MBWorld Members,

We at AMR Performance are very passionate, driven and take pride in what we do. We treat every vehicle and ECU as if it was our own. Modifying your vehicle is an exciting and enthusiastic adventure. Giving you more and more love for what you drive. But most companies/tuners are quick to turn a buck and use copy cutting software/tunes giving the vehicle just enough of a bump in power to put a price tag on the service. With no knowledge of the vehicle's ECUs' logic, vehicle's engine dynamic or even using the proper tools to correctly provide the service.

We receive a lot of Mercedes ECU's in for our software upgrades and most are equipped or have been tuned by other "tuners". With that being said, we notice a lot of, what we call, "unprofessionally prepped and tuned" ECU's whose boards are scratched, damaged, un-programmable and worse.

Why would a tuner/shop do this? Most of the time it is caused from rushing, in-adequate tuning tools and/or their attempt to lock their tune from being read by others so they damage the ports making the ECU not only readable but un-programmable. This damage is irreversible and can cause damage to the vehicle itself. Making you not only regret modifying the vehicle but possibly even regret the car itself.

We photograph and notify the client of every scratch and mark before proceeding forward with our services. These damaged and un-programmable ECU's we have seen in the Mercedes world have started to become more common and we felt the need to shed some light on this situation to our fellow MBWorld enthusiasts.


Pictures below are of an ECU shipped to us from a client to be reprogrammed with our software. Upon removing the ECU we noticed that the ECU case was not glued at all as well as a plethora of other issues.

*** Note: Due to the excessive damage on this ECU, the customer had to replace this unit with a new unit from Mercedes-Benz.

All descriptions are written on the images (see below):

"VAPOR" marks left on ECU board from water & moisture entering & sitting inside the ECU case:




"VAPOR" marks left on ECU board from water & moisture entering & sitting inside the ECU case:











When choosing a company to provide proper tuning/software solutions for your vehicle. Ensure you choose a company by their quality, knowledge and experience.

Modifying your vehicle is not cheap nor is the vehicle is self. We all work hard for our vehicle's. Enjoying every moment driven and every moment modifying them. So again, when choosing the right place, make sure they share your passion.





-Robert

 

Wow! As someone who worked in the computer field for decades, I have to say this level of technician created damage would be unacceptable from any professionally managed company. Repair or modification of circuit boards should be completed with little or no physical evidence that any work was actually performed.

 

Agreed.