[Tcmcec]

I am in the market for a BEF tune to go with my JB4 and could really use some help. I've been trying to research each tune but info is limited, maybe it's just too early to make a solid decision which I'm fine with also. My goals are to have a 18psi smooth and safely tuned daily. Here are some of my main questions and concerns.

- which tune is the smoothest with good power delivery?
- which tune has the best support and is consistently updating and perfecting their product?
- which tune can be reverted back to stock DME settings and not show on the counter if checked at factory?
- I really like the JB4 and plan to keep it for many reason, and noticed MHD seems to have pretty well partnered with BMS, should this be a top pick for that reason? Have Terry and the teams support is pretty priceless.

[SerenVoX]

- Ditching the JB4 and having a full custom flash will be smoothest and also deliver nice power.
-As far as support for flash tuning, BM3 has outstanding support. MHD is in beta and I haven't used them so I'm no sure. There lots of tuners and shops on the BM3 platform that have outstanding support, Ive spoken to handful of them.
-Jus recently you can now OBD unlock on your f-series. Both MHD and BM3 will offer this. Great for flashing back to stock, however, BMW could always see what they wanted to. Also I believe bench unlock is only way to get your stock readout.
-If you want to keep JB4 then talk with a tuner of your choice, ie terry or someone on the 2 mentioned platforms for BEF support. Trebilla might be a good start if you want to go MHD as well.

[M235SDCA]

Originally Posted by SerenVoX

- Ditching the JB4 and having a full custom flash will be smoothest and also deliver nice power.
-As far as support for flash tuning, BM3 has outstanding support. MHD is in beta and I haven't used them so I'm no sure. There lots of tuners and shops on the BM3 platform that have outstanding support, Ive spoken to handful of them.
-Jus recently you can now OBD unlock on your f-series. Both MHD and BM3 will offer this. Great for flashing back to stock, however, BMW could always see what they wanted to. Also I believe bench unlock is only way to get your stock readout.
-If you want to keep JB4 then talk with a tuner of your choice, ie terry or someone on the 2 mentioned platforms for BEF support. Trebilla might be a good start if you want to go MHD as well.

I also have BM3 and a JB4 and am a big fan of BM3. +1 on the outstanding support. Yesterday I had an issue (resolved now) and they were supporting until 1:30AM their time!

If you are going to stack the tunes from my experience so far it will take a bit to get it just right. JB4 with MHD will certainly work, as Terry at BMS supports both. His customer service is also top notch. The BM3 guys told me they might release a JB4 BEF as well as an OTS map, and if so stacking these tunes will be a lot easier.

From everything I have read map flashing is a bit slower with MHD, as is the unlock. The OBD unlock with BM3 takes about 4 minutes.

[mike@x-ph.com]

Since you are keeping the JB4, you probably need to get a customer flash map.
Go with BM3 and ask PTF for a BEF map

[FSociety]

Originally Posted by mike@x-ph.com

Since you are keeping the JB4, you probably need to get a customer flash map.
Go with BM3 and ask PTF for a BEF map

+1

[cxp213]

Originally Posted by Tcmcec

1. which tune is the smoothest with good power delivery?
2. which tune has the best support and is consistently updating and perfecting their product?
3. which tune can be reverted back to stock DME settings and not show on the counter if checked at factory?
4. I really like the JB4 and plan to keep it for many reason, and noticed MHD seems to have pretty well partnered with BMS, should this be a top pick for that reason? Have Terry and the teams support is pretty priceless.

1. Objectively speaking, nobody can really give you an accurate comparison of all the currently available flash options right now as nobody has experience with all of them. Exceptions may include tuners, but they probably have other reasons for pushing one product over another so take their recommendations with a grain of salt. MHD is still beta testing so exact info on how everything is customized isn't public knowledge. AA is too new and probably has the least amount of users out of the current flash options. BM3's been out the longest and/but they're constantly tweaking and updating their maps (take this how you wish). Most people will only have experience with 1 flash option and others may have additional experience with piggybacks, but that's not the same. Gathering subjective data from one person about flash A and comparing to subjective data from a different person about flash B isn't a great way to compare since their scale of measure is likely different. Then factor in that many will probably recommend what they currently have since that's what they last spent their money on as a way to justify it to themselves. Getting long-winded, but that's what you get with questions like "what's the best..."

2. If you follow these companies and their followers/consumers, it's easy to see that PTF is the most open, upfront, and constantly updating. They also appear to have the best customer service given their turnaround time, responsiveness, public feedback, etc. MHD's customer service is pretty much non-existent, as I think their goal is to simply have stable OTS maps and leave the rest to custom tuners (so once final, it can be hands-off with very minor updates). I don't know about others as I don't have firsthand experience.

3. Most flash options should be taking some sort of snapshot of your DME parameters in some fashion so that they can revert back to it when you decide to "go back to stock programming." How much of your original info is recorded is not exact for each flash options. PTF claims they can go 100% back to your original state (unique for each car) but I don't recall seeing a third party verification of it, and you really can't verify as an end-user. MHD simply states you can go back to stock programming but their intentional silence about the specifics leads many to believe that it's probably a flash back to a stock map for your vehicle model, but not the original map that was unique to your car. Other flash options are probably similar to MHD since they don't specifically mention anything in great detail. All this concern about warranty is meaningless. Unless the dealer can prove your tune is the cause of your issue, they can't refuse warranty work solely based on the fact that you have a tune.

