[d.w.w.]

Things will get more interesting if someone from TATA motors come across this thread. The whole history of the ECU is revealed in a public forum along with a misleading earlier post from OP (which raises questions on the credibility).

A query on the service history to find a black Harrier in Kolkata which recently has a ECU replacement under warranty is going to give them an exact hit on the vehicle in question. They could deny any more warranty claims on the vehicle citing cheating.

[ABHI_1512]

For whatever is written in this thread till now, one thing is clear- the tuner at least has the galls to come back here and present his side of the story (factual, right or wrong is for another discussion) whereas the OP has gone into online limp mode !! One thing that we all agree here- OP is extremely lucky to have got the ECU replaced under warranty.

Thinking of tuning a car under warranty is itself fraught with dangers, and to admit it on a public forum like TeamBhp is probably the height of ignorance. The very existence of this thread and its title should be a reminder of what not to do with a vehicle under warranty !!

[hitman30]

I think this thread should be deleted. Nobody is gaining anything from here, except figuring out who to blame. Team-Bhp is a better place than this. Moreover, the OP risks TATA finding this thread out and charging him for the ECU!

[Raghu M]

And we bash TATA left right and center for their poor service. If they had turned down the customer and cancelled the warranty as the engine/ECU had been meddled with, we would be asking the OP to file a case against TATA. First, I do not want to take sides but when the OP was asked if he was lying about the codes being removed by TATA, he should have walked away. I don't get this thing about ECUs being tuned on brand new vehicles. You buy a car, it's powerful enough and you still want to get it tuned. Everyone has their preferences, I understand but these tunes are always a hit or a miss. Any geek with a laptop can claim to do this job but it actually needs a lot of skill. It's just like the multiple hair transplant clinics that have mushroomed all over the country. It's a complicated procedure but everyone claims they can do it with ease.

Originally Posted by ABHI_1512

For whatever is written in this thread till now, one thing is clear- the tuner at least has the galls to come back here and present his side of the story (factual, right or wrong is for another discussion) whereas the OP has gone into online limp mode !! One thing that we all agree here- OP is extremely lucky to have got the ECU replaced under warranty.

Thinking of tuning a car under warranty is itself fraught with dangers, and to admit it on a public forum like TeamBhp is probably the height of ignorance. The very existence of this thread and its title should be a reminder of what not to do with a vehicle under warranty !!

Can't agree more with you. Why would you even want to tune an engine during warranty period and go back to the dealer to get it fixed is beyond my understanding!

[wooka]

Originally Posted by Engine_Roars

I am assuming here that somehow Tata Service Center did not get into the root cause of the issue which is "TUNING". Had they gotten into it, I am sure they would have saved TATA some money. This was an unfair deal for TATA. Weirdly, the only entity that suffered a major financial hit was TATA out of the 3 parties involved & TATA was not even there when ECU was smoked by a third party in gross violation of Warranty Terms & Conditions.

Yeah bud I'm not so sure. What's with all the faults in the OBD reader before the fact?
Haven't we had ECUs replaced by other OEMs in the past? It's just a computer. The most expensive computers give up, best of all in a hot area like the engine compartment with tremendous thermal stresses on a very thin layer of conductor (PCB traces are increasingly fragile with every process shrink, to all my IT peers out there, you know what's up.)

Originally Posted by Raghu M

Can't agree more with you. Why would you even want to tune an engine during warranty period and go back to the dealer to get it fixed is beyond my understanding!

Cause when I have spoke with system designers they've said engines with different 'reserved' states of tune can do with a bit of a jump (spelt, 'remap') without any issues.

Hey look at the 130 HP thar. Same engine - > xuv and scorpio at 50% more power. Still, 170 - 180 should be fine even with the smaller turbo on the Thar. I've been told it's all good. So I will tune, warranty or no warranty.

[Pennant1970]

All other considerations set aside, there's a bad taste left about what OP actually did or didn't do. The original post asking for help, the post blaming a tuner and then quite blithely saying Tata replaced the ECU under warranty - all this reeks of subterfuge.

Unlike what someone else commented above, not many people would be comfortable with not informing the dealer about the unsuccessful tuning attempt. I certainly wouldn't. If Tata honoured the warranty despite the information, kudos. But OP's overall behaviour even on this forum raises red flags. Looks like he pulled a fast one on Tata and now is trying to wash his sins on this forum. Unfortunate.

[If OP did indeed inform Tata and the company still honoured the warranty, I apologise for my disbelief without reservation.]

[Mtv]

You were made whole by the automaker while it being no fault of theirs. I would've thanked my dumb luck and ran. It won't take long for someone from Tata to chance upon this thread and identify your car, as OEM's are known to follow threads on teambhp. They might make it even harder for the rest to claim warranty over honest issues by leaving similar problems up to the dealer's discretion.

I've had two of my cars tuned by RC, as have few of my friends. We were met with support and professionalism from them and have had thus no complaints.

[barefeetdriver]

I want to see a detective movie made about this whole thing. Whotunnedit.

[HMV]

Originally Posted by Pennant1970

If OP did indeed inform Tata and the company still honoured the warranty, I apologise for my disbelief without reservation.

Below information from the OP’s post tells that he probably didn’t inform them about it.

After almost a week of diagnosing the fuel line, fuel tank pipes, sensors, and gearbox grounding and calling in 2 senior Tata Engineers, they stumbled upon the ECU.
They found out that my ECU was smoked and had an open circuit.

There are several missing facts from both the OP and the tuner (why the engine wasn’t in limp mode BEFORE the tune? They instead doubt Tata for replacing the ECU without raising any issues. Tata replacing the ECU probably saved the tuner a lot of headaches, if they cared for their customers, that is.). This is one of the many reasons my car will never see such shady businesses. Ultimately, Tata had to bear the cost of others’ incompetence and shadiness, and ironically, still get doubted by those who ruined a fully working unit in the first place.

