48 replies to this topic

[tsuehpsyde]

tl;dir - iPd only saves your tune file for 30 days, apparently. I was never told this. Save it in 20 different places to save yourself a lot of headache. Why they don't archive them, or tell you about this time limit, I don't know.

Story:

I just want to give anyone a heads up that (like me) has purchased a stage 1 (or any stage really) tune from iPd.

I bought my tune about a year and a half ago. I don't recall if it was a group buy, or if it was just a price drop, but at the price it was ($900 instead of $1200) I went ahead and jumped on it; mostly due to my good relationship with Lucky here on the forums. I recently had to reinstall my laptop. No biggie, I'll just re-install the software.

I go to use the CD included with the hardware, and realize it's the tool used to capture your current ECU. Oops. Oh yeah, Lucky had sent me a zip file. I scour my emails for about a half hour, trying to find the combination to unlock where I had gotten the file. After some searching, I finally found an email that was a notification of a PM reply from here with a URL.

Click the URL, nothing. Crap.

I know I saved the file at some point, but I cannot track it down. I scoured my fileserver, where I save all of my important stuff, nowhere to be found. Not in my Dropbox either. Well shit. So I reach out to iPd for the first time since Lucky left.

First, I fill out the "Contact Us" form. It says "message sent!", but I get no email notification or anything else that confirms to me the email in fact went through. I figured I'd get something in the morning, but nothing. I waited until about 3:30PM my time (CST) and call up iPd. I get ahold of Ron, who instantly sounded really pissed off for no discernable reason.

I would like to preface this with the following: I work in Customer Service myself. I really, really try to not be a jackass when I talk to people on the phone, even if I'm mad or upset.

That said, every response was short, the rep sounded annoyed, and acted like I was bothering him. Think of that angry parts guy in the dark and dirty parts store behind the counter.

After a few minutes of this, I simply told him that after spending nearly a grand on this thing (and a few hundred dollars on other various parts), I really don't think what I'm asking about is all that unreasonable, and I really don't know where the attitude is coming from. From here, his attitude got notably better, but basically said "Well see if we can get it, but if not, you'll have to pay to get another one made.".

What. In. The. Fuck.

First, when Lucky gave me the URL, I was not told I only had 30 days to save the file. Ever. This was never made clear to me. In fact, outside of the forum, iPd never officially GAVE me a file. Yes, common sense says to save the file, and I'm fairly certain I did, but stuff happens and I cannot track it down. On top of that, I already HAVE the tune. It's SITTING in my CAR. They can easily take the ECU map if I were to re-read it, but I would be without my "return to stock" option.

All said, I only need the software to clear the error codes on my car. Problem is, that's all bundled with the "tune" as well. So at this time, I have $900 in hardware sitting here that's more or less worthless, and I'm at the mercy of a crabby service rep. Considering how much I truly loved working with iPd in the past, this really bothers me. I've lost a lot of confidence in one phone call. I mean, had I bought one of the other commodity tuners, I surely wouldn't have lost any functionality on account of a URL going away. It would all be stuffed into the hardware.

I hope my vibe with Ron is just one guy having an off day; but a few Google searches about iPd from other forums have shown customer service to be down. This really, really bothers me. I hope I can get this worked out, but for everyone else, for God's sake, save your tune file, because iPd for some unknown reason, does not archive these for their customers. Without that zip file, your hardware is worthless. I would think at $900/crack (previous $1200), they would save an archive of zip files for their users as a convenience. I guess not.

So we'll see what happens.

[Abundant Meat]

Not a huge surprise here. I had major issues with IPD's customer service. That same guy you are having an issue with is the same guy that had a major attitude problem with me. I complained about it to his supervisor because I was pissed Ron was treating me so poorly. Apparently companies think it is acceptable to have people with a chip on their shoulder represent them because companies always seem to defend behavior like that. Whatever...I'm not too fond of them anyway.

I refused to spend that amount of money for a tune...especially from a company with horrible customer service. The only person in that place I found helpful and courteous was Lucky, and he no longer works there. My money follows the good customer service, so I'll be shopping with Lucky's company ARD over IPD any chance I get.

Hope your situation gets worked out bud.

[ping23]

i agree with IPD's custome service, lucky has been more than courteous and helpful in every way..the mans a godsend to people like me that are constantly asking questions..my money also goes to where there is good customer service..

[flyfishing3]

i only read this quickly because i'm confused.

what type of car.
what type of tune delivery system? PPC, ECU replace?
so when you buy the IPD tune, its not preloaded on the PPC/ECU?
off the shelf tune?

