Customer experience is everything. We pride ourselves on customer satisfaction. It is the forefront of our operation. We have developed this document titled guidelines, expectations, and disclaimer based on thousands of interactions with our customers. Our intent with this document is to be upfront, honest, and transparent about what you should expect through tuning and modifying your vehicle. We make a genuine attempt to be balanced, fair, and reasonable. You should too. By using our service, you acknowledge that you have read, understand, and agree to these terms and conditions. Yes, we know it is long. You should still take a moment to review and understand it because we will refer you to it when you have an experience that is covered here.
Media:
We like to provide updates during the time your vehicle is here through text messages, videos, social media posts, and emails. Please tell us in advance if you do not want your vehicle included in any of our public content, including social media.
Payment Methods:
Our preferred payment methods are cash, personal check, and zelle. Cards and app based payment are accepted but the 4% processing fee is added to the total. We will call your bank to verify funds availability for personal checks.
About Tuning:
The tune calibration that we install will never change. When we complete the tune of your vehicle it will continue to perform at the capacity it did on arrival, or more likely show improvements from our work. Once tuned, we are confident the services provided should produce noticeable benefits. Following our work, if an issue arises with your vehicle, it will most likely be due to a mechanical or electrical fault, not a fault with the tune itself. Once the fault is fixed your vehicle should revert to its optimum performance.
It is important to remember that vehicle components can fail on stock vehicles just like they can when tuned. Tuning will often show weak points in your setup, as you are now asking it to work harder than it used to. You must look after the engine, perform regular maintenance with good oil & parts, use high octane (91 or more) fuel, and overall have some mechanical sympathy for your vehicle. This will all help keep your vehicle running well. If your car needs mechanical attention, get this work done before considering a tune.
Warranty:
There is not one.
By the very nature of our products and services, the stated goal and intent is to increase the performance of your vehicle above the level of the manufacturer’s calibration. For this reason, there is no warranty expressed or implied for any product or service that we offer.
The customer acknowledges there is no warranty expressed or implied for any product or service, including but not limited to aftermarket parts, tuning service, dynamometer testing service, reflash service, or installation service. PCM TUNERS will not be held responsible for theft, or any cost or damages to any person, vehicle, or item through the performance of our work or during the time the vehicle is in our possession. PCM TUNERS will not be liable for the proper operation, improper operation, or failure of any vehicle system, component, or part including but not limited to the programming or operation of any control module, engine, transmission, suspension, powertrain, turbos, superchargers, sensors, injectors, clutches, gearboxes, diesel particulate filter, catalytic converter, or boost pipes (boost leaks), before, during, or after tuning.
We are proud of our reputation and hopefully our level of experience, online reviews, and stated goals for customer satisfaction give you confidence in choosing us to modify your vehicle. We try to achieve the best possible result for every vehicle and customer. We rely on previous experience and success to lead to future success and great customer experiences, but know that sometimes things do not go as planned.
Subcontractors and Third-Party Services:
We work alongside external ‘tune writers’ and may use third party providers of labor, hardware, and software to complete our work. Any liability for any third-party mistake in labor, hardware, or software lies with them and not PCM TUNERS.
The Customer Should Know and:
Accept all power/torque gains from your tune are approximate, just like the manufacturer’s quoted power and torque figures.
Accept the fuel efficiency of your vehicle after a tune depends on several factors including but not limited to, outside temperature, driving style, tire pressures, and regular and correct service maintenance of your vehicle.
Accept PCM TUNERS is not liable for any costs associated to fix ANY faults found related to your vehicle before, during, or after tuning.
Accept that we love tuning and modifying cars and trucks, and we are here to help as a consultant and advisor, but we love our families and time away from work too. Our normal business hours are 9-5 Monday through Friday. We are closed weekends and holidays and will not be available to communicate with you in any form when we are closed.
Remote and Mail Order Tuning:
Please ask questions and clarify your concerns before purchasing a remote or mail order tune. Vehicles must be in good operating condition prior to tuning with no warning lights or mechanical faults. We do not issue refunds or returns on remote or mail order tuning because there are too many variables beyond our control.
We take pride in our work. Our goal is to help you achieve an excellent running car however, it is your responsibility to identify and resolve all issues prior to tuning. Failed sensors, weak or dead battery, faulty wiring, bad fuel, clogged filters, fuel system faults, ignition system faults, electro-mechanical faults, exhaust leaks, bad grounds, broken relays, intake vacuum leaks, and countless other variables must be identified and fixed before performing any tuning.
If things do not go as expected, we will consult with you for a reasonable amount of time (up to one hour) to try to identify the root cause. We use our experience to diagnose the problem(s) interfering with the tuning. You can assist us in troubleshooting through scanner readings, datalogs, and by providing specific and accurate details.
If we cannot identify and resolve the issue after one hour, you agree and accept that the resolution will be for you to take the vehicle to a repair shop of your choice at your cost. We will not consult with the repair shop. Upon request, and within 90 days, we will resume the tune service as originally purchased at no additional cost if all issues have been resolved.
