Remapping your car

Every modern car, whether it's a diesel or petrol car, has an ECU, or ‘Engine Control Unit’, which will have manufacturer settings when you buy it new. These settings will be designed to limit the vehicle's performance in order to make sure the car has a long life. ECU remapping is simply the process of changing these settings to fine-tune your car engine to your specific requirements. It must be stressed at this point that the car can only be remapped to stay within legal limitations.

First and foremost, to remap your car you need to contact a qualified professional so that you avoid any damage to your engine. Engine remapping works very simply by overwriting your car's ECU software and loading the new software into your vehicle's serial port, or OBD port. The entire process shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes and you will notice an almost immediate improvement. Typically, ECU tuning can maximise the overall performance of the car by as much as 35%.

It entirely depends on what make and model your car is as the software to remap it will be different for each one. Mechanics will charge between £150 and £300 to remap your car.

If the remapping service is successful, there will be an increase in the speed and power of your car. How much it improves depends entirely on your own specific car and how much you are willing to remap it. Some general improvements will be that your car's engine is more responsive, so it will be easier to overtake other cars, and you could lower your fuel consumption as you won’t have to change gear as frequently.

Yes, you will definitely have to tell your insurer if you have a remapped car. Remapping is considered a modification and is, therefore, a change in what you had originally insured with the insurance provider. If you do not tell them, at the very least you may invalidate your policy, but you could also be in trouble legally for hiding information from your car insurance provider. Ultimately, your insurance company may increase your premium or even refuse you cover altogether.