azandford

Basically i went to a tuner for a tune on my b16a2 about 6 months ago.... well the engine began huffing really bad about 1 month later and i do not beat on the car at all.... anyways well it turns out the pistons were shattered my new tuner pulled up the s300 map and the last guy leaned out the tune so much it was causing some serious detonation... do you think that i would have a case in court if i were to sue him?

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

no. You won't have the evidence to "prove" that the other tuner was directly responsible for the leaning condition. Not to mention on most dynos with tuners you more than likely signed a contract that had a provision that waived your right against holding them liable for any damage as a result of the tune. (In legalese its called an indemnification clause)

I'm not a lawyer, but 99.9% of the time, that's what would happen in court. Lesson learned.

jonbar87

don't sue him...why does everyone gotta be so sue happy these days.

azandford

i never signed anything saying i wouldnt hold him responsible for the damage occured

also how is that sue happy? if his tune was directly responsible for blowing my motor and i had to fork out 2 grand to get a new one built... how is that my fault? Im not an expert but if my new tuner says that hes never seen a tune this lean before and no wonder the pistons shattered after a few months... what does he have to gain by telling me all this info as he doesnt even know the other guy and its not like there competition its not like i went to him and told him about the other guy and i was worried about the tune he came to me with the info

inspector01

How does he know it was lean without running the car?? just by looking at the duty cycles??

92TypeR

That is exactly what I want to know also.

Do you have datalogs of the car? You can NOT determine if a tune is too lean by reading the map. You can make some educated guesses, but you can NOT quantitatively determine AFR's by fuel values or duty cycles.

HRTuning

The car didn't have issues until a month later. It's now been 6 months. There's too many variables in an engine system to blame the tuner a month later, then sit on it for another 5 months, and now try to take legal action. You lose your case. It's really that simple. Any lawyer with common sense will shut this down on you even if it was absolutely the tuner's fault. Sorry about your situation.

JDogg

thats a risk you take when you put a turbo on a car, most people understand that.. i guess you dont.

why not go talk to the guy that tuned it, take the broken pistons, the wrist pins, the bearings and spark plugs with you.. show him and post pics here. its pretty easy to tell what happened by looking at the broken parts.

hell you could have just gotten a tank of bad gas.

N2HIFI

sorry but bad gas can cause knock which could cause the same issues your describing, Should have had a wideband, this would eliminate any worry or finger pointing

azandford

drove it twice before it started smoking and then 3 other times within that six months i have a camera system above my driveway that monitors it 25/7 i have recording that date back 2 years so im pretty sure proving the amount of times driven wont be a problem

also my tuner told me these things plus he has had it running... im just saying map because i dont know the right terminology

azandford

one tank of bad gas would cause 3 pistons to shatter? hard to believe

azandford

so oyu normally pay people for services and when they **** them up you just say oh well thats life??? if you had carpet installed and then a few months later it started to pull up wouldnt you call the guy who did the carpet and ask him to come fix it? why cause its only been a few months and its not like its heavy traffic area.... see my point? turboing a car is not like throwqing money down the drain and if i wanted to blow my own car up i would have tuned it myself

RadekSkylark

Yeah, you got the point there, but 6 months is to long time to now deal with this... IMO

inspector01

1. You should have brought it back to the tuner after a month when it wasn't running right.
2. You (and your new tuner) don't know what AFRs you were running, get a wideband next time.

Take it as a lesson, sucks that it happened, fix it, and move on.

Si-Rhc

Well said.

92TypeR

Which is it? Your new tuner did one of 2 things:

1) Did he pull a datalog that shows AFR, ignition timing, RPM, etc?

2) Did he pull the map off the S300?

If #1, he could review your AFR's (assuming you have a wideband, on you if you don't), ignition timing, RPM, etc. This could be evidence against a bad tune.

If #2, you can't prove anything. Fuel values and duty cycles to not represent lean or rich. Impossible to prove. Game over.

Your S300 does have onboard datalogging. If you had it setup correctly, and have a wideband, you can easily review the logs from the last few times the engine ran.

At the end of the day, there are way too many variables involved to definitively say it was the tune.

If I was the tuner's lawyer, I would ask you for the following:

* Prove the piston rings were installed correctly, including measured ring gaps
* Prove the wrist-pin clips were installed correctly
* Prove the boost controller was working correctly
* Prove the piston-to-wall clearances were measured and accounted for
* Prove that the fuel system is adequate, verified pressure, good grounds, good filter, etc.
* Prove the fuel in the tank is the same used during the tune

If you couldn't come up with any of that evidence, you're SOL.

azandford

the first tuner was the one who built my ENGINE! if he cant competently build engines he probably shouldnt be tuning


im not sure what my new tuner pulled as i no squat diddluy about maps and afr ratios and such

azandford

i do have a wideband and i live 5+ hours from the tuner so driving back on a busted car wouldnt make much sense and yes i did follow up with him about the problem as soon as it happened and he said it was normal i have a detaile dhistory of 50+ emails between him and i about the issue

non-VTEC

im on my 3'rd or 4'th set of pistons. all failures do to heat/ping/preignition. guess what i did? i fixed it...

if you cant afford to fix broken **** after you modify your car then don't bother doing it at all.

if your original tuner is reputable and has experience in tuning properly i highly doubt his tune cause your engine failure. letting is sit for months at a time any component can fail. maybe a bad fuel pump or FPR?

so....your second tuner pulled the maps and said it was lean? how did he verify it was running lean with 3 busted pistons?? i highly doubt any experienced tuner can pull up tuned fuel maps on any system and determine the engine will run lean just by looking at the maps without the engine running....every engine will require different tuning parameters.

give up man.....pop in an new engine and be done with it...

Blown90hatcH

Engine building and being able to tune a car don't really have any definitive relationship. That is why there are such things as engine builders and tuners. I know some bad *** tuners that couldn't properly spec and build an engine to save their life.

Have your new tuner get on here with some data and we can better help you. Otherwise, good luck.

jonbar87

why did you ask for advice but then argue with everyone?

madblkscientist

i dont agree with this. ppl dont just build expensive cars to "fix it" so often or becuz a tuner or builder either tuned it wrong or built it wrong.

now if you broke ur own engine then u only have urself to blame

im a electrician and if i do a job for a client and say a breaker trips or sumthing i wired burnt up, i am responsible and have to fix it cause it shouldn't trip or burn if i did it right.

but i agree with everthing else u waited to long and now ur screwed

is this a shop or bussiness if so u do have a chance

locash

This isn't a house with electrical wiring. This is a car that can have sensor failures, customer neglect, bad fuel, clogged injectors, the list goes on. I'm with the other responses, how can a guy look at the map in the ecu after the motor blew up, and assume that it was lean? I sure as hell can't, and I've been doing this for over 10 years..

madblkscientist

im not agreeing with the second tuner theorie but if it was giving trouble the builder/tuner is responsible for figuring it out or fixing it b4 the engine blew up "since they built tune it" this would have saved alot of time/money and headaches.but u are right all those sensors could have went bad i just changed injectors on my gsr cause the car was running funny and the mechanic told me bring it by and lets figure this out b4 a problem arise and between the 2 of us i found out it was a bad injector.

madblkscientist

either way its best to move on and get a better tuner and a good engine build save all ur documents and get second opinions /fix problems when they occur trust no one lol