Dinan Stage 3 upgrade for a stock car, should I do it?

[jts1981]

Originally Posted by davis449

Ah, so you must have an aftermarket BOV, too.

Ok, this is getting childish. If you read my signature and the only thing you took away from it was BOV that just proves how clueless you are. I am a contributing member to this forum, and helped out many people with questions and advice ranging from wheels , suspension, and tunes to body mods. If a member ever needed help I was/am open to helping them out. I've sent members part numbers, links, introduced them to vendors.

What have you done? You post about a shitty phone holder, crappy radar install, and amateur stereo box install. You have the nerve to call to call my setup a hack job for buying top end parts, installed by top end technicians when you want a pat on the back for a damn cell phone holder????

I responded on this thread to help, not to be a miserable cunt like you. Btw, when you joined the forum I was one of the 1st people to welcome you. But now I realize how much of a spoiled brat you are. Anyways have a great night and I'll look fwd to your post "hey my charge pipe blew up and my car overheats, any suggestions? "

[NoQuarter]

Davis449... You seemed pretty cool a couple months ago.

Now you are kind of a dick it seems. I hope it is just temporary and you can deal with whatever made you so angry over this.

Cheers

[davis449]

Originally Posted by jts1981

Ok, this is getting childish. If you read my signature and the only thing you took away from it was BOV that just proves how clueless you are. I am a contributing member to this forum, and helped out many people with questions and advice ranging from wheels , suspension, and tunes to body mods. If a member ever needed help I was/am open to helping them out. I've sent members part numbers, links, introduced them to vendors.

You started, bud. You assumed I was strictly a supporter of Dinan without even reading and completely ignoring the arguments I made in support of doing things the way you've done them. Go back and re-read my statements concerning one's ability to "pay to play". Get off your high horse. I'm new to the Z4 forum, but not to BMW's nor heavy modding. Me and the OP have been PMing back and forth over the last week so I could assist him in making his decision and sharing my experiences.

What have you done? You post about a shitty phone holder, crappy radar install, and amateur stereo box install. You have the nerve to call to call my setup a hack job for buying top end parts, installed by top end technicians when you want a pat on the back for a damn cell phone holder????

You would know what I've done in the past to cars I've owned if you bothered to read my posts instead of acting like an arrogant asshat. You then infer that I would have the capability to be a huge help here. But you didn't. The mods I've done and aftermarket installs I've been physically involved in to my own vehicles and many that weren't mine go much further than a cell phone holder. Just so happens, there won't be much more I do to this particular car due to the fact that it's a lease. Doesn't mean I don't fully understand how these cars, and others, work. I am lucky enough over the past 12 years to have had direct access to a shop with BMW and Porsche master mechanics (not just "technicians") who have cut their teeth on not only these marques, but are extremely good with Audi and VW all the way to Ferrari and Aston Martin. These people aren't just trusted mechanics to me, they're my friends.

I responded on this thread to help, not to be a miserable cunt like you. Btw, when you joined the forum I was one of the 1st people to welcome you. But now I realize how much of a spoiled brat you are. Anyways have a great night and I'll look fwd to your post "hey my charge pipe blew up and my car overheats, any suggestions? "

And you were the first to ignore the fact that I stated in my first posts that I am NOT at all new to this kinda stuff.

Honestly I skimmed through the thread, knowing that you've got a hard on for Dinan. I'm also happy to see how butt hurt you get over this trivial stuff. Enjoy you're over priced tune, glad you'll be leaving the platform once your lease up...
__________________

This is where you stopped being helpful to anyone. Everything I've stated is perfectly valid. You can't even acknowledge the "advice" you bring could have consequences to the person asking the questions. You act as if your experience, because you're so heavily modded and everything has worked out perfectly for you, that your way of doing things is optimal for everyone. Read my posts FFS and you would know that our experiences have been the SAME. Difference is that I know the way I've done things in the past aren't always the best way for everyone else.

Davis449... You seemed pretty cool a couple months ago.

Now you are kind of a dick it seems. I hope it is just temporary and you can deal with whatever made you so angry over this.

Cheers

I am a very cool person. I take strong issue with people like jts1981 who think they know everything or don't like one thing (like Dinan in this thread) and go straight to bashing it and anyone who prefers or recommends it. People like him who make unhelpful comments and refuse to believe anyone but themselves could be knowledgeable about the subject at hand.

[ljkiter]

this is hillarious. big misunderstanding from my pov. warranty=dinan and non-war.=mhd and/or jb4.

