Vehicle tuning and your customers, How to avoid issues and easily resolve them if needed.

Hi guys. Hope everybody's okay. Another episode. What I wanted to talk to you today is about talking to the customer. Don't ever be afraid to talk to a customer. Don't ever be afraid to tell them they're not so good bits as well, because there are things that can happen and anybody that says, oh yeah, every tune we do is perfect, you know, no, you're talking rubbish. Cars are looked after differently. They are serviced differently. People driving differently. They have different fuels in them. They have different service intervals. There's so many things. So what we would, what we would, what we used to do and what we will say to you to do is have some terms and conditions. Cover yourself as well as the customer within those terms and conditions. You list what you're prepared, what you're going to be doing, what, how much it's gonna cost, and the implications of things that can happen and they can rise now.

 And that's things that are out of your control. And if you both sign those terms and conditions or you get the customer to sign those terms and conditions like you, you can't, you can, you're gonna have to help obviously, but you're not gonna put yourself in a situation where you are just standing there going so you know, things like, you know, has the car been serviced? That's a good question to ask. Has the car been serviced? Everybody will go, oh yeah, it's been serviced. And then you go, right, okay, so when was the last time it was serviced? If they go oh, can't remember now. It hasn't been serviced. And you wanna say, right, okay, well there's potential issues with that. Also if they say oh yes, it's got every service stamp in the book from the main dealer.

Take it with a pinch of salt. Because unfortunately main dealers will tend to look at fuel filters and go, oh yeah, I can't be bothered with that. Cuz it might not start afterwards, especially if it's a diesel and go, yeah, I'm, I'm gonna throw that in the bin and we'll just say we've done it. And then they'll say they've done it and then they won't. And then you are trying to tune a card. It keeps cutting out every time you go through near the throttle. Because the fuel car, there's not enough fuel that can get through because of a blocked fuel fuel filter. So, I mean, wheels always used to check fuel filters anyway, like especially on bag stuff. You can get to it right at the top and you can see it and you can just, it's like four bolts I think it is.

You undo it, pull it out, have a look at it. Now if it's absolutely mashed, there'll normally be a date on the top that it was manufactured. And if that was like 10 years ago, you go, yeah, no, that's never been changed. And so we, we had a guy that said, oh, had it done at main dealer bag main dealer for six got serviced every six months. He was a taxi driver so he didn't really boot it anywhere, he didn't really do anything with it, but he wanted a fuel economy, so on and so forth. He goes, I've had it done every six months at main dealer, irrespective of the service interval. I wanted it done and I asked him to change everything. And we went, okay, no worries.

Went tuned the car every time, went through the accelerator engine died low fuel pressure. Alright, let's have a look at this fuel filter. So pulled the fuel filter hadn't been changed since factory. So he's paid for this service to be done. He's paid for all the servicing to be done. And then only to find out that fuel fuel has never been changed. It's like a 20 pound part. It took us, if you do it properly, 15, 20 minutes to do, like get all the fuel out properly and then put all the fuel back in and stuff like that. So for like half an hour's work they couldn't be bothered. And then obviously the customer gets that. Now with our terms and conditions, you know, the, we do as we did a, a state that, you know, there are things that can happen and it doesn't matter what you do.

There are things that can happen. Cars can have very small boost leaks. You should be smoke testing the car before you, if it's turbocharged, you should be smoke testing the car before you start anyway. But cars can have issues and they can have underlying issues. So stock you can go and boot the crap out of it and it'll be absolutely fine the moment you tune it and ask for that little bit more. That's just enough to tip it over the edge for it now becoming a problem. And obviously you need to account for that and you need to be upfront and go, look, these, these are things that can happen. It's not normal, it's not a hundred percent that it's going to happen, but these are issues that can happen. And think of the few issues that that can happen and just tell 'em before you do it.

And then when you go to them and you say, your fuel field has never been changed, this is the issue you are having, they won't be surprised because you've already told 'em potential issues DPFs that can block. They might be, they might be 60, 70% full, you know, and you're trying to push through extra, extra exhaust gases because you've tuned a car and now it's gonna make it worse and so on and so forth. And they're all these things to just consider. So just be a hundred percent upfront and go, look, this is, this could happen. It's unlikely it will happen, but these are the things that could happen. And then when your customer when you tell your customer that these things have happened, no one's shocked, no one's going, oh well it wasn't like that before. Oh well you've already broached that issue.

You've already broached that subject. Now with after tuning it, so a customer drives a car away and you get that beautiful sentence. Ever since you've mapped my car, oh my God, the amount of times we've heard and seen this, this is why you test drive before and you test drive afterwards. Software is ones and zeros. It is digital, it is not analogue. So it cannot change over time. The software is there. So if the car is not broken when you drive it and your software is not doing anything to the vehicle, when you've test driven it afterwards it will be fine. So

Therefore the only things that are analogue that change over time are engine components and anything that's related around the engine, you can get boost leaks, you can get turbo actuators go down, you get EGR valves go down, you get DPFs that block, you get all sorts of things. Now there are reasons for those but they are issues that happen that, but the software hasn't changed from the day that you've driven it out. I mean we even get some stupid ones like, oh, ever since you reap my car, my brake lights don't work Really, really right. Okay. Since the ECU is an engine control unit, not a brake light control unit you get some wicked ones and things like they'll come back a year later. Oh, it's just started doing this now I we think it's the map. Yeah, but that's a year later.

