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db1

Active Member
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Dec 25, 2002
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I saw the following message relating to BMWs used on track days and wondered whether Merc (AMGs) have the same limitation in their warranties. (To save you looking: BMW warranties even for M series cars are invalid if you use your car on track days)

Also, as a followup, I was wondering whether there is any "logging" like aeroplanes blackboxes, that is done in the newer Mercedes that will show how (fast) the car is being driven etc.

A colleague at work has the same question in relation to his M3!

http://www.pressbox.co.uk/Detailed/8218.html

Anyone have any ideas?

thanks

DB
 
Hope not, otherwise having been on a track day is going to be the only good excuse for what it might show!

Wouldn't suprise me.
 
Originally posted by GrahamC230K
Hope not, otherwise having been on a track day is going to be the only good excuse for what it might show!

Wouldn't suprise me.
Or the old saving grace.....a trip to the Mother Land

DE
 
I am not sure a trip to the mother land will be a good excuse for 250+ trips from 15mph to 120mph and back to 15mph in the space of 2 hrs or so!

More importantly, if it is tied to the GPS at the end of this you would have ended where you started :) I would like to see the letter that goes to Merc explaining that one!

Seriously though, now that the brakes are also electronic (Sensotronic) it must be easy to log all this data you would think. I am wondering whether the electonics wizards out there have had a look at this.....

DB
 
They then admitted that the warranty was valid, but that:

any mechanical failure sustained on any form of track or driver improvement day will not be covered by a BMW warranty

So does driver improvement mean no more IAM courses in a beemer........ That explaines why they all drive like tw@t's!!! There not allowed to be taught the error of there ways!!!

No more learing anything in a BMW.
 
My Brother in law has just bought an M3 - and he told of a similar instance at the dealers when he was talking to the sales manager.

Apparently one of their customers had a type of sports sequential semi auto box, and this has a "special lauch" type button which shouldnt be used every day - and this guy ran down the pod with it on a regular basis!

Apparently the box logs how many times its been used - and he was way over what was considered "acceptable",and therefore wasnt entitled to warranty repairs on it !


Just glad I've got an MB - we dont need new gearboxes under waranty !!

Mark
 
If I over-rev my Merc, the ECU stops me from doing it, inteligent ECU saves me repair costs. :)

If I over-rev my BMW, the ECU lets me cause damage, and tells the dealer what I did. ECU snitches, makes BMW money! :(

Thank god I don't have a BMW, life would be expensive! :bannana:
 
Originally posted by paulrstaylor
If I over-rev my Merc, the ECU stops me from doing it, inteligent ECU saves me repair costs. :)

If I over-rev my BMW, the ECU lets me cause damage, and tells the dealer what I did. ECU snitches, makes BMW money! :(

Thank god I don't have a BMW, life would be expensive! :bannana:


How do you mean?

They both have rev limiters (I like to check these things! ).

Or are you joking?
 
Originally posted by GrahamC230K
How do you mean?

They both have rev limiters (I like to check these things! ).

Or are you joking?

They both have rev limiters, Merc to protect your investment......BMW to log your error and invalidate your warantee ?!?!?
 
I would'nt have thought there would be enough memory capacity in an ECU to record much data. You would need something like a hard drive wouldn't you? A smart-card type storage device of 64Mb would soon fill up.

I'm no electronics expert but wouldn't have thought it was viable to do.
 
Originally posted by jimmy
I would'nt have thought there would be enough memory capacity in an ECU to record much data. You would need something like a hard drive wouldn't you? A smart-card type storage device of 64Mb would soon fill up.

I'm no electronics expert but wouldn't have thought it was viable to do.

64 Mb is a lot of raw data....
 
Jimmy

it only has to log the numer of times ! - thats a single bit of info
if it recorded time and date as well it still wouldnt be a lot of information to store.

64Mb is a huge amount of space in those terms when you consider that the entire bible fits on a 1.44Mb floppy disc !

My turbo Ecu is a work of Honda genius- when you see what it can do - yet the complete 12,000 lines of code fit into a 128KB rom with loads of room to spare - my heavily converted version holds everything in 256kb

Mark
 
No, there is no 'memory' like this on AMG's or 'normal' Mercs. The only way the dealership maybe able to tell is high ware and tare in a short period.

I know a friend with a SLK32 that does a number of track days and MB haven’t said a thing at service and warrantee time.

Go on, thrash it!
:)
 
As far as I'm aware, in both BMW and MB the ECU stores various fault codes.

In the BMW certainly, one of those is 'overreving' - it records the peak rpm reached by the engine.

Another is for sustained high-speed running, where the highest revs/duration maintained is recorded.

I took my car in last week to have the fault codes checked, prior to its 10k service, just to get some indication whether anything might need to be done. The 'tech who did it let me watch.

Clean bill of health, happily - that was despite there being loads of recorded faults! The faults were all really odd - it had recorded non-existent bulb failures, radio/Comand interface problem, none of which had surfaced within the car...so I wonder how reliable it is?

I didn't ask him about your specific question, but can do around 3rd Feb when the car goes in, if you haven't had an answer by then. :) :)
 
Originally posted by Guy
I didn't ask him about your specific question, but can do around 3rd Feb when the car goes in, if you haven't had an answer by then. :) :)

Ask him how fast you have been driving, if he can tell you deny it quicky and insist it must be an error!
 
I did some digging around and found this website:

http://www.obd-2.com/datg.htm

The URL points to a screenshot of a tool that seems to be able to read and interact with the obd of various cars. Noting this screen shot give time of day, loading of various components as well as speed and rpm. I guess if that is stored somewhere it probably has a lot of data that could be used to work out how the car has been driven.

Interesting however, would be posts about other MB owners who have done track days and any resultant problems. I called some of the track day organisers and it appears we are in the minority (read virtually non existent) compared to BMWs/Subarus/Ferraris/Porsches etc - I would have thought the AMG contingent would have been better represented at these events....
 
Originally posted by db1

Interesting however, would be posts about other MB owners who have done track days and any resultant problems. I called some of the track day organisers and it appears we are in the minority (read virtually non existent) compared to BMWs/Subarus/Ferraris/Porsches etc - I would have thought the AMG contingent would have been better represented at these events....


I took my CL round Goodwood last year, only done about 6 laps when the track was empty and the car was fine... thrashing the hell out of it!

We imported a 300ZX TT last year for this specific job of track days, and have been to many including Brands, Goodwood, Nurbergring, Silverstone. I only ever saw one AMG, and that was a SL55 that went round the nurbergring once whilst I was there. Many more M-cars, Porsches etc.

I think it's time for an MB only track day :bannana:
 

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