[mrkoven]

i must say im anti dinan too, very overpriced. plus i get service done under warranty all the time w/ MHD flash, i dont even bother flashing to stock anymore my SA doesnt care

[davis449]

Originally Posted by ljkiter

this is hillarious. big misunderstanding from my pov. warranty=dinan and non-war.=mhd and/or jb4.

i must say im anti dinan too, very overpriced. plus i get service done under warranty all the time w/ MHD flash, i dont even bother flashing to stock anymore my SA doesnt care

Well, as I pointed out, it's YMMV. jts, mrkoven, and I (in the past) have all had good situations in which to exploit the use of non-warranty backed modifications. If you have that relationship with your dealer and it's a reasonable risk for you to take, then the field of options is wide open. For this car, I just didn't feel comfortable going with something like ESS.

[jts1981]

Originally Posted by ljkiter

this is hillarious. big misunderstanding from my pov. warranty=dinan and non-war.=mhd and/or jb4.

Agreed. It got a bit out of hand.

Davis449. I'm not one to hold a grudge. To me its water under the bridge, hope you and OP enjoy your cars...

[davis449]

Originally Posted by jts1981

Agreed. It got a bit out of hand.

Davis449. I'm not one to hold a grudge. To me its water under the bridge, hope you and OP enjoy your cars...

Same here. Now we're gonna be best friends.

[BQTuning]

Oh yes the Dinan days. My first N54 the engine was blown 3 times with a Dinan stage III. Here is the third time, and as you can see its a Dinan III car which you can see at 0:00

I was a Dinan die hard enthusiasts. After I told the dealer I didnt want the car back they worked some numbers out for me to walk off their lot with a brand new 2011 335is with no money down . I also transferred all my Dinan stage 3 mods and software over to the 335is except for the oil cooler and carbon fiber air intake. The oil cooler was not needed because the 335is came with a secondary rad, and the air intake was not compatible with 335is so had to go with something else more compatible . (will explain this later)

Did Dinan help with any of this ? No. What happened was the dealer did not want me to take it up to the BMW district (after being without the car for 3 months) because the car was tuned by Dinan. So the dealer which was a BMW and Dinan dealer had to eat it, because BMW NA does not honor any Dinan warranty. The warranty is specifically between a Dinan dealer and Dinan. You cannot walk into any BMW dealer, they CAN flag your car and void your warranty.

How does the Dinan warranty work ? In simple layman words without getting politically correct with lawyer rhetoric terms that will confuse people whom are not use to the jargon:

The warranty is only honored at a Dinan authorized dealer ie a BMW dealer or Indy shop authorized by Dinan subject to labor costs. You cannot walk into any BMW dealership and claim warranty. You CAN be flagged for performance modifications that WILL void your BMW warranty regardless if its Dinan or not.

You can call BMW NA to verify if Dinan modification voids your BMW warranty. In fact there is a BMW service bulletin floating around that BMW NA dropped Dinan back in 2008-2009 and BMW NA has warned Dinan to inform their customer of the risks which to this day have not been straight up with.

To avoid being flagged, if there is a problem with the car that requires warranty claim you have to take the car to a BMW Dinan dealer or an Indy shop Dinan dealer.

For regular servicing covered under BMW, the dealers dont really care about this regardless if the car is modded by Dinan or not or has an aftermarket tune. Its only when the tech finds something warranty related can become a problem. You have to know how to instruct your SA properly on conditions like this and to let them know the car is modified. They will make sure the car gets assigned to the right people rather than some random person. The older techs are less tolerant and have a stronger relationship with the shop foremans .

Dinan authorized dealers DO NOT like it when you bought your Dinan products from someone else and then you come to them for assistance. Prepare to get thrown under the bus especially with indy shops.

The best practice is to stick with the same dealer you got your Dinan products from. Leap frogging will risk you getting your feeling hurt. BMW dealers that are Dinan authorised is best to stick with if you still have a BMW warranty intact.

Problems with the Dinan tune. The Dinan performance software is a one shoe fits all. It is nothing specific for your particular car, nothing done to it to help optimize performance especially for DCT cars. Their software is like more than 7 years old. Last update was back in 2008-2009 before the N54 DCT came to NA.

Another plagued problem is oscillations when going WOT. This is not normal. It is mostly prone to N54 cars ie 1M, 335is, and E89 Z4 35i(s) cars who are closer to sea level . Dinan usually blames BMW software, which is pure hogwash as they are flashing an older N54 performance calibration that was developed on the earlier N54 cars that do not incorporate or compensate for the BMW overboost performance.

