Spider Diesel Tuning Device Initial Review

[Dunkelmann]

First some history: I have a 2007 2 litre D4D Avensis Hatchback. When I bought it, it had the latest 2 litre diesel, that seemed to be a good improvement on the old 2 litre. I tried out a 2.2 litre but decided that I preferred the better fuel consumption of the 2 litre. I've had this car now since March 2007 and it has done about 18,000 miles. I've never had any trouble with it and has put in an average of 45mpg over its life. It seemed to have a reasonable punch but nothing earth shattering.

I became interested regarding the fitting of tuning devices designed to increase power and torque. This was in contrast to remapping the ECU by reprogramming it. Such devices fit between the ECU and the common rail. They have the advantage of being removable when the car goes into the garage.

I surfed the web and looked at a few but eventually decided on one from Diesel Tuner Systems. They appear to have been in the business a fair while and produce devices for other retailers. They appear to have two types of device, a fairly typical one http://www.dieseltuner.co.uk/ and an advanced one called the Spider.

The latter is more expensive and claims to have "adaptive" mapping - in other words if you put the foot down it gives you extra power, if you run normally it gives you better fuel economy. I read all the bumph on their web site and thought it looked interesting. It was about a £100 dearer than the best of the other types. As luck would have it they were offering £100 off (post VAT) so I thought I'd try it out. It cost £349.43 all in.

I ordered in early November. They said to allow 14 days for delivery. By the 14th day I was wondering where it was so I phoned them up. When I finally got through (remember this for later) they said something like: "We're really busy but I'll look it up and make sure it goes out today or tomorrow". Well it turned up over a week later.

Fitting was very easy. Pull off the engine cover and find the end of the common rail (the instructions have a picture so you can't go wrong). Disconnect the plug there. The device has a socket and a plug. Take the car plug and push it into the socket. Take the device plug and push it into the common rail. I may have plugs and sockets the wrong way round but it doesn't matter, there's only one way to fit it.

The device comes with a handy little bag to cover it and some cable ties. The most difficult and time-consuming part was deciding where in the engine compartment to fit it. The cable it comes with is a couple of feet long so I was able to fix it between the Battery and the air cleaner on the other side of the compartment.

The instructions are simple enough - switch on for 10 seconds and then start and run the engine for a minute while it adjusts itself to your car. This I did and nothing untoward happened - no changing of the revs. So I was ready for a test run. The instructions say that power will increase over the first fifty miles so I was well set to do a fifty mile round trip.

Off I set and immediately noticed an increase in responsiveness. I also noticed a "smoothness". Curiously enough I also noticed my diesel "buzz" noise that I get when accelerating seemed to be absent (maybe I was concentrating on other things).

My route took me along a 50mph area and a small town before I hit the open road. For a while I was tootling behind slower traffic but then I had a clear stretch after about 12 miles of driving. Here we go I thought and started accelerating hard from about 30mph.

I have a vague memory of getting to about 60mph and 4000 rpm when I felt as though I had hit an invisible cushion and heard a "whump" from the front. The car slowed down and pressing the accelerator seemed to have no effect. I coasted in to the side and switched off. As you can imagine I was somewhat shocked and thought I'd have to get out the RAC. I switched back on and was relieved that I had power again. However, the engine management warning light was on, the TRC (Traction Control) warning light was on and the VSC (Vehicle Stability) light was on. Switching on and off didn't make them go off.

I thought I'd see if the car was driveable. It was and I gently drove home. I made an appointment with my local Toyota garage after removing the device. After a couple of hours I had to pick up the wife from her work so I thought I'd try the car again. This time all warning lights were off. The car drove fine. The car drove fine the next day so I cancelled the garage.

I tried phoning Diesel Tuner Systems, but the phone was engaged but at last I got through to someone who said they were a trainee that had been there for 6 months. I explained my problem and he searched the computer system but was unable to help. He said he'd get someone to phone me. No one ever did. I tried phoning a couple of days later but got the usual engaged tone. So in the end I wrote them an email describing what had happened. I've still to get a reply to that.

I tried the same heavy acceleration without the unit to see if the fault was with my car. There was no problem, no matter how hard I tried. So the car is fine.

The instructions say that the unit can be adjusted when certain things happen. One of them was "Engine cuts out at high speed or full throttle". This seemed to be the closest to my situation so I thought, in the absence of any help from Diesel Tuner Systems, I'd try adjusting it myself.

