mb techman

As of right now this is only for RENNtech. Im not sure if others are affected such as weistec or AMS or any other. We dont really deal with them at the shop.

Mercedes is beginning to put a status 8 on your VIN, meaning your warranty may and can be voided upon review.

I dont know how they know the car is tune, but we have had at least 4 cars (not just E63, but S600s and S63's) that turn up a status 8 on the VMI after the tune. So proceed with caution.

Patric

Source?

mb techman

The source is me. I work at a dealership.

I'm not saying they are targeting ALL renntech'd vehicles. This has just now started happening say since the start of February.

And as I said before this may affect weistec and other tunes as well but we only deal with renntech.

jrosa

Best reply, ever!

jvakos

appreciate the alert... been considering a tune after 6 months of having my 15 E63 but warranty concerns has held me back.

can you elaborate what a "Status 8" is and what that means to a MB dealer?


assuming they hook up STAR or whatever to scan the ECU and see something has been altered to the stock parameters (ie; a tune from any 3rd party out there who does them...) and that triggers a "Status 8"

thank you again for the heads up.. cheers

efiftyfizzle

It's most likely the same TD flag Audi gives the cars once they find out it's tuned. Basically, it's just a way of them flagging you so when you come in for major warranty work, they will have the right to deny your claim. I'm pretty sure it's just a powertrain warranty void and not a bumper to bumper warranty void, but someone would have to verify that.

AG6

Thanks for the info. Have been considering a tune but may just wait for warranty to expire.

KLR CLS

Good intel from the op....but if I may be so bold.....If you are not able or willing to deal with the consequence of tuning a car....then don't f u c k i n g do it!

If you modify your car, and something breaks..it's your fault! Not the tuner, not the dealer/OEM.......YOU. I've never support the *******s whole tune their car, blow something up and try to play dumb and take it to the dealer. **** THOSE GUYS. If you don't have the capability to diagnose and fix a problem yourself, or the money/time/effort to have someone else do it, then stay away.

RANT OVER!

PeterUbers

curious if renntech dealers status 8 the same cars they renntech tune, like orland park benz in Illinois

Wickdwagon

Is the status 8 an automated function once hooked up to STAR or is this at the technicians discretion to change the status?

gaspam

this is correct, it only gives them the option to void powertrain warranty, but not bumper to bumper... My car is flagged status 8 and my dealer still performed warranty work on it (some powertrain and some other), so it hasnt had a negative effect on my warranty

just had a turbo oil line replaced under warranty and they could of easily tried to blame it on my tune (and they know im renntech tuned) but they didnt... maybe its because they are a renntech dealer too, but i didnt get my tune through them

Wickdwagon

I look at it this way...tuning ad some risk, though when a reliable tuner does good work the additional risk of stage I or II is not that great. And dealers also know that the stage I and II guys are likely right in their sweet spot of buyers. If they deny your warranty there is a very good chance they lost you as a customer. And in the end dealers get paid to do warranty work. So, I honestly feel that they are looking to make repairs vs. denying warranty claims. I hope that I never have to find out!

cymachine

Exactly. Service Adviser at my local dealer told me that their AMG tech even went so far as to send ECU back to Renntech for a stock flash in order to resolve an issue to pass emissions. Then did the whole remove/ship/receive/install of the ECU after it had been flashed back with the Renntech tune again.

kponti

I remember people saying this was false info when I posted this a month or two back. Even Renntech denied this was the case is what I read lol

Savage212

What about a two ECU's? Is this even an option? Have a stock one for warranty work and a tuned unit for every other day? Naturally a flagged car would be harder to sell and some dealers may use the excuse to deny warranty work even if it's not powertrain.

gaspam

you're confusing the point... the point in the other thread was that renntech is not telling mercedes which cars they are tuning, its the dealer that is finding out on their own (w/o renntech's help) whether or not a car is tuned or not.... and its not just renntech tuned cars, its all tuned cars as another guy in south FL is also flagged status 8 and his tune is not renntech tune, its weistec

PeterUbers

The prevailing theme is always thar warranty work post-tune is.........dealer dependent.

shardul

iTrader: (1)

It seems like status 8 is added to the VIN / VMI / Record etc upon purchase of RT ECU calibration from the dealership.
I am I wrong?

gaspam

that wouldnt explain weistec tuned car being flagged status 8 or mine since i didnt purchase my RT tune through dealer

for mine they didnt know until they flashed my ecu to troubleshoot a low fuel pressure problem i was getting... they noticed i was tuned then, that's when i got flagged status 8

but yeah if you get a tune from the dealer, of course they know your tuned.

no matter who your tune is with, if the dealer wants to check, they will know you are tuned...hell, dealer can flag a car as Status 8 for any number of reasons; There have been accounts of cars being flagged simply for having a tuner badge on the car "Brabus" or because they noticed some minor modifications on the car.

MB is just getting more strict like audi did a while ago.... margins are tight and ever increasing emissions compliance/ mandates is costing them a fortune so gotta find ways to cut cost = honor less warranties as much as possible

shardul

iTrader: (1)

Wonder what will tell them the ECU is altered. I know physically you can see the place where they drilled it.

cymachine

Pretty much everything. Altered fuel maps, timing, boost, voltage inconsistencies, driving logs.

gaspam

lets face it , MB can deny your warranty for almost anything per their warranty (based on snippet from their warranty booklet you can even void your warranty by having a couple fat people in your car or driving fast lol) :

DAMAGE DUE TO ACCIDENTS, MISUSE OR NEGLIGENCE: Accidents or damage from objects striking the vehicle. Misuse of the vehicle such as driving over curbs, over- loading, improper operation, storage or transport (Proper use is described in the Operator’s Manual).

DAMAGE DUE TO ALTERATIONS: Alterations by changing or adding to the vehicle can adversely affect its performance, reliability and longevity and are not covered by this warranty.

Astolfo

Pretty funny how the people that pretend to know, end up proven that they did not know.




any diagnostic is done in 3 facilities in the world, MB hasencryption keys that are rotated every 12 hours, each connection to thedecryption service is unique to each TPM (Trusted platform module), which isunique to each VIN. a key collision is estimate to be in the magnitude of 512^1e24. The logs, then are transmitted and reported upon.


MB does not even need to do much work as all this is programmaticallydone, if any parameter is out of spec it gets flagged. Anyone saying otherwiseis misleading, period. Just like the gentleman that work at the dealership, I workfor the company that facilitates this not only for most of the DE car manufacturersbut all the F1 teams. Yeah I can't tell you which company it is but not difficult to figure out.

cymachine

Someone thinks he's pretty smart.

Astolfo

Why because I contribute? I am not all that smart but I let my work do the talk..
what do you have to add of value to this conversation?