So I had the AutoThority Chip for about the past 2 weeks. They are local and I had their product in my old A4 1.8T and was happy with it, so I thought, hell why not put it in the GTi. Well, to be honest I just was not as impressed with it as I was 2 years ago in the Audi. I'm not sure why, but I think it was just a case of being too used to it. So I decided to use their 30 day money back garauntee and then purchase a new GIAC program from Curry's around the corner from me (I'm lucky to have about 3-4 tuners/mechanics within 5-15 minutes of my house
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Note: what you are about to read is in no way supposed to be 'bad mouthing' AutoThority, its products or the company name. I'm just going to state the facts of my scenario. I'm happy with their customer service in taking the chip back, no questions asked.
So I figured the entire ordeal would be easy, go to Curry's, have them take the autothority chip out, put the new GIAC socket and chip in, then I take my Autothority/Stock chip back and have it returned to OEM program by AutoThority and get my money back (note: AutoThority re-programs the STOCK chip).
This was not to be. Autothority stated that thet have to take the chip out and then return it to stock, charging me another $60 in the process. I asked why, since I was already going to pay Curry's to put the GIAC in, why pay you another $60 to take your chip out?! They then told me that before soldering the chip with thier program back onto my ECU, they use a special glue to hold the chip in place! They said they do this because they had cases where people were taking the chips out and stealing their programs. So now they use this glue, which they keep the solvent to, and if you try to take the chip out without the solvent, it will break on the ECU!!
Long story short, I took it back to them and had them replace the program with the OEM tune, and got my money back minus the initial install price ($75) and the new un-install price $60. I'm not complaining about that, as most places have a re-stocking fee anyway. this is fine.
What I did want to tell you in this long winded post is that I believe AutoThority should be telling its customers about this 'glue' they use. Maybe I'm stupid and that this is a common glue that any good mechanic shop would have solvent for. But I thought to myself, what if I was not close to them, or I wanted to go to a "tuner BBQ" and was offered a test with another chip and that tuner tried to take the Autothority chip out and then it broke? I think I, as a consumer of their product, should have been informed about this. Am I in the wrong? Do any of you know of other tuners using this type of glue process?
Sorry for the long post, just thought some of you might want to know.
later
Chris
Note: what you are about to read is in no way supposed to be 'bad mouthing' AutoThority, its products or the company name. I'm just going to state the facts of my scenario. I'm happy with their customer service in taking the chip back, no questions asked.
So I figured the entire ordeal would be easy, go to Curry's, have them take the autothority chip out, put the new GIAC socket and chip in, then I take my Autothority/Stock chip back and have it returned to OEM program by AutoThority and get my money back (note: AutoThority re-programs the STOCK chip).
This was not to be. Autothority stated that thet have to take the chip out and then return it to stock, charging me another $60 in the process. I asked why, since I was already going to pay Curry's to put the GIAC in, why pay you another $60 to take your chip out?! They then told me that before soldering the chip with thier program back onto my ECU, they use a special glue to hold the chip in place! They said they do this because they had cases where people were taking the chips out and stealing their programs. So now they use this glue, which they keep the solvent to, and if you try to take the chip out without the solvent, it will break on the ECU!!
Long story short, I took it back to them and had them replace the program with the OEM tune, and got my money back minus the initial install price ($75) and the new un-install price $60. I'm not complaining about that, as most places have a re-stocking fee anyway. this is fine.
What I did want to tell you in this long winded post is that I believe AutoThority should be telling its customers about this 'glue' they use. Maybe I'm stupid and that this is a common glue that any good mechanic shop would have solvent for. But I thought to myself, what if I was not close to them, or I wanted to go to a "tuner BBQ" and was offered a test with another chip and that tuner tried to take the Autothority chip out and then it broke? I think I, as a consumer of their product, should have been informed about this. Am I in the wrong? Do any of you know of other tuners using this type of glue process?
Sorry for the long post, just thought some of you might want to know.
later
Chris
