First and foremost, this thread has not been produced to initiate a slanging match between tuners and fellow enthusiasts, but to highlight issues I had with my remap and how it was resolved. Moreover, there may be many of you guys who have been suffering with Limp Mode or other post map related problems that may see a resemblance to the problems I experienced.

The story starts with my Ibiza MK4 TDI in March 2005, when I joined a GB through one of the VAG sites. The car was booked into Jabba for a custom remap. After two hours my car was mapped - my initial impressions were wow, what a fantastic power increase from 100bhp to 157bhp; my mods were only the Cupra intake and Green filter at the time.

Then in September 2005 I hit Limp Mode and the car was taken back to Jabba for investigation. The car was adjusted and backed off by approx 7bhp, with a view that that should clear the fault. In December 2005 I took it back to Jabba again with the same fault. The remap was checked again and eventually the car was flashed back to standard map. Even in standard map I was getting the same symptoms, so the theory was that it must be a mechanical fault and not the fault of the map. Under the advice of Jabba staff, the next stage was to change the N75/N18 valve at a future visit. The following week this was changed, but the fault was still apparent. Everything else had been ruled out, but other members of staff recommended the MAP sensor. This was duly changed by me, and initially I thought this had fixed the fault until the next day I had limp mode again. Now I was getting quite frustrated with trying to get some technical direction from the staff at Jabba, to doing my own research on the Internet forums, and also slaving in a known serviceable MAF and another N75/N18 valve. All this work still left a car that was going into limp mode as standard. Time and time I tried to get some direction from Jabba, but was advised that it was probably the Turbo vanes, which was causing the limp mode.

Fortunately, l I fell on a contact on TDIclub, who put me in touch with James at JBS. After an initial discussion about the symptoms I was experiencing, it became apparent that they were common, and James said he would be able to fix the car. So up to Chesterfield I went in the last week of January 2005 two days after I had spoken with James. The car had been left in standard factory map upon leaving Jabba. James initially checked the version, and his suspicions were confirmed – there was no software version showing in vagcom. The wrong standard software had been flashed back onto my ECU, which meant that in a nutshell everything was out of sync by some 4 bytes. James further went onto to say that the Jabba remap parameters were all wrong, and that’s why I was going into limp mode at certain speed/revs. James said a further visit would be required, which would give him time to build a new stock map for my ecu before we put CC1 on. So on 4 January 2006 I drove back down to JBS looking forward to a fixed car. After 3 hrs the car was fixed as standard and with the remap. The limp mode was no more and the map is fantastic – so smooth and pulls right to the red line. I’m now a happy man, who weeks ago was looking at a large labour bill for a turbo dismantle, when all along it was the map.

So all I can say is there is a solution to your problems. Why should you drive around going into limp mode? I hope I have given you “food for thought”.

Finally, I would like to thank Mike and Brian at Jabba for accepting my findings from JBS, providing me with my refund, and also that they would look into the 100pd software provided by Dimsport.

An interesting story......

Interesting story. Nicely put. No slagging off just the facts. Also nice to see Jabba have accepted the fault and are looking into it.

Interesting story. Nicely put. No slagging off just the facts. Also nice to see Jabba have accepted the fault and are looking into it.

Absolutely John - it's a interesting read and you're right about Jabba they are such a nice honest bunch of people and it's so rare to find tuners who are big enough to accept 3rd party findings and put their hands up and say "Yes we have a problem and we are going to sort it out and give you your money back". Good on them - Jabba just keep going from strength to strength in my eyes.

John, that indeed is very refreshing to hear such a story. If only all tuners were as honest as Jabba it would make our/customers lives very easy. Just goes to show why Jabba are at the pinnacle of VAG tuning and why they are held in such high regard unlike others I could mention.

Thread moved to General - as is not specific to one Tuner.

Interestingly I spoke with both Jabba and JBS and they appear to have great respect for each other's work. True they are competitors but they are both of the enthusiastic-for-what-they-do kind.

Good story, and I have a feeling had it been the reverse the way it would have been handled would probably have been the same too

I've done business with both tuners involved in this story and they are still in the 'good books'

Ok, firstly its good to read such an interesting, unbiassed post.

It really does just go to show that there are good tuners out there - Jabba and JBS being up there with the best of them. This thread certainly does nothing to put me off of Jabba (roll on Saturday ), and tbh, hats off to them.

Good old JBS too - they could have been deeply critical of Jabba, but alas it appears both tuners have respect for each other. Nice one.

read this on seatcupra - very interesting read!

A very well written factual report, it could so easily have been a slagging/bragging article. I echo Des's comments & its great to see that both companies are straight & honest. Ive had previous experience of a company tuning japanese cars & that was not the case.

A big to both parties for fair customer service, a rare thing indeed these days

I'm book for CC next month - it could have been jabba easily if the map was switchable. Like stated above, both are quality services, this is evident when you call and ask for info. They go out of their way with customer service in my experience; other companies have hardly been bothered to discuss what i want. Confidence and trust is worth a lot, other companies can learn from this - not least main dealers!