MenuModifying and improving: "Hidden cost of Tuning cars"
The aims of car tuning depend largely on the owner of the car concerned. We need to find the hidden cost of a modification and weigh this up. This is the aim of any good car tuning guide, and we follow real world car tuning experience and write this up in an accessible manner.
Power gains are nearly always at the cost of reliability. Economy also suffers greatly. So the added power will actually raise your daily running costs as more components fail.
For most drivers the optimum tuning options lie between the two extremes. Indeed there are many options around that will increase power but retain reliability. For added protection you can reduce the length of the service intervals and this will help keep things running smoothly.
Turbo cars are generally made from stronger materials and are among the easiest cars around to tune. A simple remap can provide power gains in the order of 50bhp or more without sacrificing reliabillity.
Turbo diesels will also similarly gain power from a remap and will not suffer unduly from lower economy. A friend of mine remapped his VW Golf Gti from 150bhp to 190bhp and gets better fuel economy from it. (Far over the manufacturers quoted MPG nearing 63.)
Car Tuning Tips.com will offer practical advice and help a driver to weigh up the "hidden cost" of car tuning. We will not subscribe to the greater noise=greater power mentality and if a modification is purely cosmetic or has no performance benefits you will not find it listed here among our pages.
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3 Responses to “Hidden cost of Tuning cars”
My 05 Kia Spectra5 is naturally aspirated, it only has two engine mods thus far, a snug nose airfilter (way smaller than the normal size cone and attached to the factory intake tube) by spectre and NGK Iridium IX spark plugs. Under normal acceleration the car still feels sluggish, when accelerating; but when i mash the gas, the new spark plugs’s power kick in and i’ll find myself doing70mph easy on a local service highway, which is a no-no. I want to tune my spectra5 for acceleration, not top speed, will adding an aftermarket exhaust/ 8mm race wires/ and advancing the ignition timing, solve this problem?
I own a BMW 320i (E90) sedan, year 2006. I would like to increase the horse power and torque without compromising it’s reliability. What is the best way and cheapest way to modify it? Thank you
i want install wider tire in rear of front tire.is it okay