Chipping The Engine.

[Tynesider]

I recently saw my brother in law have his engine electronically 'chipped' which I understand can be fitted to most modern cars.

To chip his 2000 model Audi A4 cost £48 for the chip and it took 10 min at best to fit it free.

To date he is now getting at least an additional 7 mpg more and has an approx additional 25 BHP increase.

[*]My question is can a chip be fitted to a June 2009 Avensis Tourer 2.0 Diesel?(new design model)

[*]What would the chip cost? as I understand it varies from car to car.

[*]What if any are the down sides or effects 'if any' on the engine wear and tear?

[*]Would it effect the insurance as you are modifing the engine?

If these chips are so good why do Toyota not fit them in the first place?

[Cyker]

Kingo sells (sold?) chip kits for D4D's, he can probably give more info tho'.

I went through a temptation phase with the chip kits, but my insurance quote went up by something like £150 (IIRC), which would probably outweigh the saving XD

It will increase engine wear slightly due to higher combustion pressures but diesel engines are built stronger than petrolengines so it will be a pretty miniscule thing.

One thing tho' - None of these powerboost kits will magically improve mpg or fuel economy; In fact it is easier to make it worse!

The only reason they can say that it will improve mpg is because of the torque boost; This enables YOU to save fuel by shifting earlier and running in higher gears without overloading the engine, but if you don't adjust your driving style accordingly it probably won't make much difference...

[Jamesbelfast]

I recently saw my brother in law have his engine electronically 'chipped' which I understand can be fitted to most modern cars.

To chip his 2000 model Audi A4 cost £48 for the chip and it took 10 min at best to fit it free.

To date he is now getting at least an additional 7 mpg more and has an approx additional 25 BHP increase.

[*]My question is can a chip be fitted to a June 2009 Avensis Tourer 2.0 Diesel?(new design model)

[*]What would the chip cost? as I understand it varies from car to car.

[*]What if any are the down sides or effects 'if any' on the engine wear and tear?

[*]Would it effect the insurance as you are modifing the engine?

If these chips are so good why do Toyota not fit them in the first place?

Impressive improvements for so little money. How has your brother calculated the extra mpg improvement and extra 25 bhp? What rolling road and/or dynanometer did he use?

[Daveyonthemove]

Your BIL has a VAG car which are very easy to tune, and very repsonsive to moderate ECU mapping.

You on the other hand, have a Toyota with a Denso ECU, which cannot be remapped.

However, you can buy a plug'n'play tuning box that will have the same effect, but you can expect to pay 8-10 times more than you BIL has done.

I got mine from Kingo, and it's been excellent and well worth the £375.