my understanding is this...........

if your "mapping" a car for the first time then its a 'map', revisiting a car that has previously been remapped is a "tweak" depending on how different its been modded...........

 

This thread is a joke, nowadays Tooners are everywhere. Everyone wants to be a tooner. I have seen so many bad maps made by people like the topicstarter it gets annoying. Please stop tooning other people's cars. Do it on your own car only. You get what you pay for in the end.

 

Is it supposed to be some sort of suprise game then
And !
It's good to see and I hope he can answer my questions
It doesn't matter to me who pops up from where
Like I said straight up honesty not the usuall sn bs

 

Thanks for your contribution on this thread

 

If you think car mappers are expensive then you have never worked in the oil industry.
People are specialists in what they do.
I work on gas turbines amongst numerous other complex pieces of equipment in the oil industry I know a lot about them and the potential issues that come with them. This makes me a specialist in my field and justifys my wages
Mappers map cars and that's there specialist field. You pay for there knowledge and experience and proved track record these guys have.
But to make a sweeping statement such as "THE GREAT MAPPING RIP OFF" is a joke £300 won't get you much in a lot of industrys let alone a software expert/competent mechanic

 

The option is out there for people to map the car themselves, or use a part-time mapped who will be cheaper.

However, most people will choose to pay the £300 (or £150 for tweeks) and have a pro-mapper do it, and surely that says something? They know they can get it cheaper, but choose not to.

 

Here we go ,,, please read , I only do my own car , tell a lie I'm gonna do a mates too , because he knows my car and has followed what I've done from the beginning
I repeat I do not want to be a full time / payed mapper
Do you not read mate , it's my hobby for my car ,
I've no intentions of doing other cars

So what can't you understand ?

Read the thread again mate

 

Perhaps if you had taken the approach of this post above (context wise) initially, you may not have had the response you ended up receiving.

If you have run your own business, you should know more than most.... costs for a job are more than just what the customer see's being delivered.

It's entirely up to the business how they set out their model and it's entirely up to the customers who they use. It's a simple process that appears to work in my opinion..... most of the time. lol

 

Yes mate I do know , I used to work in the aircraft industry doing combustion cans , blades , and various bits for turbine engines and the odd airframe part
But we are not talking oil or aircraft are we
So it's no comparison whatsoever Is it

 

so if you go to a garage to have repairs,the labour is charged by the hour,would you prefer the mapping to be also charged by the hour?

 

..

 

Prior to me mapping my own cars (> 4 years ago), Andy forrest tweaked my boost profile after I fitted a 3 port boost solenoid, I'm sure he only charged me £50. Subaru charge £80 per hour labour and think it's acceptable to charge £200 for an oil and filter change. I don't think mappers pricing is over the top at all.

On the other point raised here, I think it would be great if SN could create an Engine Management Sub forum for the hobbyists and the curious alike.

 

i agree,ill be leaving my mapping sessions to the experienced.

 

Disappointed with you Paul. So very disappointed.

Should have stayed incognito for longer.

 

I can't really agree mate yes costs do mount up
But for £150 a tweak it's too much
To some on here that seems a joke
But to others , £150 here and there soon mounts up
Some guys on here are running on a tight budget and having to pay somtimes as much again for for a remap as the exhaust they've fitted is not right
And before everyone jumps up and says well if you can't afford it don't play
No that's not the answer ,how about instead they are charged a couple hours reasonable labour as opposed to a fixed price £150 , £300 or whatever
I really don't know what response I'd get mate
Some will think *** others will think I'm gonna look into this
Everyone's gonna have there own opinion and so they should

 

If someone wants to come to me for an Ecutek map, or an Apexi PowerFC map both of which will hopefully be straightforward, they are paying for MY time. Unfortunately they will be competing for my time with someone that want's a complicated map from scratch on a MoTeC or a Syvecs, so they will pretty much pay the same rate.

The other thing that you completely ignore is that you're assuming that the map you're going to work on is correct in the first place. I've been had over so many times by this I will not charge a map on the basis of a "tweak" unless I have previously mapped it. Far to many times I've quote £150 for example to map for say a turbo and headers swap only to find what was already on there was a complete mess. In the case of Ecutek the system is deliberately set up so that you can't download someone elses Ecutek maps.

If it takes me less time I generally charge less, if I quote a fixed price the job turns into a mare, I very rarely charge more. Although I have base maps, EVERY car is different, and on the rare occasion a base map is very good on another car I still go through motions and spend the time on the car. If my base maps are good, it's because I do have a lot of experience and knowledge and that's what people are paying for, and I've done my fair share of nightmare jobs to spot them as they come up in future and not cause a massive headache. Again, customers are paying for that and the more time spent actually mapping the car and the less time spend problem solving the better the resulting map is.

Then there is a question of support. Some people don't realise or even care, but most people will then be back for ongoing technical support (that I believe they are entitled to) from their mapper on a variety of things besides the full power running of their car. Some people don't make enough of this, some people take the pith a little, but overall it is another chunk of time that will go out essentially unbilled.

Then there is comeback. I have mapped cars that have been back to the original mapper a few times and is still not right, or wasn't right and the mapper wants more money to fix his own work. So in the event that something isn't right, a proper mapper should provide this backup, and it eats into our time regardless of blame there is only so much time to go around.

