[Bavarian Made]

I am in the market to get a tune for my car and I'm torn between these two. I was seconds away from pulling the trigger on a Cobb tune a few weeks ago, but then I took my car in and got new turbos because of the wastegate rattle. This put into perspective how expensive these cars are to maintain. Thankfully I am under CPO, so I was covered and extremely happy. I still have a while on CPO and don't want to void it with a tune. This is why I have yet to pull the trigger on the Cobb. I was thinking about going Dinan because the dealer I go to is a Dinan dealer and they re assured me multiple times that Dinan will keep my CPO and I wont worry about any warranty headaches.

I hate the fact that Cobb outperforms the Dinan tune for less than half the price, but the peace of mind might force me on to the Dinan.

What do you guys think? I know BMW can pull the codes from a Cobb even if I uninstalled it before taking it in for service, so I am in la la land!

Any advise would be great.

[sickem]

I'm actually not sure how it works if you get dinan stuff on a used car in terms of warranty. Remember that is not a BMW warranty but one dinan offers so it IS different. Just search, there are countless threads on this decision point. The way I see it you can pay an enormous premium upfront for inferior performance (dinan) or get much better performance elsewhere and POSSIBLY have an issue or two here or there down the road you might have to address. Personally I don't think the peace of mind is worth a 200-300% premium...

[Jace_91]

Originally Posted by sickem

I'm actually not sure how it works if you get dinan stuff on a used car in terms of warranty. Remember that is not a BMW warranty but one dinan offers so it IS different. Just search, there are countless threads on this decision point. The way I see it you can pay an enormous premium upfront for inferior performance (dinan) or get much better performance elsewhere and POSSIBLY have an issue or two here or there down the road you might have to address. Personally I don't think the peace of mind is worth a 200-300% premium...

And your paying that premium, when even if you do have an issue you could uninstall the cobb and more than likely still receive warranty service.

[douwe22]

Originally Posted by Jace_91

And your paying that premium, when even if you do have an issue you could uninstall the cobb and more than likely still receive warranty service.

+1, you mod, you pay, just bring your car back to stock if you want warranty repairs.

[oldblue]

If you are concerned about warranty, especially cpo.

Search is your friend.

[ajsalida]

Originally Posted by oldblue

Search is your friend.

+1

[Dave W.]

If you get the Dinan now you'll most likely buy the Cobb later, paying twice.

[Jeff@TopGearSolutions]

You can remove your Cobb tune in about 10 minutes and go into the dealer for warranty work. That is what everyone does. Let us know if you have any more questions.

[Bavarian Made]

For big warranty claims, the dealer will pull the ecu data and will see the code for the tune. Am I right on this? If it hasn't been a problem I will be ordering the Cobb first think Tuesday morning.

[nafoo]

Look at the Dinan warranty. Pretty sure it doesn't cover cpo and only the first 4 years 50k.

[rader1]

Originally Posted by Jeff@topgearsolutions

You can remove your Cobb tune in about 10 minutes and go into the dealer for warranty work. That is what everyone does. Let us know if you have any more questions.

+1

Originally Posted by nafoo

Look at the Dinan warranty. Pretty sure it doesn't cover cpo and only the first 4 years 50k.

Thats right, Dinan only covers the original 4 year, 50K mile warranty. NO CPO.

FWIW, one of the biggest Dinan supporters on here is now reccomending people to NOT go with Dinan and go with Cobb.

Go with Cobb now or you'll be going with it later on and you'll have lost all that money spent on Dinan.

[BQTuning]

Correct, you will not loose your CPO with Dinan on your car. However though their is NO Dinan software warranty for CPO cars.

So in other words, if the fault is "Dinan software" related there is NO coverage.

Being that you are CPO, I would say get the Cobb...if something comes up later that you like you can always sell the Cobb being that it holds its value

[ragingpanda]

Originally Posted by BuraQ

Correct, you will not loose your CPO with Dinan on your car. However though their is NO Dinan software warranty for CPO cars.

So in other words, if the fault is "Dinan software" related there is NO coverage.

Being that you are CPO, I would say get the Cobb...if something comes up later that you like you can always sell the Cobb being that it holds its value

Didn't you used to have Dinan tune before? What made you switch?

[rader1]

Originally Posted by ragingpanda

Didn't you used to have Dinan tune before? What made you switch?

He wanted more power

[ragingpanda]

Originally Posted by rader1

He wanted more power

I was curious of how he would've known that they were down on power compared to other tunes besides word of mouth around here as there is a lot of Dinan bashing. Did he drive a different tuned car, raced a different tuned car or had different tunes on a dyno on the same day etc?

[BQTuning]

Originally Posted by ragingpanda

Didn't you used to have Dinan tune before? What made you switch?

It surved its purpose and then I had to move on due to the HP addiction

[old account 2]

Originally Posted by Bavarian Made

For big warranty claims, the dealer will pull the ecu data and will see the code for the tune. Am I right on this? If it hasn't been a problem I will be ordering the Cobb first think Tuesday morning.

