View Full Version : BEWARE of UPSOLUTE!!!! (long)
Hi,
Just wanted to share my experiences and opinions of UPsolute in the UK. It may help others who are thinking about chipping their Leon.
I've got a Flash Red Leon TDi SE 110bhp UK supplied Y-reg, made in May 2001. It's run faultlessly (touching piece of pine) and is great. But it could use a bit more power for overtaking etc... so I wanted to get it chipped, as it's the cheapest/safest/quickest way to upgrade performance.
I've read tdiclub.com forums for years, and was excited when UPsolute finally got a UK dealer. UPsolute have a great reputation in America. They also looked cheap at £265 (including Seatcupra.net discount), including rolling road.
So I booked, and went to "Impossible Performance" for 19th December, who are in Rochester, Kent. They are the first and only UK UPsolute dealer.
As far as I can tell, "Impossible Performance" is basically "Mike". He doesn't have his own premises. The chipping takes place in a waiting room of a side street garage. The chipping process took about 4 hours. BTW It takes 45 minutes in America. I spent the time in Rochester town centre/seafront. (He uses the waiting room so theres nowhere to wait) Came back and the chipping was done, and so we drove to a rolling road (I still had the standard chip in my car at this point). That was at another very small side street lockup garage, which looked a bit rough. Next to it was a burned down house. They did a run on the rolling road with the standard chip, which apparently produced a lot more power than standard... I've driven a lot of TDi's, and other car's, and would estimate the car had about 115bhp, but the rolling road showed about 130bhp?? I'm now doubtful of the power claims of people with UPsolute.
Then they put the chip in. Shit loads of black smoke. The power curve was very flat in the middle. Mike said apparently there's new code the model year Leon. He said they've had problems with other Seats.
(On the plus side I had a good chat with the guys there who had raced drag racers, won escort MK2 races etc. Pretty cool I thought.)
But, I was willing to wait for the legendary UPsolute customer service to kick into action. Thats why I waited till I posted my experiences. Mike said he'd ask UPsolute HQ. Several polite e-mails later and NO response..
I wouldn't want an UPsolute chip now if it was FREE, after reading the problems of TDI 110 (Neil) on this forum. The legendary UPsolute customer service doesn't seem to be helping him much either.
Make up your own mind.
Not good new mate. :(
Too far removed to make any comment......please keep us posted on any updates though............
Did you get any of the Shudder I have had??
I e-mailed Alex at UPsolute direct, he replied straight away, and said to try a few things, if that didn't work he would send me a new chip with a slightly lower power/torque curve.
Mine too showed a higher BHP, but you cannot compare a 115bhp TDi against a 115bhp petrol car cos of the different charactors of the engines.
Also, I doubt it would take 45 minutes in the US compared to 4 hours here. Just removing the ECU, and changing the chips, and re-installing the ECU (plus wipers etc) takes 30-45 minutes if you take your time.
I must add my problem isn't with Impossible performance (I mean, why have the huge cost of your own workshop if you can use someone elses), but more with the fact I have to mess around finding the problem myself. Many users all over the world have UPsolute chips, and many don't have problems......we are the unlucky ones that have/are having problems...........
As for smoking, mine smoked more once I had the chip, although not real bad, but recently it was smoking more (maybe due to the MAF being dirty cos of the K&N filter). I will report back next week, I just hope that the use of a std airfilter doesn't cause more smoke!!!!
Impossible
17-01-2002, 15:10
Hi Leif...
Sorry if the "side street garage" was not to your liking, I thought that rather you wait around at our premissis, which is sort of in the sticks and harder to find, it would be better if you had somthing to do, where you could eat/shop etc, while you where waiting,
We did have problems with the program on your car, which i said we would sort out... I ask UPsolute HQ to send the new program, once it had been tested on serveal cars, so that i know, UPsolute HQ knows it will give the best performance and relierbity. Which i am please to say that it has been tested on 4 Leon TDI with your ECU type, with excellent results. And i have the program sent to me this morning..
Has of yet we have not charged you at all for the work and the day which we spend with your car, i understand that you have spend time and petrol money coming to us, so i was not wanting you to waste your time coming to us again untill UPsolute HQ had sorted the problem regarding your car.
Mic, Rob, Louise, James
Impossible Performance
Originally posted by Impossible
We did have problems with the program on your car, which i said we would sort out... I ask UPsolute HQ to send the new program, once it had been tested on serveal cars, so that i know, UPsolute HQ knows it will give the best performance and relierbity. Which i am please to say that it has been tested on 4 Leon TDI with your ECU type, with excellent results. And i have the program sent to me this morning..
Mike,
Is his ECU the same as mine....i.e, would mine benefit from the upgrade program to reduce some of the smoke i've been getting lately....?
I will of course update you on my findings next week when i've cleaned the MAF etc.
Cheers,
Originally posted by Impossible
Hi Leif...
