[sickspeed]

I'm new to the forum but have been lurking for quite some time. I have a lot of experience with software tunes and recent experience suggests that you can reasonably expect a dealer to deny, or at least attempt to deny, warranty work should something fail when you have a tune on your car. Dealers can tell if you have a tune on your car even if you restore it to the stock program, despite what some people claim, by simply checking the flash count on the computer or scanning for artifact codes and indicators. They just compare how many times BMW has flashed or updated the software on your car to how many times the car says and deduce from that that you might have done something. They also tend to flag cars as having tuned drivetrains so that if or when you come in for service the next time, they can potentially blame the tune (and they try to blame all sorts of nonsense on tunes) and give you a hefty bill. Long story short, I wouldn't trust any tuner claims of warranty-approved chip tunes without explicitly and independently verifying them with your dealer. I could be wrong but this has been my experience with various tuners and manufacturers. Think about it, why would a dealer want to foot the bill for something if they suspect someone monkeyed with the settings of the car? The auto service industry has gotten quite sophisticated lately so just keep all this in mind when considering a tune.

For me personally, I try to hold off on tuning until the factory warranty has run out. I am by no means saying these tunes are sketchy (although some are) but more so that the dealers will screw you if given the opportunity. Similar to how they rarely repair parts anymore and instead replace parts one by one, thereby increasing service costs, i.e., dealer service profits.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. I am hoping to pick up a X5d here shortly and am watching for tunes available for that platform so keep up the discussion.