4. Just because bunch of N54 guys stacked JB4 with MHD it doesn't mean that's the best option for N55. And I'm not certain but weren't the N54 guys pretty much limited to MHD as far as decent flashes are concerned? Any and all tuner worth their name should be able to tune using whichever platform you decide, so it's really dependent on which tuner you choose if you're getting a custom BEF. Now, as far as OTS BEF are concerned, not all may provide that so availability is going to be your limiting factor.

[Tcmcec]

Originally Posted by cxp213

1. Objectively speaking, nobody can really give you an accurate comparison of all the currently available flash options right now as nobody has experience with all of them. Exceptions may include tuners, but they probably have other reasons for pushing one product over another so take their recommendations with a grain of salt. MHD is still beta testing so exact info on how everything is customized isn't public knowledge. AA is too new and probably has the least amount of users out of the current flash options. BM3's been out the longest and/but they're constantly tweaking and updating their maps (take this how you wish). Most people will only have experience with 1 flash option and others may have additional experience with piggybacks, but that's not the same. Gathering subjective data from one person about flash A and comparing to subjective data from a different person about flash B isn't a great way to compare since their scale of measure is likely different. Then factor in that many will probably recommend what they currently have since that's what they last spent their money on as a way to justify it to themselves. Getting long-winded, but that's what you get with questions like "what's the best..."

2. If you follow these companies and their followers/consumers, it's easy to see that PTF is the most open, upfront, and constantly updating. They also appear to have the best customer service given their turnaround time, responsiveness, public feedback, etc. MHD's customer service is pretty much non-existent, as I think their goal is to simply have stable OTS maps and leave the rest to custom tuners (so once final, it can be hands-off with very minor updates). I don't know about others as I don't have firsthand experience.

3. Most flash options should be taking some sort of snapshot of your DME parameters in some fashion so that they can revert back to it when you decide to "go back to stock programming." How much of your original info is recorded is not exact for each flash options. PTF claims they can go 100% back to your original state (unique for each car) but I don't recall seeing a third party verification of it, and you really can't verify as an end-user. MHD simply states you can go back to stock programming but their intentional silence about the specifics leads many to believe that it's probably a flash back to a stock map for your vehicle model, but not the original map that was unique to your car. Other flash options are probably similar to MHD since they don't specifically mention anything in great detail. All this concern about warranty is meaningless. Unless the dealer can prove your tune is the cause of your issue, they can't refuse warranty work solely based on the fact that you have a tune.

4. Just because bunch of N54 guys stacked JB4 with MHD it doesn't mean that's the best option for N55. And I'm not certain but weren't the N54 guys pretty much limited to MHD as far as decent flashes are concerned? Any and all tuner worth their name should be able to tune using whichever platform you decide, so it's really dependent on which tuner you choose if you're getting a custom BEF. Now, as far as OTS BEF are concerned, not all may provide that so availability is going to be your limiting factor.

Thanks for the thorough info. Many good points to think about here.

[FSociety]

Tcmcec
https://f87.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1474469

[Jeff@TopGearSolutions]

Originally Posted by cxp213

1. Objectively speaking, nobody can really give you an accurate comparison of all the currently available flash options right now as nobody has experience with all of them. Exceptions may include tuners, but they probably have other reasons for pushing one product over another so take their recommendations with a grain of salt. MHD is still beta testing so exact info on how everything is customized isn't public knowledge. AA is too new and probably has the least amount of users out of the current flash options. BM3's been out the longest and/but they're constantly tweaking and updating their maps (take this how you wish). Most people will only have experience with 1 flash option and others may have additional experience with piggybacks, but that's not the same. Gathering subjective data from one person about flash A and comparing to subjective data from a different person about flash B isn't a great way to compare since their scale of measure is likely different. Then factor in that many will probably recommend what they currently have since that's what they last spent their money on as a way to justify it to themselves. Getting long-winded, but that's what you get with questions like "what's the best..."

2. If you follow these companies and their followers/consumers, it's easy to see that PTF is the most open, upfront, and constantly updating. They also appear to have the best customer service given their turnaround time, responsiveness, public feedback, etc. MHD's customer service is pretty much non-existent, as I think their goal is to simply have stable OTS maps and leave the rest to custom tuners (so once final, it can be hands-off with very minor updates). I don't know about others as I don't have firsthand experience.

3. Most flash options should be taking some sort of snapshot of your DME parameters in some fashion so that they can revert back to it when you decide to "go back to stock programming." How much of your original info is recorded is not exact for each flash options. PTF claims they can go 100% back to your original state (unique for each car) but I don't recall seeing a third party verification of it, and you really can't verify as an end-user. MHD simply states you can go back to stock programming but their intentional silence about the specifics leads many to believe that it's probably a flash back to a stock map for your vehicle model, but not the original map that was unique to your car. Other flash options are probably similar to MHD since they don't specifically mention anything in great detail. All this concern about warranty is meaningless. Unless the dealer can prove your tune is the cause of your issue, they can't refuse warranty work solely based on the fact that you have a tune.

4. Just because bunch of N54 guys stacked JB4 with MHD it doesn't mean that's the best option for N55. And I'm not certain but weren't the N54 guys pretty much limited to MHD as far as decent flashes are concerned? Any and all tuner worth their name should be able to tune using whichever platform you decide, so it's really dependent on which tuner you choose if you're getting a custom BEF. Now, as far as OTS BEF are concerned, not all may provide that so availability is going to be your limiting factor.

+1