About the Vehicle Manufacturer:
You agree that the original vehicle manufacturer makes its own determinations regarding the effects of add-on products and/or service to its warranties. PCM TUNERS shall in no way be held responsible nor liable for anything pertaining to or resulting from the original vehicle manufacturers warranty and/or terms of use.
Refund Policy:
All reflash tunes and stage 1 tunes performed at our facility have a 14-day trial policy; any minor changes will be free of charge during this time, provided they are within the available parameters of our software.
If you are not satisfied with your tune, and you are still within the 14-day trial window, we will offer to flash the vehicle back to stock and issue a 100% refund. If your vehicle requires the control module to be removed for reflashing (you would already know if this applied to your vehicle by this point) the labor charge for removal and reinstallation of the control module does apply. This charge is $135/hour or a $135 flat fee, whichever is greater. This will be deducted from your refund.
There are no refunds for tuning of cam swaps, engine swaps, dynamometer tuning, stage 2, stage 3, pop & bang, crackle, and burble tunes. These should be discussed in advance and are always custom.
At stage 2+ tune levels you are paying for our labor for development time as well as the use of our specialized hardware and software that costs tens of thousands of dollars. You are NOT purchasing a guaranteed outcome. This is truly custom work that requires dozens of hours of labor for research, testing, driving, datalogging, flashing, and retesting the vehicle. Sometimes it takes dozens or hundreds of tune calibration iterations to get everything just right. We strive for perfection, but you need to expect reality. Even after we are “done” and deliver the vehicle back to you there may be work that needs to be done. As you drive the vehicle you may find some things that require you to bring it back such as stalling in reverse when backing up a steep hill, changes in idle as weather changes, or countless other unknowns.
After the tune is installed:
We always encourage our customers to allow themselves time to take their vehicle for a test drive immediately following our services to assess the additional performance gained from the tune. If customers want any minor adjustments to be made following this, and the adjustments are within the parameters of our software, we will do these free of charge within 14-days.
As part of the test drive, your aim should be to ensure that your car has responded well to the tune service and confirm that the new settings have not caused any faults with your vehicle.
Long term care:
We intend to support you, at no charge, with any questions or concerns you may have about the tune of your vehicle for the entire time you own the vehicle. This is not transferrable to a new owner. This is a courtesy. We reserve the right to decline support to anyone who abuses this policy.
If you do notice any faults with your vehicle after the tune service has been completed, we ask that you contact us immediately. We will consult and advise you to help you resolve the problem, and we may ask you to bring the vehicle back to us for diagnostics or to tweak the tune if we feel this is appropriate. We may ask you to have your vehicle diagnosed by a third-party mechanic to independently verify any issues and if this is the case, these additional fees will not be covered by PCM TUNERS.
No refunds are offered under any circumstances after the installation of the modified software to your vehicle, except for the 14-day policy described above.
If you need us to uninstall the tune at any point during your ownership of the vehicle, we can flash the vehicle the vehicle back to stock, however we may charge for this depending on how much time is required to re-install the tune. In most cases we are happy to provide this service at no extra charge. We will not travel to your location for this; we require customers to bring the vehicle back to our shop.
This is not intended to hide a tune for vehicles that are going back to the dealer for service, we offer a different solution for that.
We can re-install the tune for you later, however we may charge for this depending on how much time is required to re-install the tune. In most cases we are happy to provide this service at no extra charge.
If your vehicle requires the control module to be removed for reflashing (you would already know if this applied to your vehicle by this point) the labor rate of $135/hr and a minimum one-hour labor charge for removal and reinstallation of the control module applies.
Dealer or third party reflashes
Do not let anyone reflash your vehicle for an update, technical service bulletin (TSB), or any other reason, or understand that if you do allow this, the tune will be lost. Sometimes dealers will perform this service without advising you first. This will require a new tune service to be purchased.
One exception is if your vehicle gets reflashed and the software version was NOT changed, then we can re-install the tune for you, however we may charge for this depending on how much time is required to re-install the tune. In most cases we are happy to provide this service at no extra charge.
Warning Lights:
No refunds will be given for warning lights. We intend to bring any potential warning lights to your attention in advance, but it is impossible for us to account for every situation. We value our reputation and hopefully our reviews give you confidence in choosing us to tune your vehicle. We have numerous happy customers with heavily modified vehicles without any warning lights. We always try to adjust a vehicle’s tune to prevent any warning lights, however, we are not responsible for preventing or removing any warning lights.
Warning lights are defined in this agreement as any light, message, sound, or text that is illuminated, displayed, or announced by any part of any vehicle system. Some (but not all) examples are diagnostic trouble codes (DTC), check engine lights (CEL), and security system lights. Understand that as you modify components (including the tune calibration) of a vehicle it may trigger a warning light.
