My research on this forum and MBWorld has made me worry about the "dreaded" Air Injection Pump Relay Reacall (service campaign #2006-03011) during which the ECU is flashed, allegedly erasing a good deal of hp and torque. The stock 04 I'm considering has almost certainly been flashed by now.
There's some speculation that the drop in power only affects cars with mods, which makes sense.
MB deliberately detuning stock 55's so the 63's perform better seems to border on urban myth.
Although I must say that of the two 55's I've test driven, one, an 03 from a Carmax, seemed faster than the 04 from an MB dealer. Que Twilight Zone theme.
Vehicle: E-ZGO 53 HP., 99 E 430 sport, 04 E55 AMG, 2008 Tahoe LTZ Sold Porsche to Brother
Location: Caribbean/Florida/Colorado/Panama
Posts: 643
The flash has been identified in the ECU/TCU, not a detune as was first thought. What it turned out to be is load limiters. The fix is offered by many tuners. This is still among the top ten dumbest moves by MB, but try to sell a new AMG that is slower than it's predecessor, they had no choice.
Stock cars lost approx 40 hp
Modded cars lost approx 80-120 hp
Mercedes was 90% correct most Americans did not notice the post flash difference.
Part of that 10% are board members over at MBWorld and they proved the losses many times.
As it turned out, not many traded their 55s in on 63s.
It will be next impossible to find a non flashed 03 or 04 because they had free service for the term of the warranty, and Mercedes paid dealers a high bounty to flash all 55K cars, for awhile they gave out $50 and $100 gift cards to customers after they were flashed. The 05 & 06 came with the flash and had some lock out software but it too has been cracked.
Vehicle: E-ZGO 53 HP., 99 E 430 sport, 04 E55 AMG, 2008 Tahoe LTZ Sold Porsche to Brother
Location: Caribbean/Florida/Colorado/Panama
Posts: 643
Quote:
Originally Posted by qcar
Thank you very much for the thoughtful explanation. I guess my next quest would be finding a tuner capable of somehow reversing the flash.
-qcar
Most tuners package kits that include the reflash, and a pulley, and or headers ect. But I would spend the time to find the cleanest low mile 55 I could, cause the mods will always be there. Once you get the car, deal with a tuner that has a dyno and get a base line dyno, then a dyno after mods/flash.
Some guys are 500+ RWHP. The E55K in stock form are 380-420 RWHP
when dealer reflashes ur ECU, it's not as good as it was from the factory...
dunno y but that's the reality...
might as well get flashed w/ euro-spec's e55 flash which gives bit more gains than us-spec...
I too was concerned about this when I had my ECU flashed by Kleemann and I spoke to Cory at Kleemann in CO and he stated that when they flash the ECU their code contains a set of instructions that does not allow the ECU to be reflashed by the dealer. Based on that statement I have had my car modified with Kleemann LSD, Kleemann ECU flash, Kleemann larger pulley, Kleemann headers and Kleemann TB. Has anyone else had this experience?
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2004 E-55 with Kleemann pulley, ECU,headers, 80 TB and LSD.
1997 Porsche Cab
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