Kia Sportage 2.0 CRTD 138bhp 6 speed

[TopCat1]

Hi,
I have just returned from a tour of europe with my Senator Indiana MTPLM 1500kg and Sportage. The car towed well with no hicups but I found it a little short on power with some of the hills I encountered. I am therefor considering a chip upgrade to give me a bit more power and lift the BHP and torque a bit. Does anyone have any experience of such 'chipping'. did you find it worth the money and did it deliver the performance improvement you were looking for? I have seen a company called 'Chip Express' on the web who seem to have lots of good testimonials from seemingly happy buyers. Any advice and recommendations would be greatly welcomed.
many thanks

 

[Oldsalt49]

Hey TC!!

When I had a 2.2 CRDi Hyundai Santa Fe I actually bought a chip box. Before fitting it, I spoke to Hyundai customer services, they told me the warranty would be void if the upgrade was involved with damaging the engine. Hence I never fitted it. Some chip upgrades have been blamed for burning the tops of pistons away and damaging fuel injectors. Consider very carefully.
OS

 

[forestgump]

i have the tuccson same car it tows my 1500kg van great but the low gear box is great for towing ,

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Top Cat,

It is not realistic to expect an outfit weighing close to double the unladen weight of the solo car to have anything like the same performance as the solo car. 6th gear on an incline may not be reasonable, so some additional gear changing is not unreasonable.

Any sort of retuning of the engine to produce more power/bhp or torque alawys runs the risk of putting more stress or strain on varius componenst in the engine, drive train and suspension, which may lead to premature failures. The cooling systems may not be able to cope with additional heat the enginge will produce. In some cases poor retuning can lead to MOT emmisions failures.
Significant power gains may need corresponding upgrades to some components such as clutches.

All retuning must be reported to your insurers so they can reassess the insurance risk. Retuning can affect the warrantable status of some cars.

There is a general consensus that all the after market 'chips' you plug into the wiring harness are more prone to future problems as they basically corupt the signals from engine sensors and fool the engine managmant system into changing fuel delivery. A significant number of people find that such chips either do not make an over all improvment or they cause other problems and they end up removing them.

The other type of enhancement which involves a rebuid of the engine managements performence map, need to be done by a competent mapper, and may provide changed performance.

You don't get something for nothing, if you make significant increases in power then you are very likely to get corresponding increases in fuel consumption.

Check with the car manufacture, there may be an approved conversion they can offer which is guranteed to work and will not affect the cars warranty.

 

[JonnyG]

Hi,
I have just returned from a tour of europe with my Senator Indiana MTPLM 1500kg and Sportage. The car towed well with no hicups but I found it a little short on power with some of the hills I encountered. I am therefor considering a chip upgrade to give me a bit more power and lift the BHP and torque a bit. Does anyone have any experience of such 'chipping'. did you find it worth the money and did it deliver the performance improvement you were looking for? I have seen a company called 'Chip Express' on the web who seem to have lots of good testimonials from seemingly happy buyers. Any advice and recommendations would be greatly welcomed.
many thanks

just looked at their website, why would you wont to pay nearly £400 for a tunning box, and having looked at their figurers for a couple of cars i know pretty well, then i wouldn't bother.
£400 is remapping country, and firstly you should ask KIA if there are any remap tunings that don't invalidate warranty, alot of car makers do actually let you do this, hyundia might not be one of them.
Also look up any KIA forums to see if there are any decent recommended remap companies that users use.But dont go paying £400 for a chip.
If you really do feel the need to go for a tunning box then try him. on the link below...Save £220 and know that he built and tested them here in the UK and will give advice at every avenue.......
http://tuning-diesels.com/index2n.htm

 

[seth1]

Ive expressed my feelings on this issue before whether right or wrong.I had a remap done maybe 4 years ago on the car we,ve just parted with.Admittedly it went very well afterwards but it also went well before,never really needed it.But it also blacked smoked and diesel knocked badly to the point were i was worried.needless to say it went back to standard.
Maybe i was just unlucky but the company i choose seemed very good,well advitised,good reports.Seems they were just good at pressing keys on a laptop because they had no diesel knoledge at all.
There seems to be plenty of satisfied customers,so some must be ok as Jonny says go off a recommendation,check with the dealer for a dealer or factory upgrade,I did the same thing for the latest car i bought for the wife.There was a dealer upgrade so we had it fitted,turns out its the same module ive been offering for years for industrial diesel engines.
Im still deciding whether its an improvement or not.It now seems to never "kick down"like it did and no matter what gear its in(auto)it seems to get an almighty rush of momentum but never "kick down"
Just beware of cheap boxs which are a bit crude but even these do give a rise in power its just a matter whether their safe or not.

 

[TopCat1]

Thanks guy's,

Thanks for your views guys. I think I will leave well alone and accept the towing performance as it is. After all, I was as fast as any lorry on the uphill runs so It can't be that bad can it. Just seems slow as I'm used to 2.7 litres but due to running costs when not towing have decided to down size.
Top Cat

 

[Mikey_74]

I have an 05 plate Hyundai Santa fe towing a twin axle 1600kg van, my Hyundai is the same engine as your Tucson but I have a different turbo and I don't have a 6speed gearbox, I found my car very under powered when towing, so I tried a tuning box, when Solo I didnt really notice a difference, but when I put the van on the back what a difference!!! The car is still under powered but no where near as bad as it was, yes chipping is a very crude way of tuning a modern Diesel engine (it simply ups the pressure in the fuel rail) and when driven hard they do produce black smoke (unburnt fuel) from the exhaust, but it's a very effective cost effective way of producing more power, my last car was remapped, and this is a much bettter method of tuning, but where do you draw the line, as soon as I can afford to pay the £250 for remapping without having anything more important to spend it on then I'll have my car remapped, but in the mean time these chips are excellent.
I'm sure we've all read horror stories about what these tuning modules, and yes when things go wrong it tends to be costly, but these are set within the parameters of the injectors, so I'm of the feeling if your engine has a weakness these tuning modules will seek that weakness out, but for every horror story there's a 100 happy customers