,500miles. That appears to have been based on a low profile, Fiat based, 2.3L 130 multijet motorhome. However, many UK registered motorhomes do not cover 7,500 miles per year, so payback would increase correspondingly. There is a clear warning that any such addition would breach the manufacturer's warranty terms. Also be aware that this was based on vehicle specific ECU remaps, not a plug and play "box". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek pringle Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Exactly Brian, that is why you need the rolling road accompanying mapping, otherwise to a certain extent you will be getting a sort of one size fits all solution. Most of the companies I have spoken to regarding this type of tuning say it is undetectable yet you have to let your insurance know and I would therefore suggest the owners of your warranty. I would advise that purchasers of motorhomes select the vehicle they want and live with it, maintaining the most efficient mpg by means of keeping the vehicle in good mechanical condition and driving as they see fit. cheers derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 1footinthegrave Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 I have found the best way to increase my MPG quite dramatically is to do all my Motorhoming in France, with the exception of getting to Dover which is a real pain, but my mpg goes up from an average 31 in the UK to as much as 37 mpg in France, why I'm not really sure, but it happens every time, it would be interesting to know if others have noticed the same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peter Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 If you want better fuel economy with one of these black boxes, put it under the throttle pedal as a stop. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Derek Uzzell - 2011-12-28 12:30 PM (Last time I was asked a peculiarly provocative question like that was years ago during a security interview when the 'normality' of my sexual activities came up. "What's 'abnormal?'" I asked. "Whips, bondage, rubber, bestiality - are you into anything like that?" "No, " I lied) Security guard at a "madam's" house by any chance? 8-) I take it you didn't get the job then! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Leake Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Our lads used to race model cars all over the UK and Europe. With large distances to cover for the race meetings Motorhomes were a popular means of transport and I have to admit that to say we needed to press on a bit would amount to an understatement. Having said that two drivers that I know of who had chipped engines managed to blow them up big time. My view is that if you don't need the extra performance why bother spending the money. And if you do intend to use the extra performance fine but you may suffer engine failure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matrix Meanderer Posted December 29, 2011 Author Share Posted December 29, 2011 Many thanks for the helpful detailed responses from forum members - great information as ever. A few points in reply: My 2.3L Fiat is manual with cruise control. My mistake - befuddled by Christmas spirits and still thinking about the previous automatic Ford Transit MH! Memo to self - don't post items whilst hiding from the grandchildren. The magazine with the fullpage advert is the Camping and Caravanning Club January 2012 Magazine (Page 51) and no I didn't buy my ACSI handbook from them! Still waiting for my ACSI Club ID card though. I think the best advice was stick a small black box under the throttle pedal! By the way there is absolutely no shortage of power in the 2.3L Adria Matrix - great to drive. Always a temptation to overtake the French MHs though. So we'll be off to France when the weather perks up and we'll fill the tank at Auchan or wherever it's cheapest. Thanks to all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Mel B - 2011-12-28 4:33 PM Derek Uzzell - 2011-12-28 12:30 PM (Last time I was asked a peculiarly provocative question like that was years ago during a security interview when the 'normality' of my sexual activities came up. "What's 'abnormal?'" I asked. "Whips, bondage, rubber, bestiality - are you into anything like that?" "No, " I lied) Security guard at a "madam's" house by any chance? 8-) I take it you didn't get the job then! :D I already had the job, but its nature meant submitting to regular security interviews. Sexual deviance was not looked on favourably (mainly due to the potential for blackmail), though being decidedly weird was considered OK as long as a person's particular specialism was considered important to the organisation. I'm unable to reveal what I did as mentioning the organisation's name would trigger a small bomb that was implanted in my brain when I retired, but peter's current avatar may give you a clue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 1footinthegrave - 2011-12-28 3:37 PM I have found the best way to increase my MPG quite dramatically is to do all my Motorhoming in France, with the exception of getting to Dover which is a real pain, but my mpg goes up from an average 31 in the UK to as much as 37 mpg in France, why I'm not really sure, but it happens every time, it would be interesting to know if others have noticed the same thing. I would think that's the norm and due primarily to the lower traffic density per road-distance in France. As I hardly drive my Hobby at all in the UK, I've no realistic way of comparing its UK-to-France fuel-consumption figures, but it's certainly a pleasure to drive it in France and no fun driving it here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Fiat showcased the Comformatic auto gearchange system at Dussledorf for the smaller engines at the last show and I covered it in MMM at that time. It has been available for some months. Re engine re-tuning, re-chipping or performance enhancements there are a few basic questions you need to answer for yourself 1 Do I really believe that my engine can be re-tuned to give better economy without compromising performance? (If so why do manufacturers not do so and governments not insist upon it? 2 Will it compromise my vehicle warranty? (Like hell it will if the engine goes BANG) 3 Can it make the engine deliver more power?. Yes without doubt. 4 Will it increase the emissions from my engine?. Yes without doubt. 5 Am I likely to use the extra power and torque it will deliver? Yes without doubt especially on hills when you will not need to change gear as frequently. 6 Will the increased power put more strain on the engine and transmission?.Yes without doubt. 7 Will the engine life be compromised? Yes without doubt.. 8 Is reliability or spotiness the most important criteria for a motorhome engine? Its reliability for me. 9 Would you ever have an engine sooped up then? Yes for a FUN vehicle which comes with an acceptance of increased risk, but not for my bl..dy motorhome or anything that I need to rely on! 10 Then you may also need to consider uprating the clutch, brakes, suspension, cooling etc. Have I been there. YES but not for our motorhome. C. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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