[tsuehpsyde]

Car: In my sig. =)
Delivery system: It programs the ECU over the ODB-II port.

When you buy the tune, you get the hardware and a CD-ROM. The CD-ROM is a program that simply reads and captures your current ECU's software. You then email this file to iPd, who then shuffles it over to MTE in Sweden to do the tune. Once completed, MTE sends it to iPd who gives it to you.

Until you get that file, the hardware is essentially worthless.

The file provided offers you the ability to:

-Tune, or de-tune back to the original software
-Read error codes
-Clear error codes
-Fairly extensive Data logging while driving (AFR, boost, RPM, throttle position, IAT, etc)

But if you lose the zip file, you're more or less screwed.

Meat: Who did you escalate to when you had problems with Ron? I got an email last night stating they emailed MTE and will see if they can recover it. I still find it unbelievable they don't archive these files for their customers. If they're going to make me pay to get it back, I'll probably sell the hardware on here so someone else can pay to get their car tuned and I'll just go buy a basic ODB-II tool. I only use their software for diagnostics anymore anyway, but the ability to re-flash to stock whenever I sell the car would be nice to offer.

And yeah, as everyone said, Lucky made iPd a great place for me. Sad to see this level of customer service after his departure. Even when I called in before, I dealt with a few other people who were also nice.

[flyfishing3]

i believe the tune is VIN matched so you wont be able to sell.

i had no idea that was the procedure for this tune. Basically all IPD is, is a broker then. this should be made clearer IMO.

unless MTE/TME/IPD are willing to break their rules, i'm thinking your screwed.

[C30T5*36]

I had the same problem and had lost my tune. They looked back through some archived drives and found my tune and sent it free of charge. I would just calmly remind them that if you have to pay for another tune it will not be their's and you will never do business with them again.

It is totally unacceptable that they cannot keep a catolog of these files for easy access. It would cost maybe a couple hundred to add a couple HDDs and use them only for this.

[tsuehpsyde]

The tune is matched to my car, yes. The hardware is not. So someone could take the hardware and pay iPd for just the tune portion instead of the hardware. I have no idea what the cost of the tune by itself is, but it should be cheaper than with the bundled hardware. So I could sell the hardware and let someone else pay iPd for the tune (for a lower cost than buying the entire set).

Hopefully that makes sense. The only real pricing option I see is $100 for add-ons, but that's about it. It also says to contact "Ken, Lucky or Scott" about this product. So maybe I need to reach out to Ken/Scott if working with Ron gets me nowhere.

[C30T5*36]

The tune is matched to my car, yes. The hardware is not. So someone could take the hardware and pay iPd for just the tune portion instead of the hardware. I have no idea what the cost of the tune by itself is, but it should be cheaper than with the bundled hardware. So I could sell the hardware and let someone else pay iPd for the tune (for a lower cost than buying the entire set).

Hopefully that makes sense. The only real pricing option I see is $100 for add-ons, but that's about it. It also says to contact "Ken, Lucky or Scott" about this product. So maybe I need to reach out to Ken/Scott if working with Ron gets me nowhere.

Thats right, i just looked back through my email and i was speaking directly with ken and he took care of it for me.

[tsuehpsyde]

Thats right, i just looked back through my email and i was speaking directly with ken and he took care of it for me.

Cool beans. I looked over my email history, and I too had worked with Ken at some point. I just fired him off an email to see if he can help. Time will tell.

[tsuehpsyde]

Update: Just got an email back from Ken. He let me know that "Ron followed through like he promised" and MTE was able to find the file and pass it back over. =) I have already uploaded this file to 4 locations. Ugh, never again. For reference, the file is 2.5MB in size, so I did suggest they look into archiving the files for events such as this. Hopefully we'll see.

But yes, crisis averted (thank God). Still not 100% pleased, but notably happier than I can use my hardware again.

[Che'_Moderator]

I deleted an email from google a few months ago about updates RE panda. I asked them if they could restore it for me, and they told me no. I mean this file was 9kb max. Service is dead everywhere.

[ARD - Lucky]

Common... not everywhere

[Deimos]

I deleted an email from google a few months ago about updates RE panda. I asked them if they could restore it for me, and they told me no. I mean this file was 9kb max. Service is dead everywhere.

This is why I never delete anything. Ever.

And IPD not having a sorted backup of these files is sheer laziness, plain and simple. Hard drive space is too cheap now not to be able to back up a 2.5MB file for people who drop a grand with your company for something they don't even make themselves, just resell. It's not like they don't have computers... even though their new website is a lot worse than the old one.