Sorry if the "side street garage" was not to your liking, I thought that rather you wait around at our premissis, which is sort of in the sticks and harder to find, it would be better if you had somthing to do, where you could eat/shop etc, while you where waiting,
We did have problems with the program on your car, which i said we would sort out... I ask UPsolute HQ to send the new program, once it had been tested on serveal cars, so that i know, UPsolute HQ knows it will give the best performance and relierbity. Which i am please to say that it has been tested on 4 Leon TDI with your ECU type, with excellent results. And i have the program sent to me this morning..
Has of yet we have not charged you at all for the work and the day which we spend with your car, i understand that you have spend time and petrol money coming to us, so i was not wanting you to waste your time coming to us again untill UPsolute HQ had sorted the problem regarding your car.
Mic, Rob, Louise, James
Impossible Performance
Hi Mike
Thanks for your reply. It is tempting to try again. But what it comes down to is I've lost faith in the product. I'm sure that it'd probably be alright, and that 99.9% of people are happy with their UPsolute chips, but I'd be worried about another problem which would be costly or dangerous.
Thanks again for your efforts trying to get it working.
Impossible
17-01-2002, 18:03
Neil... no completely different ECU type, Was waiting for the result of the MAF cleaning, but i have the new program for your car which will reduce the amount of power, and stop the suddering
you have been experincing.
Leif.. the programs here if you decide otherwise.. i would like to see the problem with your car solved, Knowing that the program has been tested on serval LEON Tdi's with your ECU, it would be nice to see weather there where any VAG related problems which we thought caused your car to be so strong in power on the dyno. you mention before about going to see your local dealer to check the car over, was anything found?
Mic
blimey!!, your not beating about the bush are you !!,
Mike does have his own premises, but they are more difficult to get to, and you are closer to town as he said, so you dont have to be bored whilst waiting!!,
I cant see any upsolute dealer being able to do the complete upgrade in 45 minutes!!, where did you find that information out?, i am an electronics engineer and do the same sort of work that is involved in the upgrade, and i think it would be impossible to do it that quick!,
If your car is producing a lot more power than it should be, then something must have been wrong with your car before the upgrade surely?, seats arent known for producing more power than they say like audi's,
Everytime i have asked a question of upsolute hq, or of mic from impossible performance i have always been answered next day or same day, and i have asked them quite a lot of questions :D
If your doubtfull of the power claims of upsolute owners, wait till saturday and see the results for yourself !!, powerstations RR isnt going to lie, and i cant see how the RR done by impossible poerformance could have been rigged with me watching them, i believe the power it stated,
It seems like you have a few teething problems as do a lot of upgrades you can have done to your car! (read about my LPG conversion faliure if you want to see problems!!), but it seems ridiculous that you wont even give them 1 single chance to rectify your fault !!,once a fault is identified you have got to give them a chance to come up with a cure for the problem!, you cant always expect a fix next day!.
My upsolute chip upgrade that i had done is the best thing i have ever done for my car, and i have never had a single minute of trouble with it!, so if you give Mic the chance i'm sure he can get your car running correctly!
Is it because the car's still a bit of an unknown quantity or are some of the Companies involved less than professional? Maybe it doesn't fancy being modified and digs its little heals in? Either way, I've read quite a few horror stories on here and I'll be thinking long and hard before I allow anyone to do anything other than the routine to mine...:(
The upsolute chip and the leon cupra petrol isnt an unknown quantity is it?, of all the posts i have read about the upsolute chip and the leon cupra, none as far as i know have been at all negative about it, not even neutral!, everyone seem to rave about it!,
The diesel engine does seem to be haveing a couple of problems, but it sounds like it should be fixed now from what mic has said, so its worth a go i recon!
Cupramax
17-01-2002, 21:14
I for one have no complaints with Mikes service and am chuffed with my cars performance with the Upsolute chip. Have already pissed off various TT's S3's etc etc.... :p
Me too !!, the ones i really like pissing off are the bmw 330 drivers!!, it is a bit of a struggle to overtake them, but i can :D :D
I must add that I have heard of horror stories with other chip companies too like Superchips and Oettinger, like Mosser said, there will always be the odd problem.
I haven't proved that mine was an UPsolute problem, yet I can't prove its not either, but I have had a good service from them, and also spoken to other TDi owners that have had no problems.
I spoke to one guy who has done 120,000km (75,000miles) with his chipped TDi with no problems.
Mike, I cleaned the MAF earlier, still on std chip until Saturday so can't comment on the UPsolute one yet.
Cleaning didn't make a difference to it on the std chip, so we shall see
Also, do you have a VAG 1551 type tool....I need my cruise control function enabled
cheers,
Are you gonna try the new upsolute program Neil ?
Originally posted by Mosser
Are you gonna try the new upsolute program Neil ?
Of course, I'm not going back to std BHP after feeling how good it is with the chip!!!!
I shall fit the old UPsolute chip back on Saturday now I've cleaned the MAF, see what it does. If it is ok, but slowley comes back I'll assume its a MAF problem, otherwise I shall try the updated chip, but using a std airfilter as i'm not sure if the K&N was the problem.
Mike, what the possibility of sending an updated chip to me to try to save the journey down? then if it works I can send old one back, if it doesn't we can look into it further?