Now back to my Dinan warranty experience and clarification of the above. I turned my car into a BMW and Dinan dealer where I bought the car from and had install the Dinan modifications for a busted coolant line.

The tech saw my valve cover gasket needed replacing and was going to get it covered under warranty (keeping BMW blind that the car did not have Dinan modifications). After replacing my broken coolant reservoir hose, and a new valve cover gasket, the tech went to start the car and pop !

Valves got bent from piston kissing them all of a sudden. Do you know what the dealer tried to do ? They tried to throw me under the bus making up shnit that I turned the car into them like that or I had another tune on it.....lol

Did they ever contact Dinan, no.

Being that the engine blew while in their care, they had to eat the bill. So why didnt they just make Dinan eat the bill under the Dinan warranty ? Aha ! because Dinan would have asked for them to ship the motor $$$$$ for them to inspect $$$$$ for Dinan more like to have denied the claim like they have done before with other customer claims ie M3 etc $$$$$

So just imagine if the engine blew, "originally", while in my care what I would have went through ?

This time the shop foreman had to step in to oversee the rebuild but it blew "again". They went further to replacing more parts and finally the car started up fine and test driven. However, we all know their type of test driving is a granny drive.

The same day I went to go pick up the car when it was ready, and omw home the engine blew again which lead me to video record the instance this time so they wouldn't try to accuse me of something else.

So from my "active" experience with the Dinan warranty, its pure BS. Having Dinan is more so telling "a BMW dealer that is Dinan authorized" to be blind to the mods or software on the car when it comes to the BMW warranty. This can easily be achieved by being straight up with your SA and tipping him off with a gift card.

Now moving on to some other stuff:

BMW cars that come with the PPK2 ie additional radiator is not compatible with the Dinan CF intake system. Dinan requires that you delete the secondary rad in order to retro fit their CF intake.

I highly recommend NOT to delete any of the BMW thermal dynamic for a CF intake. If anything upgrade the oil cooler and secondary rad to "larger" ones. There are plenty of other options for a CF style intake or CAI that dont require deleting anything and are direct replacements of the stock intake box.

Can BMW NA obtain that you car was flashed with some other software ? Well I think this "concept" is wrong, its rather, can BMW check to see if the factory calibrations was "changed", the answer is YES, even if you revert it back to factory calibrations.

When your car is flashed the factory software for that specific car is actually being used with certain parameters being altered which is called a bin

What can be done to make it "less obvious" and "less proven" is to delete the DME cache history using a software called INPA. Yes I know for 'most" this is not ideal and can be troublesome especially if your not technologically-inclined or computer savy

After this there are two things left, date of latest software flashed and last software ID flashed. BMW has an archive on your car's software when it was last flashed, and last software version flashed by "a BMW dealer" which are all networked.

However, BMW dealers can flash in "offline" mode when their internet is down resulting in an unregistered software which can be faulted to a tech. So this is a loop hole in which dates dont really carry any weight as proof unless you incriminate yourself to the SA and they are looking for a way to "entrap you"

The most convincing proof is the history left on the DME, and you incriminating yourself.

Of course flashing the car back to stock and taking it in to the dealer the same day is just making things worse for yourself

[NoQuarter]

Awesome post BQ. Thanks much for the effort.

Dinan is like people thinking a "real" computer is something from IBM and the Dell's and Toshiba's are unreliable knockoff's.

Their overrated and outdated lock on the BMW tune is time to go.

[Deljus]

"BMW NA does not honor any Dinan warranty. The warranty is specifically between a Dinan dealer and Dinan. You cannot walk into any BMW dealer, they CAN flag your car and void your warranty."

Wow, I never knew this. Thanks for for the information and taking the time to post this!

[Darryl Jenks]

Originally Posted by davis449

I'm new to the Z4 forum, but not to BMW's nor heavy modding. Me and the OP have been PMing back and forth over the last week so I could assist him in making his decision and sharing my experiences.

Howdy neighbor. I've just picked up a CPO 2014 35i, and the price and hp/torque figures I was quoted by the dealer didn't jibe with Dinan's site at all. I was uncomfortable enough to delay the flash to a later date, likely at a different location. If you're pleased with your techs and result, would you be kind enough to PM me some advice? I'm happy to buy dinner at Soluna as thanks...