[Burn-E]

Glad this worked out for you but I don't understand why IPD is at fault here.

I'm going to get railed on for this but I'll say it any way. We live in a digital world filled with digital assets. If you have files that matter to you, that you purchase with substantial money, you are now responsible for protecting those files. Not the vendor who sold it to you. Why the hell should the vendor be on the hook to maintain your digital files? If I hired a photographer to do a session for me and 18 months later I went back to them and demanded that they send me new copies of those photos - I might get lucky if they retained them in their file repository. But I certainly wouldn't expect them to be there and get pissed if they had deleted them.

Once upon a time we had safe deposit boxes to store important documents and fireproof safes for those stored in the home. Anything of substantial value in a digital asset is in your hands to protect by multiple backups in the cloud and elsewhere. Email and your PC are not those safe deposit boxes. It's a lazy user who doesn't have two hard drive/flash drive back-ups and a regularly updated (weekly) back-up plan for maintaining their data with one that is maintained off-site plus a cloud version of the important documents.

[Deimos]

Glad this worked out for you but I don't understand why IPD is at fault here.

I'm going to get railed on for this but I'll say it any way. We live in a digital world filled with digital assets. If you have files that matter to you, that you purchase with substantial money, you are now responsible for protecting those files. Not the vendor who sold it to you. Why the hell should the vendor be on the hook to maintain your digital files? If I hired a photographer to do a session for me and 18 months later I went back to them and demanded that they send me new copies of those photos - I might get lucky if they retained them in their file repository. But I certainly wouldn't expect them to be there and get pissed if they had deleted them.

Once upon a time we had safe deposit boxes to store important documents and fireproof safes for those stored in the home. Anything of substantial value in a digital asset is in your hands to protect by multiple backups in the cloud and elsewhere. Email and your PC are not those safe deposit boxes. It's a lazy user who doesn't have two hard drive/flash drive back-ups and a regularly updated (weekly) back-up plan for maintaining their data with one that is maintained off-site plus a cloud version of the important documents.

Any competent corporate IT person assumes that all his clients/customers/coworkers are idiots and will screw up everything. Thus backups of everything are kept. Also, a photography session has a much higher data to $ ratio. I wouldn't expect a small time photographer, who probably doesn't have an IT staff of any kind, to keep something in a gigabytes range for an extended period for a $200-300 photoshoot. But expecting a decent sized tuning company to keep a 2.5MB file that you paid $900 for? Perfectly reasonable if you ask me, especially when they don't tell you 'oh, we're going to delete this right after we send it to you' after giving you a URL for it. The expectation with a URL is that it's going to be there, that you can click it again if you need to.

[Burn-E]

I deleted an email from google a few months ago about updates RE panda. I asked them if they could restore it for me, and they told me no. I mean this file was 9kb max. Service is dead everywhere.

This is why I never delete anything. Ever.

And IPD not having a sorted backup of these files is sheer laziness, plain and simple. Hard drive space is too cheap now not to be able to back up a 2.5MB file for people who drop a grand with your company for something they don't even make themselves, just resell. It's not like they don't have computers... even though their new website is a lot worse than the old one.

Irony is hilarious...only you completely missed the fact that Chuck was poking fun at you guys.

[tsuehpsyde]

I would like to point out that I keep a local fileserver at home (which is accessible to myself from work) where I store exactly this kind of thing. However, when I went to find it, I couldn't. Why? No idea. It's possible it got accidentally deleted on my side when auditing for unneeded files and so on. I fully support savings stuff myself, so I agree with Burn-E to a degree. FWIW I have the file in 6 different places currently. 11/16, nevar forget.

Still, at 2.5MB each, it just seems illogical to not save the files on a local fileserver for clients, especially at the money invested. If 40,000 of these tunes were sold, it would only take up <100GB of space. While some outside circumstances (floods) have brought prices up as of late on spindle based HDDs, a 1TB HDD was/is fairly inexpensive.

I agree I should have saved it, and I know I did, but it went MIA (most likely my fault), which is why I reached out to iPd. I still would expect a copy to be obtainable, even if it takes awhile, from their backups or stored somewhere. To just say "welp, we might be able to get it, if not, you'll have to pay a second time" is just nonsense when the file is so small.

lol @ che trollin'

[db130]

how about you email the file to your webmail account - boom! instant online file storage

[tsuehpsyde]

how about you email the file to your webmail account - boom! instant online file storage

lol this is one of the places. However, I got a URL of the file initially. They really should just email the things.