Hmmmm, is it wrong for me to believe that KLEEMANN should be taking accountability here?

Why in the WORLD would KLEEMANN or any other tuning company, not REQUIRE a dyno run to get a baseline!? Wouldn't this be part of their protocol before even touching a car to change its performance?

I'll be the first to admit that I'm certainly no expert when it comes to a cars performance but from a liability standpoint this just seems wise to have in place when the finger pointing starts. Much easier to displace blame, right?

Next, I'd like to point out that some comments about shipping your cars to Colorado so that the job is done right, although understandable, certainly isn't justifiable. I feel if KLEEMANN puts their name on other select locations then they are accountable for your car receiving the same treatment/performance.

Lastly, I certainly wouldn't call missing 75hp a matter of "variables" based on weather conditions etc. as some have suggested. This is a huge variance from the claims of KLEEMANN but again, if they had Dyno'd the car before the mods, they would know if something was wrong with the car to begin with.

No one wants this sort of thing to take place but when the fingers start pointing and thousands of dollars is at stake, I can't help but feel that KLEEMANN and other tuning companies are accountable for educating their customers on the realistic benefits their products offer - so why not start with the basics such as..."how much power does your car have now, before we attempt to modify it?"

Stupid analogy but the only one I can think of at the moment...but how many of us would begin an aggressive diet to lose weight before stepping on a scale to see how much we weigh first? What's the first thing you do before entering the doctor’s office to get checked out? They ask you to step on the scale to get your body weight. Just to see what they're working with, right.

At any rate, I hope everything gets sorted out and although the customer can get their car Dyno'd, it should be KLEEMANN and other tuning companies DEMANDING this is done.

Just my opinions!

Nick

DYNO YOUR CAR FOR A BASELINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

wow very glad i ran across this thread im in the middle of either a renntech or kleeman ecu pully and header. having a hard time choosing although im leanin towards the kleeman cuzz of the price. i wasnt gonna get a baseline dyno! but i will for sure get one before i touch my car now!thanks for the heads up. and good luck stiff and brandon.

 

Stiff, good luck buddy. Like Jesse said, i admire your patience.

 

Can't help wondering if there is heat soak on the air intakes. One member clad his air intake pipes with high performance racing heat shield material and it dropped the intake temp of the air from super hot to normal air temps.

That would mean the air coming in would be more dense.

 

Personally I think something is upsetting the engine control unit.

 

What were the dyno results when Kleeman took the car back to stock? Did I miss that info on this long thread? If its way low, maybe the car is a lemon and should be returned to MB? Is this thinking too simplistic - is it even possible that this could be the case?

 

Definitely get a baseline dyno. You might even consider getting two (one on your own and one at the shop that will be installing your mods).

I wouldn't let this thread influence your decision about Kleemann products. This is one car out of 1000's that has experienced lower than expected power gains. I think that his car unfortunately started off with a problem before the mods.

 

no i understand that this is 1 out of a bunch. im not worried about the product. but it kinda made me think about the installer! i figured it was fairly easy for someone that knows MBs. when reading this thread i kept thinkin it was something stupid the installer did but if its been at kleeman for 12 weeks im 100% its not the instalation or product, its the car its self. i just hope stiff can figure it out and fix it.

 

Stiff1

Have them take a look at the AC/DC convertor. I know of my neighbors car had the same problem to some degree were it wasn't making the proper power and the replace part by part until the found the problem . It turned out that it was the AC/DC convertor.

 

Nick, Thank you, I agree with everything you said. All I really want is to just have "more" power then what I received. I would be ok with about 600hp, but 565hp is a far cry from that.

Right now Kleemann has determined that there is a load limiter somewhere in the car. Even a stand alone computer hasn't really made a difference. I am having the car shipped back with the same hardware and software that was in it when they received it. Kleemann says that they are going to continue trying to work on the issue and they will let me know when they have a fix for the car.

Kleemann wasn't able to put the car completely back to stock because they didn't have the headers. With headers only, the car made 525hp I believe (I never got a copy of the dyno sheets). I think that this is inline with about what it should be for headers only. The car has beed dynoed dozens of times with all different kinds of combination, but they all yeilded the same results. Even after five or more runs in a row, the car would vary 7hp-12hp. I don't think that heat soak really has anything to do with the overall HP since it is so little of a difference.