The device can be opened up by removing a couple of screws from the end and extracting the circuit board. At the end of the board are three parallel rows of nine pins. The centre row is obviously a common earth or ground or 0V. The other rows are the "Rev range adjustment" and the "Power adjustment". There are two jumpers, one for the rev range and one for the power. My settings were: Power was pin 5, Rev was pin 8 (from left looking toward end of board).

With no help, I guessed that I was generating too much power so moved the power down to pin 4 (i.e. one pin reduction) and left the rev range as was.

It was time for another trial. I re-installed the unit, as if it was the first time, then went for a longer run. I must have done about 40 miles when I thought I'd try accelerating hard again. This time the same thing happened except that when I restarted after coasting to the side, the car was enveloped in clouds of whitish grey smoke, like thick fog. Eventually after about half a minute it cleared and I drove home gently again. The same warning lights were on but cleared after an hour being switched off.

By this time I was getting frustrated and phoned the company. I did eventually manage to get through to someone who at least seemed to know what he was doing. He said to reduce the power by one pin to pin 4 (which I explained I had done) and to reduce the rev range by two pins. He said it sounded as though the power was too much at a wrong place in the rev range (at least that is how I remember it). He also said that you shouldn't run the car hard for the first 50 miles. I explained that this was the first I had heard of that since there was nothing in the instructions. He made no comment or further explanation.

By this time I was wondering why I needed to adjust at all and why the unit wasn't sent out with appropriate settings for my car. After all, I had to order for a particular engine so presumably something is different for each engine/ECU. I asked him how many they had sold for my engine. He looked it up and said nine. I asked if they recorded any problems for each engine type and he said no, they only do it against the purchaser.

I've now put in the settings and only done modest acceleration. The car doesn't feel as good as it first did with the unit but slightly better than without it. Frankly I'm scared to give it heavy acceleration because I don't know what I'm doing to the car each time I screw up the ECU/TRC/VSC. Not only that, but it is an unsettling experience to have the ECU go on you at speed.

So where does this leave me?

1) Despite having read elsewhere that the after sales support is good, I am unimpressed. For me, the company was difficult to contact, did not answer an email and did not keep its promise of phoning back. At one point I got the feeling they had taken the phone off the hook. This is not acceptable.

2) The company took half as much time again on delivery than it said it would. It didn't contact me to say it would be longer than the stated two weeks. This is disappointing.

3) There is insufficient warning as to what might happen if the unit fails to perform and causes the ECU to go into safe mode. Had I not tried hard acceleration and was forced into it (say on a busy motorway trying to pass a spraying lorry quickly in the wet) I could have been the cause of a serious accident through power loss. This is dangerous and not acceptable.

4) The instructions are incomplete and inadequate with respect to adjustment. While it is obvious what increasing and decreasing power does, there is no explanation as to what "Rev range adjustment" does. This means I could not sensibly adjust the system.

5) I am left with the feeling that I have a de-tuned unit and have no way of determining that the unit is providing the extra power it claims.

6) I cannot understand why I have to end up opening the box and adjusting the unit. This is sold for my engine, therefore I expect someone to have tested it on that engine and to have determined the settings for it. Even after 9 units sold they couldn't tell me if anyone else had had the problem with this engine since they don't record the information. Frankly that is inexcusable - surely anyone with any common sense would record a problem against the engine not the buyer? How else would they refine the settings for future sales? How else would they determine that for a particular engine there may be a problem with the stock settings? It beggars belief!

I'd like to be able to recommend this as it seems to have potential to be one of, if not the best, on the market. At the moment I can't for two reasons:

the post sales customer service has been a bad experience for me, and worst of all, I don't think they know what the optimal settings are for my engine and I am concerned at what I have to go through to find them.

[Parts-King]

Simple advice. Get a refund. It does not perform satisfactorily, therefore it is not fit for purpose. Do it sooner rather than later. If you want the exact words to quote PM me and I will forward it to you

We do diesel chip kits. I spent a lot of time researching them and coming up with a suitable supplier. There are numerous types out there, but the best ones plug into each injector, and are fully mapped. Ours is not suitable for T180 models, as our kits do exactly what you are describing, and as a result we decided not to supply them for T180's. it appears some ECU's just dont like the extra power! i know you dont have a T180 but it's the same type of fault

We are going to try a new updated version early next year which will be adjustable via jumpers, but I am waiting for the warranty/spec details early in the New Year

Dont put up with a poor quality product, get your money back while you can

Kingo

[Q.S.]