I would say its best to try it with the standard air filter, it has probably been setup and tested like that when they designed the chip,
see if you can get the new program on another chip posted to you, that way you wont have to give up your current upsolute chip, and at the end you can just send one of them back to mic
I for one have no complaints with Mikes service and am chuffed with my cars performance with the Upsolute chip. Have already pissed off various TT's S3's etc etc....
Whats the fuel consumption like mate?
dave
I didn't refer specifically to UpSolute; it just seems to be there are a few probs with modding Leons... Never had that with a Scooby - 245BHP for an extra half hour labour charge - £22.50 + VAT; bargain BHP! Oh, and totally reliable.
Cupramax
17-01-2002, 23:20
Dave,
No discernable difference in MPG. Still get around 280 miles to a tank round town which is basically all I do. :p
It seems that the engine management in these cars is very picky with its signals !!, whereas a scooby has quite a wide tolerance on them,
Might be the reason Toonman!, but i agree, there are a few problems to be overcome with tuning these cars no matter how you go about it or what company you use!
Originally posted by Impossible
Neil... no completely different ECU type, Was waiting for the result of the MAF cleaning, but i have the new program for your car which will reduce the amount of power, and stop the suddering
you have been experincing.
Leif.. the programs here if you decide otherwise.. i would like to see the problem with your car solved, Knowing that the program has been tested on serval LEON Tdi's with your ECU, it would be nice to see weather there where any VAG related problems which we thought caused your car to be so strong in power on the dyno. you mention before about going to see your local dealer to check the car over, was anything found?
Mic
Mic
I didn't bother to take it to the local dealer, because it was running fine as standard. But I've just booked it in now for 23rd Feb which is the nearest Saturday they can look at it. I just said it was down in power (which it's not) and could they check it.
If there's something wrong, then I can get it fixed. It may explain why the chip didn't work and the strong power on the dyno. Maybe I should take it to Amethyst Seat to check out?
If I can give my car a clean bill of health, then I would be able to take it to UPsolute with confidence that it was the chip that didn't work, and not the rest of the car.
So once I've done that, I will give it a second try, if that's ok with you. Does that sound fair?
Langers
To be fair I think that I have heard of more problems with Superchip and Oettinger tnan anything else and I guess that you get no recommendation that anything will be perfect and any engine mods are liable to have problems!
At the end of the day if Impossible are there to sort the problme out then I guess that you cannot grumble!
Si
celicauk
17-03-2002, 11:49
Mike/Impossible - You do seem to be having a bit of a hard time of it lately. I'm not going to beat around the bush on this so on the basis that we have heard a couple of customers complain about your premises and lack of professionalism towards the working environment maybe a more balanced view is required.
To that end I would like to visit YOUR premises/workshop, do a write up on the facilities provided etc and show a few pictures of the place. We could also add a map and some detailed instructions on how to find the place.
I appreciate that you might not like the idea of having someone like me, i.e. someone that doesn't think you are much good, but I suspect if you can convince me that you do indeed have a decent business on the go then it has to be good for you, we can silence the critics (me included!).
Of course this is a double edger, I suspect you will refuse but hey, feel free to prove me wrong.
Thanks
Simon Smith
Celica Club UK
http://www.celica-club.co.uk
When did we become a Celica site then ;)
celicauk
17-03-2002, 17:22
You didn't :)
But then most things technology wise can cross over between cars, a BOV on a supra works just as well on a Celica (or my mates Beetle :) )
The car type isn't relevant the info is.
Course, your welcome to go register on my site and post up stuff about Seats, you just might not get an answer ;)
It must be a nice, friendly site then...:rolleyes:
celicauk
17-03-2002, 17:40
Its not that its unfriendly, its just that its about Celicas, which I know bugger all about, and I suspect that as everyone on the board drives Celicas they probably know nothing about them too!
After all, you won't find me coming on this board to ask about Celicas, that would be a bit pointless.
In here though, Posts go well beyond questions about specific cars. Need advice on PCs, Macs, Games, legal issues, etc etc and it's all in here...
Even where to get the latest Village People outfits... Just ask Si!:D
celicauk
19-03-2002, 21:49
None of which has anything to do with cars, but just to test you out, who knows what the tooth pattern on the crank position sensor for the 1ZZ-FE engine is?
jason phillips
19-03-2002, 22:05
isn't it a nice paisley pattern:D
That's the point, and you seem to have missed it completely...:rolleyes:
And tonight's winner is...
JASON!!! :D
I recon it will be either square or triangular!!, let us know when you find out:D
celicauk
20-03-2002, 07:13
I guess I am too effing stupid because I have no idea what any of you are going on about :D
On another note, lack of response from impossible isn't too good.....
In fairness, I don't believe he's resident on this board.
Why not send him an email & advise him of this thread?
Or better still...just send him an email :rolleyes:
Maybe he'll know about tooth patterns too? ;)
For the record, my Leon TDi's UPsolute chip is now sorted (by Impossible Performance), and I'm very happy with it.....:D
celicauk
20-03-2002, 16:29
Well he seems quick to respond to most of the other messages, but what the heck, maybe one of his mates on here will update him?
Glad to hear you got the chip sorted out, I take your happy with the results?