PCM/ECM/Control Module Repairs, J2534 Reflashes, and Tunes to Fix Mechanical or Electrical Faults:
If you choose to use tuning as an option to try fix an existing issue with your car, we are happy to help with this. For example, if your vehicle running rough and you suspect DOD/AFM/MDS/VDS or some type of cylinder deactivation is at fault, we will perform a delete on that system for you.
Another example, if your vehicle does not start and you suspect an issue with vats/pats/skim/immobilizer we can disable this system for you.
If you suspect your ecu/pcm/etc is damaged we can replace, repair, clone, or reprogram it for you.
However, understand that if any of these services does not fix the issue, we will still charge for parts, labor, and the service provided.
In general, a computer reflash will not fix or repair a mechanical or electrical fault unless there is a documented technical service bulletin from the manufacturer that identifies your specific problem, and clearly states to perform a module reflash to update to a calibration that fixes the problem.
Emissions Readiness:
Be advised that reflashing a control module to install the tune will reset the status of all self-tests of the emissions readiness system to “not ready.” This means that if you are particularly concerned about easily passing emissions (as in your registration expires next week and you need to have a passed emissions inspection before you can renew the tag) and you are not willing to accept that everything related to emissions testing even in stock vehicles can be an inconvenient, frustrating, and time-consuming, then tuning or modification of your vehicle is not for you, and you should not purchase our products or services.
This does not mean that our tuning service will prevent you from passing emissions. Rather, understand that as you modify components (including the tune calibration) of a vehicle it may impact the speed of the results of the emissions readiness system. We take pride in our work and our goal is to help you achieve an excellent running car. We hope that our reputation and reviews give you confidence in choosing us to tune your vehicle, and we have numerous happy customers with heavily modified vehicles that comply with and pass emissions each year.
That said, PCM TUNERS cannot and does not guarantee anything related to passing emissions or setting individual monitors of the emissions readiness system to “readiness completed.” No refunds will be given, and no additional work/labor will be performed due to a vehicle’s inability to pass emissions.
PCM TUNERS cannot and does not guarantee anything related to passing emissions or setting individual monitors of the emissions readiness system to “readiness completed.” No refunds will be given, and no additional work/labor will be performed due to a vehicle’s inability to pass emissions.
All about Emissions Readiness:
Emissions readiness is a system of self-tests that an engine control module runs to make sure that all emissions systems are functioning properly and to alert the driver when they are not (typically through a diagnostic trouble code ‘DTC’ or check engine light ‘CEL’). Each self-test is known as a readiness monitor or just “monitor”. The monitor for each emissions system is performed continuously as you drive the vehicle. Some monitors take time and require specific operating conditions before they run or can be checked. The laws are different across the country but in general a vehicle will not pass an emissions inspection until all the monitors report a status of “readiness completed”.
After a tune is installed onto the vehicle, the monitors will run continuously (as described above), and the monitors will begin to change from “not ready” to “readiness completed” as the self-tests are performed while driving the vehicle.
On many vehicles, the readiness monitors will change to “readiness completed” after a cold start and warmup cycle, followed by 20-150 miles of driving, but there are no guarantees on this. It is possible that you never operate the vehicle in the manner needed for the engine control module to run a particular test.
One frustrating situation is when the vehicle does not report a check engine light or diagnostic trouble code, but one of the emissions monitors reports “not ready” for days or weeks. Evap monitors on GM vehicles are notorious for this and catalyst monitors on Fords can be very difficult. You are stuck in limbo, and this may prevent you from passing emissions.
Each state has different laws. In Georgia, you are allowed one monitor to report “not ready”. You will pass emissions if the check engine light is off, and you have one or less monitors that report “not ready”.
If a readiness monitor status is “not ready”, it could be due to having recently disconnected or replaced a vehicle’s battery or having used a diagnostic scan tool to erase computer trouble codes. Reflashing a control module (either to stock or with a tune calibration) will also reset all readiness monitors to “not ready”.
Lastly, to allow your vehicle’s monitors to perform their tests and reset them to a “readiness completed” state, your vehicle may need to be driven in a special way called a “drive cycle”. This special sequence will put the vehicle in specific conditions and give the readiness monitors the conditions the need to detect any emissions failures. Usually the “go drive it 50 miles” advice that shops and mechanics tell you will complete the requirements of the drive cycle by random chance, but not always.
If you are struggling to get all your emissions monitors set to “readiness compete” then try an internet search for the drive cycle of your vehicle make and model. There is no standard for a drive cycle. Each vehicle manufacturer, make, and model can have a different process. Some are documented, some are not.
Be prepared, some of the steps required are strange and include things like “the engine must idle for two and a half minutes with the air conditioner on and rear defroster on” and “release the accelerator pedal with the vehicle in gear and allow it to slow down from 55 to 20 mph without touching the gas or brake”. These things can be harder than you think. Make sure you have a long clear road and be prepared for some funny looks or people honking at you.
