Jazzy

What's the deal with mods for the A8? Why are the updates so expensive? It's ~$500! Isn't all they are doing is soldering in a replacement chip that has tweeked code? C'mon!

I spoke with a couple people at different GIAC compliant companies that said they would replace my chip with a femail chip socket so I could swap out the mod chip with the factory w/o having to send in my entire ECU.

Also, are there any "issues" w/ giving someone my ECU? And do any of you have opinions about:

1) How it affects the warranty.
2) Fuel economy.
3) Life of the transmission (is it damaging).

1999 A8

Bill Mills VA

It's the quantity. They don't sell huge quantities 'cause:
A) there are not that may A8's out there and
B) there are even fewer people that own them that are likely to put a chip in them. It's not like the A4 which has an owner base that is more likely to be into moding the car.
As far as your issue questions:
1) Replacing your chip can easily void the warranty. It depends on your dealer, Audi of America and how prickly they want to be. If there is a failure I am not sure who the burden of proof falls on. I want to say it's the manuacturer but that is just a guess.
2)Fuel enconomy as most alway goes down with a performance enhancing chip. How much depends on how heavy your foot is. With most of these chips you can not run anything but premium fuel because of there affect on the the timing curve and the knock sensors. Thus putting in a performance chip and not using premium fuel is just one way of many ways Audi could claim your warranty to be invalidated.
3)Life of the the tranny can be reduced if a high performance ECU chip is combined with an aggressive tip chip and a lead foot.
HTH

Bill