With regards to cost, I would say I have spent £15k on software, much of it Ecutek and licenses on top. That gets me support, which although rarely used is sometimes essential to get the job done especially if the car is a new revision and something in the map definition isn't quite right, or there is a new function in the OEM that needs some control over where we didn't have to in the past. I have spend about £60k on rolling road and install and could really do with spending another £20k to reinstall it proper in a new cell in my new premises.

My insurance for the year is about £4500, it used to be more like £7500. Up until last year I was paying £48k per year in rent, rates and service charge.

I will consume on average one laptop every 2 years before it literally falls a part or has spurious errors that just start costing too much to sort.

I will spend abut £2k per year on more software to support new cars/manufacturers or changes to interface types.

I have purchased interfaces for GEMS, Apexi, MoTeC (x3), Ecutek (many), Openport cables, 12v laptop charges, but I'm still on my first LM-1 wideband I bought about 7 years ago although it's had about 3 leads, 2 serial leads, 3 exhaust probes (one melted on a dyno!) and about 30 wideband sensors in that time (thats over£2k in total spend on measuring AFR over the years).

I have home made det cans, Phormula electronic det cans, inner ear ear phones and have gone through about 5 pairs of ear defenders that have been lost or melted.

I don't map a massive number of cars these days, but some out there are chewing through 3-4 a day quit often, some turn cars round very quickly and the results reflect the lack of time and loving care (best way of putting it).

I am quite happy that I'm not ripping people off myself, although I've seen enough work that doesn't reflect the same value for money, some from now defunct tuners, some from "a mate that does remaps" and some from people that probably were just having a bad day or bad luck.

I started by mapping my own car. But it was Eproms and I wrote my own program to download the OEM maps, made my own interface, my own rom boards (albeit from someone elses schematic) and pulled out a load of the maps from simply "seeing" them in the hex. I made my own eprom programmer (from a kit) and manually split the rom files to fit on two eproms with odd and even bytes. What a hero I was! But really I was just getting into it and learning as I went, but I do have an engineering background, I did actually go to Loughborough Uni and studied Automotive engineering. I tuned racking kart engines when I was 15 and rebuilt my first bike engine when I was 16.

After seeing "Show me your money" I realise I should have just become a plumber or a drain man, us mappers are small fry compared to those guys when it comes to charging.

After writing all that I'm seriously considering putting my prices up!

 

Maybe an option

 

I'm not talking about the actual mechanical parts I'm talking about the control side. Where one adjust the like of fuelling, ignition etc to make the thing start, accelerate and run (sound familiar ) almost sounds like mapping for a second there

 

The 'Trigger's broom' of widebands?

 

Sounds like a good idea.

 

Not quite, the actual control box is original, and it looks like it too!

 

Fair point - that is the difference to the anaolgy.

 

What I don't understand is, if you can't afford a measly £150 for a map tweak maybe you should be owning an Impreza as it's common knowledge that they are expensive to run.

I know it's not that hard to get a map to work yourself but to get it just right is an art form.

 

Someone earlier in the thread stated that "most of us will have had remaps" -
well it's quite common knowledge that mine has never been remapped and it possibly never will be.

It's does ok for what it is though.

If I was to ever get it remapped, I'll keep my own counsel on this, there's only 2, maybe 3, people I would let anywhere near my car with a Laptop.

I've got the greatest of respect for Paul, however his choice of hats can be somewhat dubious. I could have done with a hat like his on Sunday though, as I think I mentioned to him. He doesn't know who I am though.

A while back, I found an old thread on here. It was about cracking the early ECU's. Pavlo, Wallis, Scott T and some others were involved in the thread, I "think" John Banks, (he's posted earlier in this thread) may have also been involved, Paul may be able to confirm? John's currently involved in the EcuTek development for the R35 GTR, IIRC.

Without the likes of them, back then, there's every chance that there would have been no OS remapping in the UK, and there would certainly be no remapping of the early Ecu's coming up on 20 years of the Impreza.

Rip off? No. Expensive? Yes. You're paying for expertise!

I witnessed first hand Paul tweaking the map on the Banana on Sunday, that helped Steven crack the 8's quarter mile. That's the sort of expertise that's being charged for!

 

Geek lol

 

we're not all rich like you.
some of us are pikeys

 

Bloody minted pikeys!

 

Ive said from the start I'm not doubting any of the skills of mappers here
It seems you're not only paying for the skill you're having to pay because the next bloke on the job sheet is a big payer and player ?
Doesn't bode well for cheaper pricing does it ?

 

They mock the hat whilst peering though their "panda eyes" sunburnt face as the rain trickles down their neck!

 

So you're saying the pricing is based on your time , you could be dropping off a more lucrative job
And it's also in place to cover nightmare scenarios
So in your opinion is billy whizz ,who's fitted a de cat to his standard car paying for his small tweak or a combination of everyone else's jobs
Hence he's bundled under the same umbrella
And don't forget I did put obviously if you've got rr your prices will be higher
How about the man in a van mappers that are doing 2/3 cars a day at £2/300 a time
Do you not think folks are getting short changed ?
Sorry to put you on the spot ,