So, the moral of the story is........ Don't **** around with anything that hooks into your engine management system. Manufacturers spend a lot of money on R&D to develop what is best ALL ROUND for their engines and cars, so don't add someone else's bodged attempt at circumventing the ECU's signals/data.

[OldSkoO1]

So, the moral of the story is........ Don't **** around with anything that hooks into your engine management system. Manufacturers spend a lot of money on R&D to develop what is best ALL ROUND for their engines and cars, so don't add someone else's bodged attempt at circumventing the ECU's signals/data.

Not necessarily, some of the better chips can work really well.

Manufacturers always leave room for tolerance and good chips can work within / using this tolerance.

As Parts king says they are a dealership and they put a lot of effort into checking and testing the chips they sell. If i was going to buy a chip for my t180 i would buy it from him.

Which is why my t180 is still chipless :)

[revband]

Hi

Take note of what Parts King says. I went the same way as you. The units which fit on the common rail DO NOT WORK.

The one from Lindop Toyota fits to the injectors and adjusts the injector timing. I have now had mine on two Avensis modeld 2.0 and 2.2 it has worked perfectly on both.

The service from Lindop is second to non. When I moved the unit to my new 2.2 the car failed to start so I removed it and all was well. I emailed Lindop to ask if I needed a different power box and was advised that only the injector wires on the 2.2 were reversed from the 2.0 and I could either buy a new harness or just reverse the injector wires myself.

Half an hour with a soldering iron on the old harness had the car up and running with it fitted. :D

Most chip suppliers are now not supplying for Toyota as they know that they will have to refund.

[dgman]

i have a spider unit on my lexus 220d and i am very impressed with the extra power that it delivers.it has helped with low down power,infact the power delivery is a lot more linear now.i have no ill effects at all to report and i have done about 2k miles with the device fitted,mine was delivered 3 days after ordering.there are others on the loc that have bought this unit and so far the comments from the op are the only negative that i have read about about the spider.i actually bought mine after reading rave reveiws on e90posts.com.

[Diesel Tuner Systems]

Hello everyone

I would much rather greet you all under a better start but I think it we should put this into perspective.

Diesel Tuner Systems I think does offer a genuinely good customer service which is reflected by most of our customers and other forum reviews, however, it seems on this occasion we may have failed. The Toyota 2.0 D4D 126ps engine, although not problematic, is a very sensitive engine much like the 2.2 which we have engaged a lot of time into mainly for the Lexus field. It is very very difficult to offer an electronic tuning system out of the box for this engine without the need for customer interaction, because of its sensitivity to emission control and many variables from air temp to fuel grade. I think it is reasonable to understand this and this customer should have been informed better at his first contact. Unfortunately, he got through to one of our trainees who should have passed him on to a technician, we apologise for this.

Given the fact that 3 months have now passed and I have not heard from you directly, we can presume it is now working, if not, we would be happy to work directly with you to solve the problem or offer you a full refund. I also welcome you to contact myself directly by telephone or email.

Once again, all at Diesel Tuner Systems pride ourselves on our commitment to our customers, but due to volume of sales (pre christmas) and a very hectic few months of trading, a few customers have been let down for which I personally apologise.

With best regards

Mike Marsden

Managing Director

Diesel Tuner Systems Limited

[Ruth-Anne]

I have 2 spider units at the minute fitted to my own car and my wifes T180 tourer. I can only offer praise for the unit and the after service that i have received as one of the units was originally fitted to a 2.0 d4d corolla and needed upgraded to suit the T180.

These units have been fitted to these cars for about a year and a half now without any problems at all and work exceptionally well IMO.

I can also say that they arrived in a couple of days after order with a full set of fitting instructions and two pictures of where to connect them up to, One of the engine with a red ring round the area/connector and the other a blown up section of the connector itself.

Also in the instructions were the simple words, Do not exceed half of what the vehicle is capable of revving to for the first 50 miles after fitting.

I therefore find this product one of the best on the market both for performance and back-up and will be buying another one shortly as i will be buying a Landcruiser Colorado diesel for towing purposes and trust this product fully.

AND NO I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE COMPANY, I AM JUST ONE VERY HAPPY CUSTOMER.

[OldSkoO1]

I would like one for my t180 too, just worried that the engine is sensitive to chipping as others have reported cutting out and other horror stories.

[Ruth-Anne]

Honest to God, i really can recommend this product and the back up service that comes with it. We have been using our units for a year and a half each. I have travelled 7k with mine and my wife has travelled about 14k with hers and both without fault.

The unit on the T180 gives about 215bhp and i can't remember the torque figures but can truthfully say they really do make a hell of a difference and unlike some others they do in my experience give you the power and torque all of the time.

