Power FC

[J.j.]

Hi guys,
I\'m new to this.  I bought my fd around mid july this year from a guy called Lee, a sales man from Northridge Cars(i know it\'s not nice to include names, but you\'ve been warned).  Anyway it was a disaster.  the engine was gone after 4 days, 200 miles, got the car to rotechniks, only to find out even more bad news.  The whole ad was a complete lie.  Tried getting helps from trading standard office, but still haven\'t got any result.  Thinking of giving up now.  I know all these make me sound very stupid, but i guess I\'ll just have to do the "Live n Learn" thingy.
Anyway, just had it rebuilt by Rotechniks and put in a few mods at the same time.  Haven\'t done much, just the usual(didn\'t have much saving left after the rebuilt bill).  I now have apexi induction kit, hks down pipe, and mazdaspeed exhaust that it came with.  After I\'ve read through what you guys said in these forums, i now realise how dangerous these mods are without an power fc to set them all up properly, but I\'m now facing a very difficult situation.  I am told by Rotechniks that I can have induction kit, a straight through exhaust system and still being covered by their 2 year warranty.  However, if I decide to have a power fc, they won\'t cover the apex seals.
Any advice??
By the way, had a quote from Rotechniks to fit some auto metre gauges.  boost, oil temp. oil pressure, water temp, and exhaust temp.  The price inc all 5 of them, centre pod, steering column pod, pillar pod, and it came just shy of 1,000.  Sounds about right??  
 
Cheers
J.j.

[g11ary]

I had a similar experiance with a rx 2 years ago, total different spec to advert and engine died on week 3 or 4. A couple of letters was enough to get 3k from him towards the new engine.
Dont give up, if trading standards wont help, phone them and insist they do, thats what there job is, take car front to small claims court, it can be done on line up to 6k i think, no solisitors needed, let the judge decide.

If Rotechniks give a warentee, they are usually the sort of company that will stand by it, if you dont want power increases, dont go with power fc, wait till warentee is out. If its bigger power gains that you want then you have to take that risk, although power fc properly mapped on a lightly modified car should out last there warentee anyway, thats your gamble.
The power fc is better, but from their point of view, anyone can put the incorrect settings in it, fiddle with the settings and try to get as much power out of her once its left there workshop, its to open to abuse, so sometimes you cant blame them.

[J.j.]

Thanks for the reply Gary!!
I\'m still trying with the standar office, though not going anywhere at the moment.  3k after 2 letter??  You mind telling me what you wrote in those??  There were also other problems, for example, he claimed the oddometre was reading in kms, which i stupidly believed.  mazdaspeed suspension which turn out to be koni shocks and unknown springs.  I guess the reason I bought everything he claimed was because that we did the whole deal sitting down in the showroom, so strangly I just wasn\'t being careful.  Besides I even traded in my Mx-5.
As for the mods I\'m not planning on getting big power like you guys, maybe a decat pipe in the near future(warranty), just hope that I\'m not doing any long term damages to the engine before I get a power fc in 2 years time.
Cheers
J.j.

[gsb876]

Do not let this "sales" guy get away with this!!!

I know you probably think its easy for us guys to comment sitting far away but you cannot let this go for the sake of decent folk just trying to buy decent cars!!!

A while back i bought a Vitara (yea i know) and the gears wouldn\'t go into 2nd after a few weeks and the car went back 3 times and they just oiled the gear box!!!! went to experts where they informed me after about 4mins the gearbox was knackered so went back threatened the guy as i had enough pi$$ing about and the dude paid for the work carried out!!!

As Gary says pursue the matter until the "sales" person sorts it otherwise tell them you are going to trading standards and the local paper to tell them about your great car sales place!!!:reallymad

[clive]

Hi J.j.and welcome.

Real sad to hear you have had problems immediately but please do not roll over on this one because if the description is real bad it\'s right that they don\'t just get away with it.

Sadly you probably ended up also at the dearest Rotary specialist in the land as well which won\'t have helped, but their work on near standard cars is pretty much fault less.

In their defence they have been bitten a couple of times by cars fitted with PFC\'s because of people playing and tuning the cars wrongly and grenade their engines, but to me the damage caused by bad tuning should be evident on strip down, if warranty\'s come into play.

All l can say is l hope the situation was made clear to you upon embarking on the rebuild with them as this situation of \'you must not play with the engine or you loose your warranty\' only normally applies if you have requested a \'race\' engine.

