Rough 01
08-31-2010, 05:05 PM
I wanted to let everyone know about Tobz Performance Tuning in Denver, CO. The short story is that he told me that he would tune my Ralliart for $325 and that included an AMS boost pill. I paid him $325 and now I’m left with a stock ECU flash and a damaged clutch.
The story: (sorry it's so long but it took over 2 weeks to live through)
I researched online and found Tobz Performance Tuning as one of the only tuners in Denver that worked primarily on Mitsubishis. The shop specializes in EVO 8/9 and does work on X’s. He has good reviews from these forums as well. I talked to him about how I wanted a safe tune that wouldn’t damage my car yet make it run/perform better. After meeting him in person we setup a time to do the tuning.
I went in for the first day on the dyno. It lasted about 3 hours and at the end of the tune it had a lot of tq (+60 over stock run) and little gains in hp (+12hp over stock). I paid him $325 since everything appeared to work very well and I drove it home.
The next morning on my way to work the car went into limp mode 2 times. I think it was due to the fact it was 98* when it was tuned and 72* the next morning when I drove it. I called up Tobz and asked what is going on. He said to bring the car to his shop in 2 days and he would try to fix it. In the mean time I did research on what causes this. I found the DTC disable thread and thought to ask him about it when I went back in.
The 2 days go by and I bring the car in. He tries to make some adjustments and then the car would go into limp mode the instant you touched the gas. You couldn't go in reverse without it going into limp mode. I asked him if this was related the P1241 error and he said he had no idea what I was talking about. He said he needed to get the car back on the dyno to finish the tune but couldn't do it that day. He put the stock tune back on and turned down the boost due to the boost pill still installed. He told me to take it easy until he could put a real tune on it.
I asked him about the DTC codes before I left and he said he didn't know where they were for the Ralliart and to let him know if I could find them. It took me about 15 min of searching this forum to find them and send them to him. He called me back the next day and said that I could bring the car back to him the following day so he could disable the codes. When I did come back he simply disabled 5 DTC codes and said we needed to setup a new time to do the final tune. I asked if it would help if I put a SRI intake on. He said go ahead and get the parts and then we would do the final tune. I would just have to drive carefully until then since the tune wasn't 100% safe.
I got all the parts last Wednesday and called him Thursday morning. He was busy until Monday evening and that is when I went back to his shop. He hooked it up to the dyno and spent about 2 hours doing dyno runs on it every 5-15 minutes while he adjusted the tune. At the 2 hour mark the clutch appeared to be slipping and he said it was as good as he could get it. We tried to take it for a test drive and made it 1 block before a SES popped. We took it back the shop and pulled the codes. The codes were P1870, P1871 and he asked me to look up what they meant. I looked them up using my phone and said they were transmission and torque codes. He said he was giving up on my car and that he couldn't tune it.
At this point he started tell me that he was going to charge me for the 2hrs of "troubleshooting" he did on the dyno that day. I told him to flash it back to stock and I'm done. I had to drive home with a cone filter and a boost pill in on a stock tune since the factory boost pill was at home (I never thought I would need it).
I called him this morning and left a message asking for my money back since I spent $300 and ended up with a burnt clutch and a factory ECU. He called me back and left a message that stated he would not give me my money back and that he did a lot of "free work" for me. I'm assuming he meant the troubleshooting of the original tune that never worked. I had assumed that since I paid for a tune (not time it took) that his work at fixing what he broke was covered.
He also stated that the clutch was my fault for telling him what boost level to use. I know nothing about tuning and I showed him the posts from this forum about what boost levels others are using. I expected a professional to know what is safe and what isn't (that's why I paid him). It turns out mine is the first Ralliart he had ever seen. I think this is what led to 99% of all of the issues.
The bottom line is that he told me he gave up tuning my car, I have a stock ECU tune, I'm out $300 in labor, $100 in parts and my clutch's life has been greatly reduced. I haven't raced the car and I have never taken it to the track so the clutch was probably damaged by him doing repeated dyno runs trying tune a car that he didn't know enough about. He told me it's the price we pay for tuning cars but I don't think that is the case for my car.