So for a whole year it's been running beautiful. Bear in mind I've just said software does not change over time. It is ones and zeros. So, but now all of a sudden it's definitely down to the map that, that the car's not running right. It cannot possibly be a mechanical issue. And you'll hear and you'll see this, but these are things you can front off. And we always used to give anybody that had a remap from us, we always used to give them half an hour's free diagnostics and we'd just go, yeah, no worries. Come down, bring the car down to us, we'll have a look at it for you. And 99.999% of the time you can plug it in and it'll give you some fault codes and you can go, right, well this is the issue why this is happening. And if he doesn't give you any fault codes, you know, you don't need to have this huge mechanical background to look at something and go, ah, let's smoke test it right now there's a boost leak.

 Let's just log the fuel pressures. And you go, right, okay, well you're not getting enough fuel. Now that hasn't changed since the day that we did it. What we're asking for in the ecu, the only thing that's changed is fuel filter again could be the fuel pump that's failing, could be an injector that's failing, got some stuff in it, it's not firing properly. Ah, there's a thousand things. But we always offer the the the thing because you know, people will always come back and they go, oh well it's definitely the map. It's definitely the map. Oh no, no, that's fine, you bring it, bring it back. We'll have a look at it for you. They bring it back, we find out it's not the map, but we can tell them exactly what it is. But then your customer's really happy, they're happy again because even though you've told 'em that their car's thing, but they've got confidence then in in what you've done because people always change their tune the moment something goes wrong, it must be your fault.

You know, the last trade person that came into someone's house, oh it's their definitely their fault. Even if they were there to change a gas boiler. And then, I don't know, an elect, a plug socket doesn't work at the other end of the house. Oh well it must be because the boiler got changed. What are you talking about? So you will come across this, these things will happen but you can stave them off. Always offer a little bit of diagnostics. We used to say half an hour free and they bring it in, it'll take you half an hour to tell the customer what's happening. They go, oh yeah, great, thanks for that. Thanks for letting me know. And you will find that they'll go, oh yeah, no, they were awesome. They even come back like a year later and say, I could just have some diagnostics, you know, and, and that's worth its weight in gold.

 And before you start, say look, these things can happen because we have seen this happen before. And then no one's surprised when you go to them and go, right, okay, we'll tune your car and we found that there's a boost leak. You're not gonna hit the figures that you achieved and it's not gonna run properly. And it might even go into limb mode, but no one's surprised because you've told them already. So these are little tips and little things that I would say is talk and communicate with your customer as much as physically possible. If you are unsure, you can get in contact with us. If you're one of our dealers, we will always, always try and help as much as we possibly can. You know, we'll even look at the diagnostics reports that come off and things like that and we can normally point you in the direction if you are a bit sort of stuck and you're like, well I don't know, we've probably seen it.

 Yeah, no, there's not really much of a chance that we haven't seen it. Everything can be localized down to a certain few bits and bobs. If we were ever unsure of the software that we were given you or something that needs to be tried and tested, we'll tell you, you know, look, this needs to be tried and tested. This isn't something that we've done before or this isn't something that is normal. So you're gonna need to run data logs, you're gonna need to drive it on the road. This isn't gonna be a quick thing, but we would've told you that if we're sending you software back, we are confident that we know that it's fine. If it's not or if it's a test, we will contact you and go, right, not a hundred percent sure on this. I need you to test it.

I need you to let me know. Because you can't have seen every single car, every single software variant there is in the world, just physical impossibility. And sometimes you have to do a bit of r and d and that, but we will always, always tell you first of all, so you can let your customer know at the end of the day, your relationship with that customer is as important as your relationship with us because they're the ones gonna come back and provide you with more money. When they change their car in two years, they go, I've got to go and get it remapped. Cause these guys are the nuts. And like the car's a bit slow and it felt amazing when he was done it. When they're down the pub having a chat with their mates, they are the people that you want to be going, right?

Go and see these boys. Like they sorted me out. They were awesome. This was amazing. The service has been awesome. I thought there was something wrong with the tune. I went back for the diagnostics. They, they offered it to me for free and they showed me exactly what it was and I could go and get it fixed for 30 quid. I was well happy. You know, all those sorts of things that happen outside of what you are doing. But from business point of view, they're so worth doing. And just keeping an eye on what's happening and, and being in communication with the customer. And you know, as I say, offering 30 minutes free diagnostics for ev anybody that's, you've had a cartoon that that've had their cartoon with you honestly is worth its weight and gold. So they're little sort of titbits of information that we'll try and pass on to you as much as possible.

 Don't forget to like and subscribe please cuz that helps the channel. And if you are interested in becoming one of our dealers, clicking the links below, there'll be in the box, there'll be a link below that you can go straight onto the website and it can explain anything. Or you can give us a call, all the information's on the website or it'll be in the information below. Give us a call. Have a chat. We are here to talk to you to try and help and to try and make the transition from

Being just a garage to someone who wants to start out, you know, tune in. You know, we will try and help you as much as we physically can. And that's what we are there for. So yeah, I hope that helps. I hope that gives you a little bit of little bit of insight and go, do you know what? I'm gonna try that. And then you'll see, you'll go, oh my God, that's, that's awesome. I'm gonna do that to every customer. So, yeah. Alright guys. Take care. Thanks. See you later.