What do you know about the business of ECU re-maps

Hi

Have you ever researched a subject and the more you find out about it the less you know?

My self-employed career in tourism has recently nose dived in line with tourism generally in the Isle of Wight. I have been self employed for so long now I don't think I could do a 'proper job' anymore. So I was looking at franchises and ECU remapping came up. I'm thinking I could do that! I'm a 'car guy', I use computers, low start-up costs, plug in a laptop, download the original file, email it to HQ, enter new file, one hour, Bish, Bash, Bosch... (sorry, that should be Bosh)

However, the more I look into it the more questions come up. So there are plenty of companies out there who run agents doing this, but when I went to a page of agents around the country and started ringing up people to sound them out I found hardly anyone picking up the phone. One garage who did said they had stopped doing it and had not had a great relationship with the company (who shall remain nameless). Now I see on ebay you can buy 65,000 re-mapped files from £2.99 or spend £1825 for that 'with support' with ECM Titanium Chiptuning. How does anyone know that the franchise companies are not just sending back files from a source like this and charging the customer £200+ for the privilege? How could you tell the genuine companies from the cowboys other than just the slickness of their web site?
Does anyone reading this have experience in this business, successful or otherwise?
I could really use an extra revenue income, but I don't want to be taken for a sucker. It seems there are not many companies with agents on the IoW, so a captive customer base perhaps, but can you make good income from this?

Andrew

Im sure FLEA on the forum will comment shortly

My 5p
Its a dangerous game to get into especially if you don't know what you are doing. I don't mean that in terms of disrespect. I mean it in terms of the science behind remapping. Yes you can download some maps onto a cars ECU... however every car is different. What happens if they have some mods. What happens if the fuel they use isn't that great etc etc

The potential to cause damage to the vehicle is huge and you will be held responsible. This is why people no longer use generic maps. They are no better than a £5 chip from eBay. Live mapping is the safest way... however you will need a hell of a lot more equipment and the knowledge and expertise to carry it out.

Agree with Mario. Read Fleas post in the othercar thread about the Alfa Muti-air and how difficult modern cars are to map....his info was really interesting.

Edit to say: I think fixing peoples computers and tablets is a simple easy business idea that you might want to go into if you are good with computers.

Blind loading files - I'm 50/50 on it.
Look at all the owners that buy plug and play boxes these days. Surely that's the same as a standard file? the bluefin boxes are popular with many turbo cars and all seem to work well. Then there are tuners like mountune - again AFAIK it's a plug and play Ford chip.

Fleas way of working is a specialised live map for the car, making sure it's all working as it should - I assume this is better for cars with physical mods and cars that have soke age / milage where tolerances have changed.

Maybe the download and go works for new cars? What insurance / warranty would you need if something went pop?

All of my local 'tuners' wouldn't touch the coupe but can do generic diesel / modern car 'chipping'.

Also we have the famous Gtech 1&2 for the coupe!

Would there be enough customers on the Isle Wight ?

There are something like 138,400 people here all within a limited space so I would have thought that's a pretty good area, especially if there aren't other guys doing it.

I wouldn't be daft enough to buy the files and equipment and set up on my own. If something went wrong, I'd be liable, but if I become an agent then the company would be liable if it goes 'Pete Tong'. It's just I'd hate to sign up with a company who were ripping people off with cheep generic files.