Try one and see for yourself, You'll be grinning for months!!

[OldSkoO1]

Thats good to hear - thanks

Still, over fueling and clogging the EGR and stressing the fuel pump, injectors etc is very costly if it goes wrong.

Does it improve MPG too ?

[Ruth-Anne]

When we first got the car it was doing 46/47 mpg but started to have injector problems so all of them were replaced(5 if i'm not mistaken) they then replaced the common rail and fuel pump for a loss of power problem and the fuel dpopped to around 42mpg. They then 2`carried out work on the EGR system and carried out a ECU upgrade which dropped the fuel to around 32/34 mpg. At this stage i fitted the box and after the running in period we were seing a return of 37/38/ mpg which i am not happy with and its being looked at during the next service but does show a rise in fuel of 4-6 mpg which is reasonable enough for the extra poke that the SPIDER box gives you.

[VglaviMix]

i have a spider unit on my lexus 220d and i am very impressed with the extra power that it delivers.it has helped with low down power,infact the power delivery is a lot more linear now.i have no ill effects at all to report and i have done about 2k miles with the device fitted,mine was delivered 3 days after ordering.there are others on the loc that have bought this unit and so far the comments from the op are the only negative that i have read about about the spider.i actually bought mine after reading rave reveiws on e90posts.com.

Can you give me the setting for your lexus coz' mine goes into safe moda as soon i kick it over 4200 revs.

[Daveyonthemove]

Why do you take it above 4200rpm? The torque curve is long gone by this point, and you are losing power and the potential for the most speed.

Change at 3500 max so the next gear up is producing max torque and giving you the best surge of power available.

[rogerbu]

I have also experienced DTS. The product wouldn't work, not a replacement they sent.

Customer service was very poor and getting my money back was a hassle. Eventually it came.

I have since installed the Lindop chip for my 180 Avensis, It works well, I can feel the extra torque, particularly when towing. There is only a small improvement in MPG.

[VglaviMix]

Why do you take it above 4200rpm? The torque curve is long gone by this point, and you are losing power and the potential for the most speed.

Change at 3500 max so the next gear up is producing max torque and giving you the best surge of power available.

I'm well avare of the curve of my car, but at normal operation car has to be able to do full specified revs and by it not going in to a safe mode. To answer your question: sometimes when you are connecting to let us say highway you have to floor it, and with is revs jump up very fast after 3000.

To add to this i now experienced safe mode during normal driving around 2200 revs and not being able to reset it with restart of the engine, removing the box solved the problem. I havent connected it back yet...

so a suggested setting would still be nice...

[acetip]

Why do you take it above 4200rpm? The torque curve is long gone by this point, and you are losing power and the potential for the most speed.

Change at 3500 max so the next gear up is producing max torque and giving you the best surge of power available.

I'm well avare of the curve of my car, but at normal operation car has to be able to do full specified revs and by it not going in to a safe mode. To answer your question: sometimes when you are connecting to let us say highway you have to floor it, and with is revs jump up very fast after 3000.

To add to this i now experienced safe mode during normal driving around 2200 revs and not being able to reset it with restart of the engine, removing the box solved the problem. I havent connected it back yet...

so a suggested setting would still be nice...

a lot of these tuning boxes do no more than increase the fuel pressure which is not good.read somewhere that some can effect your fuel consumption read out and give very optomistic readings.and all that crap about improving the mapping i find hard to beleave on a plug in box.

[Red diesel]

Simple advice. Get a refund. It does not perform satisfactorily, therefore it is not fit for purpose. Do it sooner rather than later. If you want the exact words to quote PM me and I will forward it to you

We do diesel chip kits. I spent a lot of time researching them and coming up with a suitable supplier. There are numerous types out there, but the best ones plug into each injector, and are fully mapped. Ours is not suitable for T180 models, as our kits do exactly what you are describing, and as a result we decided not to supply them for T180's. it appears some ECU's just dont like the extra power! i know you dont have a T180 but it's the same type of fault

We are going to try a new updated version early next year which will be adjustable via jumpers, but I am waiting for the warranty/spec details early in the New Year

Dont put up with a poor quality product, get your money back while you can

Kingo

Parts King - sorry for taking this off topic but whats your take on the rumours that are doing the rounds that the new MOT test you are supposed to be getting in the UK

will ban remaps (or chips). Has there being any confirmation anywhere yet either way - a silly rule in my view if they do bring it in mind

Red diesel

Red diesel