I've been reading the comments about engines being tuned, remapped and special boxes fitted. Benefits being greater power, economy etc. But out of curiously, why aren't the manufacturers selling them like this as standard? surely this would add appeal to the cars for very very little cost?

Thanks

It puts more strain on engine components so there is a likelihood that they may wear out sooner. The vehicles may also put out more CO2 and the tax band would be higher.

There are some vehicles that the manufacturers do this on. Look at the 1.2tsi fitted to the Fabia 2. It comes in 3 different power levels where the engines are essentially the same and only the map is different.

I guess many factors but probably the main reason is Tuning kits are a relatively tiny market & therefore not cost interesting for the manufacturers.

 

Reliability, manufacturers have to develop vehicles which are reliable in all of the countries in Europe, Asia, US where there are many different conditions. (weather, altitude, fuel quality etc).

 

Then there's marketting: if you sell a tuning kit for €300 for a 150PS engine you are taking away sales from the 190PS engine which they can charge you €2000 extra for.

This is quite common now where the same base engine is sold in several power ratings with large markup in cost.

 

In the case of Skoda theres also brand positioning within the bigger group.

 

 

Some manufacturers do offer this e.g. Ford Montune Fiesta or Focus but in this case it is purely for the marketting "Halo" effect.

They probably sell 1000 "tuned" cars per year compared with 500,000 with the standard engine so they develop these components at a loss..

Tuning chips and boxes also take advantage of the better fuel quality available in some markets, such as the UK, to improve performance and economy, whereas other markets, Eg. India, sell poorer quality fuels so the base engine spec has to cope with a range of fuels to extract a minimum level of performance.

Thanks folks. Question answered