If you have an import car you can have a down pipe, full open exhaust and induction kit with out the need for a PFC and you will find this makes for a damn quick road car with just these mods.

As reguards the mods, if that is supply AND fit it\'s probably about right.

To me though the only two you relly need is Water gauge and Boost gauge.

Hope this helps.      



All the best Clive
President MRC
Clive@Mazdarotaryclub.com
//www.Mazdarotaryclub.com
//www.MazdaRX-8Club.com

[J.j.]

Thanks you guys for replying,
Althought I bought the car from a garage, I was aware that it was a private sale, so apparently this doesn\'t leave me with much rights.  Trading standard is next to useless.  Last time time I contact them was after they had finally called up the guy, and the worst is they seemed to have bought what he said.  
Basicly, the guy\'s now claiming that, I had the car for 4 days, 200 miles.  I could have done anything to kill the car.  Regarding to the mileage, he claims that it was to his best knowledge, and since it did say km in the oddometre, he had no reason to believe it was otherwise.  Then the trading standard told me it was an import, so it\'s next to impossible to track down when the km/m conversion was done.  Suspension wise, again to his best knowledge.
So......  I got nothing!! :confused:

As for the power fc, as long as it\'s not dangerous or doing long term damages without it for the time being, then I\'ll just get it after my warranty expires.

As for the gauges, I said I wanted those 5, because,
water temp, so I know if I\'m over heating the engine, pulled over, and shut it.
oil temp, so I know when\'s safe to start driving the car.
oil pressure, the one on the car is broken, instead of getting an pricy oem one, might as well.
exhaust temp, so I could get a warning that the car\'s running lean.
Boost, never had a turbo car, really want one just for the sake.

Again, thanks for the replies and support really appreciate.
Cheers
J.j.

[gsb876]

If you are deffo getting a power FC sometime in the future then you should be aware that the PC provides both water temp and boost readings as well as:

knock / air intake temp / speed / revs / inj duty / inj cycle / boost / water temp / batt volts /

And a few other i canna remember just now??:confused:

But i also have added oil temp gauge / boost gauge / exhaust temp gauge. And a boost controller too:)

Altogether a great setup.

[shaunwil]

Strange really, I\'m currently considering getting a power fc for my rx7 and i have a warranty with pip. I\'ve emailed him about fitting it and he hasn\'t mentioned if it effects my 12 month warrenty. I would have thought that they should cover the pfc in the warrenty  only if it still contained the settings that they had programmed into it. Wouldn\'t that be proof enough that you hadn\'t been playing with it ?

I\'m looking at ordering my pfc in the next couple of weeks for japan and will be taking it to WGT ?


Shaun

[Rixio]

does the power fc actually give you any gains in power like performance chips do to normal cars or is it spefically to map the car properly with specific mods? ocs iv got pretty much same mods as you and was thinking of getting one aswell

[BlitzBoy]

well I fitted my Power FC a few months b4 my water seals went.
The difference in power was night and day on the base map, the car felt smoother and stronger top end. I think the base map(Power FC) on any rebuilt engine with an open intake and exhaust is pretty safe as its a fairly rich map, but peeps correct me if im wrong.

[antnicuk]

no you are right, the base map is quite rich,  you will have a noticable increase in power with a good mapping session.

as for "Wouldn\'t that be proof enough that you hadn\'t been playing with it ?"
the answer is no cos you could set them back yourself after you blow it up and before you you go to pips and ask him why your engine is blown.

As for Guages,   it depends which Auto Meter Guages they are using, find this out, if it is there basic sports comp range, they are quite cheap and i would fit them for half that!!! if they are something like the Cobalt electronic range, then its still steep but not excessivly so.   Water temp in the sports comp is about 40 - 50 quid, but the electronic guage in the cobalt range is over 150 quid.   You can get vacume boost guages which have a pipe direct from the inlet manifold which can be little wavey but they are about 50 - 60 quid.  An electronic one uses its own map sensor and gives a nice smooth movement which is very accurate and easy to use, they also have a peek function (press a button and it tells you what boost you peeked) will set you back just over 200 quid.  

How did you do a private sale from a dealer?

[shaunwil]

So the PFC is easy to re-programme ? Does it help a rebuilt rotor alot. Is it worth the £750+ for installation if it effects my warranty

Shaun