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PSA: Pumaspeed Possibly Bricked my ECU with their MAXD tune

33K views 15 replies 13 participants last post by  Octane 
#1 ·
Hi Guys, long time lurker and owner of Euro spec ST180 in China and first post.

I would just like to throw out a PSA (Public Service Annoucement) for Pumaspeed's MAXD out tune. After flashing Stage 1+, I started having issues with the car such as low boost, erratic idle, huge loss of power, etc. Flashing back to stock yielded the same result. Took it to Ford dealership for diagnostics.

After 3 months without a car, and a brand new ECU later. The car was fixed. I was told that the data was abnormal and affected the ECU hardware. Ford also found out that my ECU was flashed along with time and date of each flash and has threatened to void remainder of my warranty should they find my ECU flashed again.

Therefore, I decided to contact Tony of Pumaspeed who offered to tune the new ECU free of charge, but not surprisingly, he has avoided responsibility of the original ECU and claimed that it was faulty from factory (Original ECU has seen 48,000km without any issues before the flash). He claimed no guarantee that it'll happen again, and despite being confident that there is nothing wrong with his tunes, he will not offer any compensation should my new ECU get bricked again from the flash. I decided not to continue with Pumaspeed and asked for partial refund in which he refused and reiterated that there's nothing wrong with his tunes. He is no longer replying my emails now.

So be careful if you are deciding to go the Pumaspeed MAXD tune route.

More details in this forum here: No boost?
 
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#2 ·
Sorry to hear about the ECU. Whether it's Pumaspeed directly at fault or not, that's a rather terrible situation.

I run the pumaspeed stage 1+ and have yet to run into trouble. That said, I'm slowly beginning to regret going with them. They are god awful at customer support and providing any information beyond 'here's your MAP'.

Tony provided me with 6 files (ordered the 2R package, which is actually only meant to contain 5) and being rather poorly named I simply sought a bit more in-depth info into each (Stage 1 and 1+ were clear, the two Stage 2 and two Stage 2R files were not). His last and only response (ignoring follow up questions) was:

2r maps-Early version
Late version
That's it
Try them all but forget normal stage 2
About as clear as mud that was, and silence from then on after. They were also non-communicative regarding their software expiring on the 1/1/2016. Another member on this forum has contacted them regarding his supplied MAPs, particularly after running an MD5 check on them and there being no difference between Stage 1 and 1+ or Stage 2+ and 2R. Silence as well (the last I'd heard anyway).

After this story as well, I'm definitely considering cutting my losses and going with another tuner once I implement further mods. It's clear any help from these mugs won't be forthcoming with any ease.
 
#3 ·
And just to add my 2 cents worth. I went Pumaspeed stage 2 and then 2+. I could not load the maps at the start because the program would not run with win 8 so I had to find another PC. After finding another PC and loading the stage file 2 (95 RON) the engine starting pinging the first time I put my boot into it and this was running 98 RON in the tank.
Later after changing the turbo, EFR 6258 (Peron P3xx kit) I was in need of a new tune. I contact Pumaspeed because I already had the hardware and software so it made sense to ask what they could do. Tony said it would be no problem and went on say their mapping was superior to anything else available. He gave me the contact details of the MAXD tuner, who also said no problem. 3 weeks later, no files and the tuner simple stop returning my emails where I was asking when am I getting my tune?.
What pissed me off the most was getting stuffed around for 3 weeks when the Tuner should of told me right at the start he can not help with a tune to suit that turbo.
 
#4 ·
We had puma for two weeks on our shared car (my red one) and it caused huge issues with power loss. Then my partner got us Bluefin stage 1 and it is not as aggressive but is holding its own with no issues.
 
#6 ·
I saw that post as well. It may have been on another forum? This discussion lends support to my decision to go with Mountune and its warranty friendly tune. It may not be as aggressive as some others, but it is dead on reliable, and the customer support is peerless.
 
#7 ·
For what its worth, I have been nothing but happy with the sales and support of the Superchips Bluefin product, cannot recommend highly enough.

The stage 1 tune is strong and progressive, and the torque increase is brilliant.

Suggest that if you want to go another reflash, use this company....
 
#11 · (Edited)
Bluefin and mountune are very stable overall and anything I asked bluefin about got answered right away with data to support it. Including if I got the mountune down pipe would it function with my stage1 and they looked into and replying with," we trust mountune and they make quality hardware which we make our tunes compatible with because our customers matter and using the best hardware goes hand in and with tuning a fast reliable car." They offered to send updates as part of the ongoing support. For me this sold it as they were honest and could explain every aspect of how the ecu/CEL could be tweaked safely to function with hardware changes
 
G
#13 ·
Official Pumaspeed Message.
We have now sold over 1000 of these maxd out tuning boxes for the Ford ECOBOOST APPLICATION and this ECU failure is the only ECU failure we have been made aware of.
As this ECU failure was not 100% attributed to the maxd box (which is also used by other Fiesta tuners) we can only assume the ecu in question was faulty or indeed abused in some way with water ingress.

The customer in question had this device for many months before he tried to blackmail us into contributing towards a new ECU , we have many many emails relating to this situation and would never submit to a blackmail threat.

The Plain simple fact is this... if the box programmed a car incorrectly, the moment the car was attempted to be started afterwards the car would fail to start.
reasons for this could be communications interrupted or wrong firmware file uploaded (all these are user error)


There has always been a remedy for a non starting issue or a user programming error , a recovery file to put the car back to operational can be emailed out and we can easily Teamviewer session directly to your own Laptop.

I repeat, this is not a fault with the tuning box or system this could be a simple user error or a fault on the Original Ford PCM from bad manufacture or simple water ingress.
1000 Ford Boxes Sold
18000 global Boxes Sold for all BMW VW Audi vehicles with no reported issues like this.
 
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