I want other Ralliart owners to be aware of what I went through with my
The story: (sorry it's so long but it took over 2 weeks to live through)
I researched online and found Tobz Performance Tuning as one of the only tuners in Denver that worked primarily on Mitsubishis. The shop specializes in EVO 8/9 and does work on X’s. He has good reviews from these forums as well. I talked to him about how I wanted a safe tune that wouldn’t damage my car yet make it run/perform better. After meeting him in person we setup a time to do the tuning.
I went in for the first day on the dyno. It lasted about 3 hours and at the end of the tune it had a lot of tq (+60 over stock run) and little gains in hp (+12hp over stock). I paid him $325 since everything appeared to work very well and I drove it home.
The next morning on my way to work the car went into limp mode 2 times. I think it was due to the fact it was 98* when it was tuned and 72* the next morning when I drove it. I called up Tobz and asked what is going on. He said to bring the car to his shop in 2 days and he would try to fix it. In the mean time I did research on what causes this. I found the DTC disable thread and thought to ask him about it when I went back in.
The 2 days go by and I bring the car in. He tries to make some adjustments and then the car would go into limp mode the instant you touched the gas. You couldn't go in reverse without it going into limp mode. I asked him if this was related the P1241 error and he said he had no idea what I was talking about. He said he needed to get the car back on the dyno to finish the tune but couldn't do it that day. He put the stock tune back on and turned down the boost due to the boost pill still installed. He told me to take it easy until he could put a real tune on it.
I asked him about the DTC codes before I left and he said he didn't know where they were for the Ralliart and to let him know if I could find them. It took me about 15 min of searching this forum to find them and send them to him. He called me back the next day and said that I could bring the car back to him the following day so he could disable the codes. When I did come back he simply disabled 5 DTC codes and said we needed to setup a new time to do the final tune. I asked if it would help if I put a SRI intake on. He said go ahead and get the parts and then we would do the final tune. I would just have to drive carefully until then since the tune wasn't 100% safe.
I got all the parts last Wednesday and called him Thursday morning. He was busy until Monday evening and that is when I went back to his shop. He hooked it up to the dyno and spent about 2 hours doing dyno runs on it every 5-15 minutes while he adjusted the tune. At the 2 hour mark the clutch appeared to be slipping and he said it was as good as he could get it. We tried to take it for a test drive and made it 1 block before a SES popped. We took it back the shop and pulled the codes. The codes were P1870, P1871 and he asked me to look up what they meant. I looked them up using my phone and said they were transmission and torque codes. He said he was giving up on my car and that he couldn't tune it.
At this point he started tell me that he was going to charge me for the 2hrs of "troubleshooting" he did on the dyno that day. I told him to flash it back to stock and I'm done. I had to drive home with a cone filter and a boost pill in on a stock tune since the factory boost pill was at home (I never thought I would need it).
I called him this morning and left a message asking for my money back since I spent $300 and ended up with a burnt clutch and a factory ECU. He called me back and left a message that stated he would not give me my money back and that he did a lot of "free work" for me. I'm assuming he meant the troubleshooting of the original tune that never worked. I had assumed that since I paid for a tune (not time it took) that his work at fixing what he broke was covered.
He also stated that the clutch was my fault for telling him what boost level to use. I know nothing about tuning and I showed him the posts from this forum about what boost levels others are using. I expected a professional to know what is safe and what isn't (that's why I paid him). It turns out mine is the first Ralliart he had ever seen. I think this is what led to 99% of all of the issues.
The bottom line is that he told me he gave up tuning my car, I have a stock ECU tune, I'm out $300 in labor, $100 in parts and my clutch's life has been greatly reduced. I haven't raced the car and I have never taken it to the track so the clutch was probably damaged by him doing repeated dyno runs trying tune a car that he didn't know enough about. He told me it's the price we pay for tuning cars but I don't think that is the case for my car.
I want other Ralliart owners to be aware of what I went through with my