Originally Posted by Rohanf12

How would Tata so readily replace the ECU that too under warranty within a week time ?

Originally Posted by Rohanf12

It is a mystery how the customer got warranty of a tuned ecu. A company will always check no matter what the circumstances.

Classic case of passing the blame to a third party. Customer blames the tuner, tuner blames the manufacturer.

[Born 2 Be Wild]

There are always 3 sides to a story - their story, your story and the true story! Having owned a Tata vehicle, no matter how much people bash Tata for everything, Tata is very proactive in replacing things under warranty. They are usually as lost about their product's problem as the customer is. Another saying goes "you play with fire, chances are you get burnt." Initially, I got an RD piggyback ECU on my Safari Dicor. It worked flawlessly, but the turbo failed later on and one injector went kaput. Repaired it and sold it. Then, on my first-gen Fortuner, I again bought the RD box and the thing shorted on a highway run when I was just about to overtake. The car went into limp mode and then, was as dead as a dodo! Pulled over safely to the side of the road, took the contraption off and replugged the harness into the ECU and boom - the truck was back to life!

Now, I did not start ranting about the product going kaput. I knew and was well aware of the risks involved with tinkering with an OEM system. After this episode, I decided to always get a remap and going forward, I got my remaps done from Quantum Tuning. Touchwood, there have been no issues till now. However, if something goes kaput, I am well aware of what I have gotten myself into. The OP should thank his lucky stars that Tata changed the ECU. 110% sure they themselves did not check it to see if it was tampered with. Let's be honest, no one here would go to the OEM and say, "boss listen, I got my car remaped and now it's gone kaput. Can you pretty please help me?" 10/10 companies will void whatever warranty is left on the car.

This simply looks like someone out with a vendetta. Not taking any sides, but at least, the tuner did share his version. OP has vanished. I just hope someone at Tata does not see this thread or the OP might just have an "oops a daisy!" moment . Had it been me, I would have been as discreet as Jason Bourne and quietly gone about my business, thanked Tata, probably given a small gift as a token of appreciation to my service advisor, treated the staff to some tea and samosa and been on my merry way with a new ECU but heck, that's just me. It's very easy to bash someone on social media and we, as users, are actually not in a position to say who is right and who is wrong, but just draw an inference from whatever info we get to read. I feel the mods should close this thread unless the OP has something more to add to it.

[rahulcmoulee]

If this happened to me, I would just thank my lucky stars that the ECU which was damaged through no fault of Tata was replaced under warranty by them. There could be repercussions if someone from Tata does end up going through this thread as it is garnering a lot of attention. There were mistakes made by both the OP and the tuner but Tata has ended up paying the price.

[Neversaygbye]

One of the best things about Tata service is how easily they honour warranty, no questions asked (speaking as a Tata owner for over 2 decades). Sometimes one doesn't even have to ask - if the part is under warranty the SA will tell you that there was a problem and they have changed it under warranty.

Now, thanks to just one person (the OP), that might change. If I was Tata Motors, I might start investigating each and every warranty case and put the onus on the buyer to prove that they did not fiddle with the part under question. I will really not blame them if they do this after reading this thread (it has been empirically proved that Tata follows TBHP). It is really unfortunate that the OP is getting away scot free with such obvious subterfuge. Just like 9/11 punished the 99% lawful travellers through TSA and what not, this will just make life more difficult for all the other Tata owners who are making warranty claims.

I am actually amazed that the OP exposed his subterfuge so openly - probably the instinct to name and shame the tuner made him throw caution to the wind. Regarding the actual issue, it has already been demonstrated that the OP's words don't mean anything, and I suspect the tuner is not being completely forthright either. So its best if the mods close this thread as it's definitely not adding any further value.

[gharika]

If the ecu error codes were not related to engine (abs, doors, bulbs is what I see) why did it go into limp mode afterwards?
If the vehicle was working fine with these error codes before tune, why did it go into limp mode afterwards?

Owner is lucky to get a replacement from Tata, Tuner is not professional at handling work beyond his skills.

[Rohanf12]

Hello guys,

Do note as I have mentioned before, the owner did mention his car used to get check engine light intermittently and also possibly might have gone into limp mode at times before.

Yes, the car came to us without limping, maybe it was just one of those times when his car was not limping or had any lights on the dash, but a scanner won't lie and it showed us that the errors were active. Errors showed immobilizer issues and other security errors active.

Upon investigation today at TATA ASS, they confirmed that the car had a faulty immobilizer and ECU at some odd 4,000 km on the ODO, so they had booked a warranty replacement.

As always we have proof of this on a recorded phone conversation.

So this entire fiasco is just a defaming act. Nothing else.

[AbhiJ]

Originally Posted by Lobogris

So why begrudge an instance where the person got lucky?

Begrudge : envy (someone) the possession or enjoyment of (something)

Originally Posted by AbhiJ

I am happy for you that you car is fixed, but ideally one should take responsibilities for their actions.

Where do you see the envy? I am genuinely happy for him, but I think what he did was morally in the grey area.

To me, the warranty is a contract. The manufacturer promises to fix errors in their product if the break down over a certain period. We as consumers promise to maintain our cars as per manufacturers maintainence cycle and keep the vehicle and its primary systems unmodified.

As an automobile enthusiast, I personally choose to side with fairness / honesty. Disclaimer: I havent owned a tata vehicle in over a decade, neither am i associated with them in anyway.

I am from Kolkata, and I got my car tuned last year as well (different tuner), and its a risk I chose to take. I am willing to eat the losses if any.