This is a warning for all considering the cheap tuning boxes available on the market.

As everyone I was after cheapest way for a bit of extra power and at the time Celox Performance were offering a 25BHP+ box for £25. I thought great, even if it didn't provide 25BHP it's claims of better economy at the time were important due to traveling 600miles+ a week. And it did what it said on the tin, provided better MPG and noticeably more power.

I had the box in for 6 months until I posted that I had 1 on the forum and everyone gave me warnings on it, so ripped it out and thus this warning was made.

Here's where it was installed...

and after removing it and taking off the cover, we discover that the box is filled with a resin to hide there secrets...(for good reason!)

 

and then it came to the fun part...the resin put up a good fight, but after some careful persuasion with a crow bar it looked a little like this..

Quality wires...

 

No expense spared with the use of solder.....

and the genius behind this little device is a......... resistor

Sorry for the crude drawing but this is what was inside the box.

As for the resistor I can't work out what type it is as the coloured bands chip off with the resin, but each end has a thick brown band and there's 2 slimmer black bands in the middle.

 

So in short save up and get a proper remap! 

I thought it was pretty common knowledge that these things are totally useless.

Oh jings, double post. Shame on me.

Ahhh, the "EVRY" Mod. Takes me back, that does!

Yup, a resistor in a box. Fine if you wan teh occasional play, but that's about it.

Nice box though.

Forums are for spreading the word further aren't they?

Somehow someone saying on opinion "there rubbish" doesn't stick with allot of people so no harm in putting up a post with a bit of proof......  

True, can see exactly why you've posted up. Some do fall for the values given in item descriptions for these.

 

Just, anyone in the right mind would see its total pap. Not bad business though for a half hours work and about £1 of parts.

LomondGolf:

...about £1 of parts.

Be fair....they have used genuine connectors so must be a fivers worth

When skint and after more power, it's easy to give into ads like that. 

Ah, the old poverty tuning trick.

I was given one of these and it definitely gave me more bhp, but I couldn't really appreciate it because every time I gave the car any throttle - huge clouds of smoke. Goodness only knows what it does to the engine internals, never mind the CAT. It also made the mpg display read an average of 75mpg - yeah, right. 2 days and off it came.

Eventually got rid of it when a kindly taxi driver with a Passat overcharged me by 10 quid and I remembered that I had this little box of joy, so I gave him the device as a way of saying thanks!

I don't know. If i was skint i would chance this mod but i would make it myself with good quality wires etc. I was very sceptical of this mod until i sampled a PD100 with one. It actually made a big difference and this particular car i could not notice anymore smoke. All it really does is add more fuel, not much different than a remap really.

Except its completely different from a remap!

micky 32:

I don't know. If i was skint i would chance this mod but i would make it myself with good quality wires etc. I was very sceptical of this mod until i sampled a PD100 with one. It actually made a big difference and this particular car i could not notice anymore smoke. All it really does is add more fuel, not much different than a remap really.

I'm under the impression a remap does much more than just add more fuel, granted it may add some more fuel but doesn't it alter the fuel timings etc?

Paul_TDi:

When skint and after more power, it's easy to give into ads like that. 

Can't ever see how a £25 tuning box is ever going to be a cheap mod? surely it cost you more on your insurance too, which if your young is never cheap, unless the OP was driving around with invalid insurance for the last 6 months. 

Pffff my insurance is ridiculous as it is with my age, 1 previous crash, declaring expensive alloys, and huge mileage so chucking the box on top made no difference.

Oh and only recently in colder weather I have noticed very slight smoke and lumpy cold morning starts, but that might be a totally un related problem!? 

These tuning boxes are a con.They are just a resistor which goes between ecu and ecu coolant sensor to trick it into thinking the engine is still cold so it throws in more fuel.Now ok in a diesel it will suck in more air through the maf and will probably give more power but probably single figures at best ie 5bhp.Mpg will certainly go down!Not up and dont rely on your dash display do a proper brim to brim check.In petrol cars this extra fuel makes it run rich,fouls the plugs and rinses the oil from the cylinder bores causing premature engine failure!Its like driving around in an old mini with the choke on all the time!I once bought a low mileage mini from a little old lady it was three years old with 4000 on the clock bargain!But she lived at the top of a hill and just used it to go shopping in.Down to the village on the choke half a mile,did shopping and back up the hill again all on the choke!I did about 4000 miles in it before it started smoking due to the cylinder  bores being completely worn out!I wouldnt fit one of these things.A remap will optimise the fuel/air settings to get max.power and economy without going so lean that you cause detonation.In a non turbo car the gains will be small 10-20bhp.But in a turbo car they can up the boost to safe levels and optimise air/fuel at the increased pressure.Thats why a remap is more expensive but safer and better value for money.Ebay should ban these things!!!

