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Hack Your Ride
LukePieStalker writes "Monday's Boston Globe has a story on the global market for car chippers. The article describes a global subculture of "drivers who reprogram their vehicles and the companies that keep them supplied with high-performance software and silicon chips".
One nice hack: a car chipped-up for the race track can be set back to factory specs for the street simply by pushing the cruise control button."
Having owned a car with this capability in the past, I can provide some insight. The chip supplier installs 2 or more "programs" that you can switch between (stock, chipped, valet, and race gas are some of the more common programs). To switch between programs you hold down your cruise control and after a few second a light will flash on your dash X number of times letting you know which program you're switching to.
In short, your cruise control works just fine with the switchable programs.
Not necessarily. I am posting as AC b/c I used all my mods pts trying to dispell some really bad myhs that are being posted to this thread.
I have an 2001 Audi A4 1.8T with a GIAC ECU chip. The car passes emissions just fine, even with an aftermarket cat-back exhaust on it. The dealership just did warranty work on my car and replaced my camshaft tension adjuster. I have *NEVER* removed the chip from my car. The dealership has mentioned that they noticed it was in there and never gave me any problems (I have taken it to 2 different dealerships w/o issue).
They have to prove that the damage is done directly from your modification, as the Magnuson-Moss Act states.