For those of you who have nev­er heard of a remap, it’s a way of repro­gram­ming your car’s com­put­er in order to increase the per­for­mance. In par­tic­u­lar your vehi­cle torque and brake horse­pow­er. Also, depend­ing on how you dri­ve it can improve your car’s fuel effi­cien­cy mean­ing you could actu­al­ly save mon­ey in the long run. Final­ly if you plan on tow­ing a heavy load such as a car­a­van the added torque and pow­er can make your life easier.

Although remap­ping is a great way to boost your car’s per­for­mance, it is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed the remap is car­ried out by a qual­i­fied spe­cial­ist to avoid the risk of engine dam­age. The pro­ce­dure usu­al­ly only takes about half an hour and, if done prop­er­ly, you should get a notice­able improve­ment in your vehicle’s per­for­mance almost straight away.

The rea­son remaps are pos­si­ble is because man­u­fac­tur­ers often lim­it a vehicle’s per­for­mance in order to meet prod­uct plan­ning objec­tives or econ­o­my and effi­cien­cy targets.

Are there any dis­ad­van­tages to remapping?

Yes, in a word but they are out-weighed by the gains. Here are some of the dis­ad­van­tages of a remap.

• Only tur­bo-charged engines will ful­ly ben­e­fit from a sim­ple engine remap­ping. If your car is a non-tur­bo petrol, you might not notice much of a change in BHP from a remapping.

• More BHP also means more stress on your engine. Be ready to have your car ser­viced reg­u­lar­ly, as some parts of the vehi­cle, such as the clutch, may suf­fer a high­er lev­el wear from day to day use.

• With more horse­pow­er you may find your­self get­ting speed­ing tickets.

• Remap­ping your car may affect your insur­ance. Some insur­ance providers charge a pre­mi­um on cov­er for remapped vehicles.

In order to car­ry out a remap to improve your car’s per­for­mance, it is sim­ply a fac­tor of a skilled tech­ni­cian plug­ging into your vehi­cle com­put­er sys­tem via the Onboard Diag­nos­tics Port (or OBD for short) who then repro­grams the Engine Con­trol Unit to remove any man­u­fac­tur­er lim­i­ta­tions with the help of a lap­top and some spe­cial­ist soft­ware. Now that we have cov­ered the basics of what a remap is it’s time to see which cars can ben­e­fit most from a remap. 

VAUX­HALL COR­SA – 1.4T PETROL (2018-PRESENT* *2019)

The new Vaux­hall Cor­sa can be retuned with an extra 30 BHP and 50 new­ton meters of torque so if you want to get some gains from your Vaux­hall then a remap is def­i­nite­ly an option. Cor­sa are often over­looked but these com­pact cars pack a seri­ous punch.

BMW 116D — (F‑chassis) 2.0 litre diesel

This diesel engined BMW is well worth remap­ping, it will increase fuel effi­cien­cy and per­for­mance. A remap on this vehi­cle can gain an extra 34 BHP and anoth­er 60nm of torque on top of the man­u­fac­tur­er’s stan­dard of 150BHP and 270nm of torque leav­ing the vehi­cle with 184 horse­pow­er and a great deal of extra torque.

The BMW 1 Series (F‑Chassis) 1.6T Petrol 2019

The 1 series is one of the top of the list of cars worth remap­ping, gain­ing up an addi­tion­al 61 BHP on the 116i mod­els. Not only does it gain a decent amount of pow­er but addi­tion­al­ly it’s torque is increased from 180nm to 280. So if you have a 1 series a remap is well worth the money.

Ford Fies­ta Mk 8 EcoBoost

The Ford Fies­ta is anoth­er that makes into the high­er rank­ings of our list of cars that can ben­e­fit from a remap. This Mod­el can ben­e­fit from an increase of BHP from 85 to 135 horse­pow­er along­side a boost in torque of up to 60 new­ton meters.

BMW M5 F90 Petrol (2017> to present)

This BMW comes in close to the top of the list due to the mas­sive increase in BHP that can be gained from a remap. The M5 already comes in at a stag­ger­ing 600BHP but can be increased by a fur­ther 80 horse­pow­er until it comes to near­ly 680 BHP.

AUDI RS6 – 4.0 TWIN TUR­BO PETROL (2019 ‑PRESENT* *2020)

An Audi RS6 is def­i­nite­ly one to watch when it comes to tun­ing, you can gain up to 110 BHP which will see you fly­ing quick­er than all the above at 710BHP. The remap will also get you an addi­tion­al 150nm of torque to make sure that your motor real­ly moves.

If you want to remap any of the above vehi­cles or any oth­ers in fact we can give you a detailed descrip­tion of what you can gain in terms of BHP and torque. Find out more about our vehi­cle remap ser­vices here