True, they should be banned by eBay but you'll never stop them selling them one way or the other.

From the above though they are seeming to use more cunning methods of disguising the resistor then they used too. Perhaps too many people were opening up the boxes and being rightfully p'd off with what they bought.

This is what should be found inside a tuning box when you open it up:

 

The picture above is a high quality 'genuine' diesel PD tuning box supplied by me

Garfie:

The picture above is a high quality 'genuine' diesel PD tuning box supplied by me

Shameless plug

What kind of figures do you get from what of these, and what price we talking?

Pro/Con's vs remap? 

i thought the whole tuning box idea was a tad dangerous.

And the cheap ones under 50 quid, would you REALLY plug that into your car?! i mean come on??!

 

BHP increases NEVER come that cheap. Alarm bells should ring. Its a 15p resistor and usually does more harm that good.

BoraDave:

What kind of figures do you get from what of these, and what price we talking?

Pro/Con's vs remap? 

Full details can be found on my group buy thread (which needs refreshing) http://uk-mkivs.net/forums/thread/506320.aspx

Minimum increases to be expected can be seen on the table below. All boxes come preset to give around a 20% increase in power to meet Danish tuning guidelines but a few more bhp/Nm is available with fine tuning of the box. I need to add figures for the newer engines as boxes for these are available too.

Current prices are:

VAG 1.9 TDI Non-PD   £192
VAG 1.9 TDI PD           £219
VAG Petrol          from  £249
VAG 2.5 TDI                 £265

But for a group buy  (5 or more in one order) I can get them cheaper, therefore I can offer them for these prices which also include postage and packing:

Current prices in group buy:

VAG 1.9 TDI Non-PD   £152
VAG 1.9 TDI PD           £199
VAG Petrol         from  £225
VAG 2.5 TDI                £249

Tuning boxes provide similar benefits to a remap, i.e more power, torque, driveability, fuel economy etc but are not customised personally to your car/engine as remaps are. They offer a 'plug in' power increase that uses predetermined modified fuel maps to produce more power etc without altering values outside of manufacturers tolerances. These maps are designed to work on all engines of that type, i.e all AHF 110bhp TDi's. As the fuel maps are not customised personally for your car, as they are with a remap, the increases are not as good as a remap would give but still give a definate and worthwhile increase.
They also offer the benefits that you can fit them yourself at home in about 10 minutes and also remove them again if you ever need to, leaving the car totally as it was before the box was fitted. Whereas a remap effectively overwrites the cars fuel map so cannot be removed as easily. If the car is sold, the box can be removed and sold on separately so some of the cost can be recouperated. All diesel tuning boxes also come with manufacturers original plugs so they are totally complient with your cars wiring loom. The other benefit is the cost, they are cheaper than remaps (with my prices) and as mentioned above can always be sold on in the future.

 

 Sorry to revive an old topic, but this is a total scam. 

 Celox Performance claim to be a 'company' by the name of EMS (UK).  No doubt to give an air of respectability, knowing punters will trust them more - and plenty of eBay buyers are suckered by it.  EMS (UK) is not registered as a bona-fide business at Companies House.

 The eBay negative feedback replies suggest that anybody who isn't happy with this piece of crap is either a liar, misread the listing, or is plain thick.  Most of the positive feedback is no doubt due to the fact people don't like to admit they've been had. 

 P.S. the resin inside the box is probably Bitumen, bought in 25kg bags from a builders merchant, and simply melted in to the box.

 

 

 

 

hi there

im new to this forum, and i have come across something on ebay, TDI PD tuning plugs, the guy claims there is nothing to do, just plug n go, i did a quick research and came across this forum and ur comment, wit the followin tuning chip, how much would it cost if i wanted to get my hands on one, and where would i have to fit it in?

 

i got a 2008 golf,

 

cheers

some hints or advise would be much appreciated.

 

muzeemo:

hi there

im new to this forum, and i have come across something on ebay, TDI PD tuning plugs, the guy claims there is nothing to do, just plug n go, i did a quick research and came across this forum and ur comment, wit the followin tuning chip, how much would it cost if i wanted to get my hands on one, and where would i have to fit it in?

 

i got a 2008 golf,

 

cheers

some hints or advise would be much appreciated.

 

 

hint: DON'T BUY ONE OF THESE "TUNING BOXES".

 

Get a remap instead. Costs more but there's no chance of it damaging the engine.