I hope that this is just an isolated case and doesn't happen to anybody else. I can't wait to get the car back and try to enjoy any nice weather that we may have left this year. When I get any new information from Kleemann, I'll let everyone know. Thanks for all of your input so far.

 

Is there any news on whether this issue EVER get resolved???

Please provide an update...

 

The issue has not been resolved as of yet. I do have the car back, but it still is low on the power side. Kleemann says that they are still working on the issue to try and resolve this. I'm not sure if it has happened to anybody else's car, or if it has only been with this one.

Right now I am happy to just have my car back, but I really hope that they can find the missing power. So far it has been 10 months since the first time that we found out that the car was low on power. It has produced the nearly the same hp #'s with many different combinations and nothing is making a difference so far. If Kleemann is able to come up with this "lost" power I'll be sure to let everyone know.

 

I wonder if it's MB that has to come up with your lost power at this point...

 

not to be a pedant or anything, but it's "onus", not "owness".

 

Stiff1, are you planning to send your car back to K?

 

Stiff,
Return it to stock, sell it and work a deal with Kleemann to re-install on the next one.
Save yourself the headaches, life is too short!

 

Best suggestion I've heard, yet.

 

That is a pretty good idea that I haven't thought of yet. I might have to play around with the numbers and see where it takes me.

Not right now. I don't think that there is anything else that they can do for me.

 

What if the next one bought has the same problem????

They need to figure out what's causing this????

 

My experience with Kleemann has been just AWESOME! They made my car into a rocket and the new owner who purchased it about 12 months ago installed the TB to the car. It is now living in Atlanta and the new owner had his local dealer install the TB since they are MB/Kleemann dealer.

The car is breaking into the low 11's all the time last time I spoke to him. His fastest time was 11.3 in the 1/4 for a big heavy 4dr pig of a sedan

Last time Cory spoke to that dealer, they said they have never seem a E55 pull like that, it feels like a SLR.

I am sure you will always have issues with tuners, but I would say that many more positive stories then negative ones with Kleemann.

 

I didn't mean to imply that Kleemann is a bad company. I know that Kleemann is one of the BEST modding companies out there. And this problem happened to a couple of people (not all of them were Kleemann modded, I think one had Evosport Stage III). To add to the problem, these cars seemed to dyno okay when stock (very slight variation, but nothing out of the ordinary).
Before this incident, a person who spent $20,000 on Kleemann K4 package expected 640 hp (plus-or-minus 30 hp variation). Which means they will happily accept 610 hp with no problem.
After this incident, a person who spends $20,000 now has a chance of ending up with only 540 ~ 550 hp. To them, that's 20 grand down the drain. And the worst thing about all this, there is no way to find out in advance. All you can do is dyno the car before you buy, but even if the car dynos okay stock, you may still have the problem after modification.
I'm a fan of mods, but I'd like the big companies such as, Kleemann, RennTech, Evosport, etc... to further research this issue and pinpoint the problem as opposed to just moving to another car.
So far, I've heard of 3 other people on this forum with similar problems and another 2 people that I know personally that are not involved in this forum. And even though 5 people out of thousands of modified AMGs is a very small percentage, the problem continues to exist and pose a greater risk until completely resolved... Unless of course you don't mind trading in the bad car with new one and then throwing 20 grand per car for mods until you get the right one.

 

It's fine for the tuners to continue investigating but for an owner it's nuts.

If your best efforts don't work - move on. There may be one line of code that's somehow messing up the ECU and how long might it take to find it? It may never be found.

As far as throwing another 20k at another car, I would expect the tuner to make the deal of a lifetime for the owner.

 

The problem with that is people will be reluctant to spend unholy sums of money for conservative goals.

 

i have bad experience with kleemann too ... i got the pulley kit but i have multiple delay b4 the kit get to australia ... and then they send the bloody wrong kit so that i have to wait further b4 i get it install ... they seems not looking after their customers very well ... i have then made my decision not to have the kleemann body kit ... instead i go for the amg ... afterall i think amg look better ... the kleemann made the car look like a jap sedan i think ...