Hello.

This is my first post so please forgive me if I have put this in the wrong area. Bought 6 weeks ago a fabia vrs with 80k from a car dealer (not skoda).

Can't believe I missed it when inspecting the engine but it has a P box which is made by steinbauer. The dealer never told me of this so quite annoyed with him.

Does anyone have any experience of the P box and would they leave it installed on their VRS? On the website it says bhp goes up to 160 and so does torque, would

this put too much strain on the engine and turbo? I do like the power and am keen to keep it but does it have an effect on mpg and roughly how much could it increase my insurance?

Also ( never owned a diesel before) there does seem to be some black smoke on hard acceleration is this ok or is this caused by p box or something else.

Any help much appreciated.

Nounou

Edited 13 July, 201015 yr by Nounou

personally id just keep it

mpg difference will be negligable

and a 'tunit' box wont strain as much as a remap would

upto you at the end of the day!!

i got mines from dealer with remap (ran 173bhp) pd160 green air filter and he also forgot it had cruise and heated seats win win!!

personally id just keep it

mpg difference will be negligable

and a 'tunit' box wont strain as much as a remap would

upto you at the end of the day!!

i got mines from dealer with remap (ran 173bhp) pd160 green air filter and he also forgot it had cruise and heated seats win win!!

:yes:

Also the excess black smoke means the engine is overfueling or not breathing as well as it needs. Check air filter etc

black smoke will prob be the tuning box as this is all it does, adds extra fuel i believe

black smoke will prob be the tuning box as this is all it does, adds extra fuel i believe

Aye most likely over - fuelling as I mentioned above

Edited 13 July, 201015 yr by Thirdtimeluck

Thanks for the replies everyone. I will try having a look at the airfilter. If I replaced it would it be good to stick with standard

air filter or something else? If I get rid of it or not I think will depend on the extra car insurance. I guess to cure overfueling would be best to

take the P box out.

Nounou

I have a tuning box mad by Steinbauer which I bought off Ebay a few months ago.

The Company is well established and has been running for about ten years

To buy the box new would cost you £495

As for the performance gains the company claims 160 BHP with 360 NM torque

As for my own car no real change in mpg (if anything possibly better)

As for black smoke only a little bit under full throttle

Notified the insurance and they charged me an extra £43 a year

If you want to you can do what I have done which is set the box to max power (which then realy pulls at from 2000 rpm) and make it switchable i.e. only switch it on when needed !!!

Hope this helps

Hi Korban

Thanks for your message. That doesn't sound too expensive to put on the insurance. Checked the mpg on an app called "Road Trip" and that calculated me doing 48.5mpg over 400miles.

Which seems alright so going to call the insurance and get a quote. It could be switchable but I'm not sure will have to get some info from Steinbauer. Same with mine black smoke under hard acceleration but will check airfilter and if it needs replacing will get a standard replacement.

Thanks,

Nounou

At GBP49 new, it will be an analogue box, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but can mean you get an engine management light come on from time-to-time because of the way it works. It's just one of those things...

Hi ap0gee,

Don't know where you got the GBP49 from but when I spoke to Steinbauer distributors about the Power Box they explained that it is a digital system and are GBP 495 to buy new and that was in March of this year

Could be wrong if they do a cheap version which is called the P Box but if the is I can't find it.

Karl

Hi Nounou,

If I remeber correctly the is a grey wire doubled back in the the wireing loom on the SteinbauerBox. If you connect that to earth (-Ve) via a simple switch the will disable the box. If you want more information go to www.steinbauer.cc find your car from the drop down list and ther is an option to enter your email address and they will email you a pdf manual to you. If you want more info PM me.

Regards

Karl

personally i would not keep it. when i got mine it had a tuning box on it an i hardly noticed it. the box had no company name on it or a part number, but i wouldnt really trust tuning boxes because its more plug and play and will just trick the ecu and over fuel. i removed mine and had it fault checked to see if it had caused any damage. i would suggest you do the same but that's only my opinion, i have no experience of the company you talk of

Elliott

If I misread the price from an earlier post, it's because I was browsing with Opera which sometimes cuts the las character off a line! Does it have wires connecting it to the battery? No = analogue, yes = digital. I ran a digital tuning box for about 20k with no problems, and I know at least one member who's had an analogue one on for a long time, too. But like has been said, they can never be as effective as a proper remap. There are quite a few threads discussing the pros and cons, but as it was a freebie, I'd keep it as long as it wasn't making the engine jerky or throwing up any warning lights. Of course, the insurance hike may make the difference - if you don't tell your insurer, you won't be covered if you have an accident...