There is the possibility to read events such as over-redline revs, abnormally high amounts of boost, WGDC, etc. In that regard, it really doesn't matter if the tune is currently on your car or if it was recently removed. See the recent Audi problems about the TD1 code for examples of this.

That being said, the equipment needed for these diagnostics isn't cheap. Most dealers don't have the ability, nor do they really care to. If you are dealing with BMW corporate for a serious mechanical failure, there is the possibility that they will go to such measures though. But like I said, at this point it is irrelevant whether you have or had a tune, the data is already there.

Typically, what the local BMW dealers will do is just update the DME. This would wipe out any aftermarket programming and replace it with the newest revision.

[nitehawk]

Cobb. Many Dinan users, including myself have made this transition. Had Cobb been available a few years ago, I would have just gone with them.
Dinan is a solid yet conservative tune. It leaves more to be desired and you WILL want more powaaaa later on!

[Brey335i]

Went from Dinan to Procede to COBB. Don't get Dinan.

[BQTuning]

Originally Posted by ragingpanda

I was curious of how he would've known that they were down on power compared to other tunes besides word of mouth around here as there is a lot of Dinan bashing. Did he drive a different tuned car, raced a different tuned car or had different tunes on a dyno on the same day etc?

I will have to say and give credit where it is due, member RnmEvo9 pretty much was the icing on the cake with me.

We never raced when I had Dinan, but when he pulled off a 12.3 ET @ 117 mph in his N54 135i on his first run, that did it for me.

Just when I was about to pull the trigger on buying the Cobb AP, I bumped into RENNtech, and with the support of my wife, I was sold to them.

What helped with all this is that I bought another car, 2012 Mini S Countryman, I was deeply worried about a tune being on the car, other than Dinan, and something going wrong then having no way to get to work.

Warranty paranoia is not an issue anymore for me. Twice I took my car in for servicing with RENNtech badge on the back of the car, the aFe Elite intake installed and I ran into not one issue. The shop techs looked and they looked hard.

As long as I dont have any direct mechanical problem that will point to any of these mods then I will be ok

All being said I have a very good relationship with the service center, and have an awesome SA

[benzy89]

Originally Posted by Bavarian Made

I still have a while on CPO and don't want to void it with a tune. I was thinking about going Dinan because the dealer I go to is a Dinan dealer and they re assured me multiple times that Dinan will keep my CPO and I wont worry about any warranty headaches.

I hate the fact that Cobb outperforms the Dinan tune for less than half the price, but the peace of mind might force me on to the Dinan.

Dinan might honor your warranty, but Dinan doesn't service your car under the CPO agreement, BMW does. And BMW will immediately void your warranty the minute they find out you have the Dinan tune in there. Also, you really won't find much love for anything Dinan-related on this forum.

Originally Posted by Bavarian Made

For big warranty claims, the dealer will pull the ecu data and will see the code for the tune. Am I right on this? If it hasn't been a problem I will be ordering the Cobb first think Tuesday morning.

The COBB has been designed to be undetectable, all you need to do is set the map back to Stage 0 / OEM DME. When you install the COBB on your car for the first time, it'll back up the stock DME settings so if you ever need to take your car for service, you can just reload those settings & it'll be like you never had a tune installed on the car. There are really 2 other major things I like about the COBB: it utilizes the strengths of the OEM DME (knock sense/knock prevention) and that if you choose to mod beyond just an intake + tune (while you're under CPO), and then after CPO decide to get DPs + FMIC, you can still use the COBB tune. All you need to do is download the appropriate maps for your mods, FREE of charge.

BTW --- Buy your COBB from Jeff@TopGearSolutions. Every month he runs a special deal & usually has the best pricing on 335i performance mods.

[old account 2]

The COBB has been designed to be undetectable, all you need to do is set the map back to Stage 0 / OEM DME. When you install the COBB on your car for the first time, it'll back up the stock DME settings so if you ever need to take your car for service, you can just reload those settings & it'll be like you never had a tune installed on the car.

See my post earlier. It isn't about the detection, but rather the extraordinary events such as over-revs, high boost, lean AFR's, etc. BMW has the same detection abilities that Audi has been using to record the TD1 codes. To this point, we haven't seen this being actively enforced the way Audi has. But regardless, returning the car back to stock doesn't make you suddenly undetectable.

Frankly, BMW had this ability before Audi even did, as the E46 M3's would record the highest RPM ever hit. This could technically be used to void a warranty in a valvetrain issue.

Luckily, BMW has not gone to measures to void warranties. But in the event that they do, the best bet is to remain stock. We have not had our software throw TD1's with the Audi platform, but I know of a few other tunes that have. It is irrelevant whether the tune is currently on the car or if it was removed. Detecting the presence of aftermarket software is very difficult and expensive (especially if you are in a mirror of OEM stock), and dealerships don't have the technology to do so. Detecting extreme events, on the other hand, is as simple as a DME scan.