Or see GARFIE (Post above) for one of his bona fide proper tuning boxes

 

But, each to their own if you want a Celox one.  Personally, I'd fit it in the best place..............

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 25 quid for a resistor in a box, thats nop cheap, its a rip off . The resistor only costs pennys, and not that it actually does anything anyways lol.

It you want to know the resistance and the lines have been rubbed off, just measure it with a multi meter.

Putting all of these comments aside Does anybody want to buy a plug in performance box that I recently bought off e bay for £25.00 its never been used you know ! 

John F   

john f:

Putting all of these comments aside Does anybody want to buy a plug in performance box that I recently bought off e bay for £25.00 its never been used you know ! 

John F   

Lol, I'll take it!

 

Dont bother with any tuning boxes they are all a con i tried a dragon one for a while and all it did was make my car run rough, waste of time get a remap from someone like chipped uk

 they are pointless i agree

my friend has bought a similer thing for her cooper s 25 $ from ebay , claiming 50bhp , I wonder how many people are driving around with these things , and what the long term effect would be on the car , ,cant be good tricking the ecu with a reseistor ! when it comes to this sort of thing you just got to put your hand in your pocket and pay , !

I am not sure its a good idea to rubbish ALL tuning boxes, and then at the same time heap praise on ALL remaps.

You will find good and bad in both camps, and even if you are happy with your Remap and everything seems fine, its not the short term that you should worry about, it could be  in the long term, ie longevity that suffer.

Even in the last few years remaps and tuning boxes  have come along way, its quite recent that many remaps were leaving spikes all over the place, basically not a good idea for the engine nor the transmission.

 

I ran a tuning box on my 130 for 3 years and it was fantastic as I could pull it off whenever the car went to the dealers so I didn't harm the warranty. I think there is a lot of confusion about tuning boxes in general and this isn't helped by all of the resistor 'chips' on sale on ebay. Therefore I thought it might help if I posted a couple of pitcures of how a genuine tuning box should look.

The simple rule is that a genuine tuning box will connect into your engine and remap the ecu signal to increase boost and change timing etc. A non genuine one will connect onto the air sensor and suppress the signal making the car run rich.

There are two kinds of genuine tuning box for MkIV VW cars and the correct one depends on the type of engine your car has. Have a close look at the connectors on the devices as anything different just isn't a proper tuning box.

90 \ 110 Non PD Engines:

105 \ 115 \ 130 \ 150 PD Engines and all MkV PD Engines:

That is quite shocking! Thanks for the heads up.

Was akways wary about how you can get extra BHP from a plug and play plastic box, Know i know:D

MikeH:

I ran a tuning box on my 130 for 3 years and it was fantastic as I could pull it off whenever the car went to the dealers so I didn't harm the warranty. I think there is a lot of confusion about tuning boxes in general and this isn't helped by all of the resistor 'chips' on sale on ebay. Therefore I thought it might help if I posted a couple of pitcures of how a genuine tuning box should look.

The simple rule is that a genuine tuning box will connect into your engine and remap the ecu signal to increase boost and change timing etc. A non genuine one will connect onto the air sensor and suppress the signal making the car run rich.

There are two kinds of genuine tuning box for MkIV VW cars and the correct one depends on the type of engine your car has. Have a close look at the connectors on the devices as anything different just isn't a proper tuning box.

90 \ 110 Non PD Engines:

105 \ 115 \ 130 \ 150 PD Engines and all MkV PD Engines:

 

I was going to buy one of these 'Tunning Boxes' but Decided on getting a ST3 instead,(money permitting) these are £410.66 the ST3 is aroun £300-£350 i think, what makes these differerent and/or better apart from the obvious, its pluged in as apposed to 'written' to the ECU?

I did try a Dragon tuning box with a resistor that adjusts the amount of power one wishes to have, It was rather similar to the one above, all be-it, it was for a PD150 an mine is a PD130 but i did notice a slight difference but not 2-3 hundred pound difference though.

Ian.

I believe that a genuine tuning box will also require power so will have connectors for the live and earth terminals on the battery. A resistor type box does not need this.

 I forgot to mention that, I did have to wire it to the battery for it to work. but I dont get why they (the ones in the picture above are so Expensive for what it is unless i'm missing something again.....

Ian.

These are also 'proper' tuning boxes and not the resistor in a box mod. I used one for 90k miles and 3 years without any problems, just more grunt and better mpg.

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Tunit-PD-tuning-box-for-VW-PD-engines_W0QQitemZ130296908253QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM?hash=item130296908253&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1683|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TUNIT-BOX-FROM-MK4-GOLF-115-TDI-PD_W0QQitemZ280326774824QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM?hash=item280326774824&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1683|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318