My closest Triumph dealer told me $90. That seems high to me considering it's plugging in a computer cable, but maybe my expectations are off as I have no frame of reference.
$25 was what they charged me, months later I discovered from another dealer that the bike hadn't been remapped and they did it for free. $90 is craziness I have had bikes Dynoed for a little more than that.
Most dealerships have minimum shop rates. $90 doesn't seem out of line to me here in California.
If you don't agree, take it somewhere else or do it yourself. You have choices.
I think this might "Fly" in places that people are forced to deal with 1 maybe 2 dealerships in a 100+ mile area, Here where I have 4 in a 25 mile area they cannot get away with it. If they tried to charge me a full hour to do a 3 minute process then I know this Dealership isn't customer minded and I would go elsewhere for everything else. I have done this with the dealer 6 miles from me and now travel 16miles to a much friendlier dealership.
My dealer charges $50, or 1/2 hour of labor. But recently I had my bike in there for another repair and while it was there had them throw a new map on it and they only charged me $25.
Mine was re-mapped at the Triumph dealer in Scottsdale AZ by the PO. According to the receipt, they charged 1/2 hour labor, $35.00. That was back in 2011-12 though, so the going rate may have gone up.
I think most guys with a smidgen of mechanical know-how would be surprised at how easy it is to do most regular maintenance on their bike, and tuning via TTP or TuneECU is even easier. With the right cable, drivers and laptop you just follow the directions and it's amazingly easy. You need to read a little and be able to follow instructions, but on a difficulty scale of 1 to 5 I would rate it a 2. I will also note that it is highly satisfying to get to know your bike and to wrench on it. I work in the business world so it is especially therapeutic to do something physical and tangible. I enjoy it.
I also agree that a dealership should only charge for the time on the job, why would anyone agree to paying more, that's just plain stupid!
(I'm the guy who was pissed that l had to pay $10 for the inspection station to verify my "out of state" bike's mileage for the bloody DMV!!!!) :frown2:
I hear what you're saying...I do what I can on my bike like most people here. But a lot of folks don't have the time, confidence or desire to do things themselves. And that's ok too.
The Tuneecu site is not the most user friendly (at first use) but if you read through it about 3 or 4 or 5 times it becomes clear as how you need to proceed and then with the right cable you can break through the "dealer diagnostic tool" barrier and do it yourself.
+1 for the TTP and do-at-home route. I'd never done anything like that, and did it within factory warranty period so was pretty nervous, but found the process straightforward.
The only hiccup for me was 1 ambiguous sentence in the instructions that said pull out the throttle idle cable, but doesn't tell you to push it back in! It may have been fixed by now, but if not I just googled it and this recent post explains the whole process, including that bit very clearly.
I think an important aspect/reason for this choice - cost benefit aside if you already own a PC - is that dependent on the reason for the remap, your dealer may be limited with the maps they can apply.
In my case, I had a 2 into 1 exhaust and airbox delete done to the bike from new at the dealership, with the 'closest' triumph remap applied. The dealership could only apply those, and didn't have any knowledge about additional tunes. I wasn't at all happy with throttle-on curve, to the point I had to use the clutch to navigate slow corners.
The Triumph twin power approach basically offered a much larger variety of pre-prepared remaps, based on popular bike configs (I did tune #11-2-1) and produced superb results. I actually ended up buying a pocket PC specifically to do mine, and even with that ($100 or so) additional cost it's been a complete bargain in terms of increasing enjoyment of riding.
You make an excellent point that I neglected. Dealers do not have a good selection of tunes and from my experience some (if not most) will frown on removing AI and O2 sensors.
Some really useful info about the DIY remaps, so thanks for all those links.
One thing I'm quite surprised by is people's surprise at dealer costs. There is usually a min p/h charge and although it maybe a quick job, they've got overheads and need to make a margin - not to mention allocate the mechanic's time properly.
I think for a remap charging for a 1/2hrs seems more reasonable than 1hrs - but it seems odd to expect a professional mechanic to work for less than $50-100 p/h.
I forgot what cable I bought, but it works great. Make sure you have the CORRECT drivers for it. BTW....if you get a TTP tune, which I highly recommend, you must have windows 7 or better to install it. I didn't at the time...It's been a few years now. I wish my VTX had the ECU these Triumphs have. Once you learn how it all works, it's easy to make things the way you want. I experimented for awhile and then got the TTP tune because Pieman dynos those tunes to work perfect. A whole different bike when properly tuned.
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