Beware of Lund

[Angrey]

The entire discussion centers around the issue of custom vs. mass produced.

If you're going to sell "custom" or bespoke service, then you need to be resourced and equipped to treat each job/project uniquely. If you are incapable or unwilling to do that, then there's going to be problems.

And I don't buy into this "there are dumbasses out there, cut them some slack" argument. That's true of just about any business with a large amount of customers. That's the gig you signed up for. Whether it's an airline, a big box retailer, a hotel, a gym, an attorney, etc. Just because a few people behaved badly, doesn't mean you lower your customer service level to be the common denominator. I suppose you can, but eventually that has consequences.

The solution is simple. If you want truly "custom" service, then find a tuner that will give you that. That comes with pros/cons (just like anything in life). I wouldn't hesitate to use Lund for a highly common setup tune. If you're not part of the cool guy club (aka a vendor or high profile racer) then don't expect your service to be custom.

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[TexasMetallic5.0]

No "custom tuner” is going to start every tune from completely stock base file. It’s not time or cost effective.

 

[jayman33]

Sure if the issue only shows up at high speeds or a track that's another case but its seems like 80% of the issues I read about are basically drivability or things that dont need more than 1-3 gears or can be repeated in a parking lot, empty business park or back road.

More customers means you need more effort, the problem is that unless you are a high dollar player they seem to not wanna put in the effort anymore. Probably the very first thing I'd do is use my phone as a hotspot, set up a laptop to data log in my passenger seat and make them watch the live logs. Or work with them to connect to a local shop to use their dyno and remote view their PC or mine. The email back and forth should be a last resort for support as its the least hands on, but it seems to be all they wanna do.

The cycle of log-> email-> wait-> get asked to log something else-> email->wait is what is likely making customers the most angry as during this time they have an unusable car.

I work in IT. I know all about properly spending time to diagnose an issue and nail down the problem and its fix. Email is the WORST way to do that. More so if the person you are dealing with is not an expert in the subject themselves.

I hear ya, Lunds not perfect but what tuner is? There’s some very well known tuners out there that have drivability issues but I’m not in the market to simply bash a company to propel mine.
Wish I had an answer for everyone, I personally plan to tune myself on a lot of our local cars in our in house dynojet once I fully retire from ole Uncle Sam. I don’t really ever plan to do remote tuning in the future, I’ll leave that to Lund, JP and Ortiz.

 

[bankyf]

I don’t really ever plan to do remote tuning in the future, I’ll leave that to Lund, JP and Ortiz.

You should reconsider that. Probably the easiest money you will ever make after you have created a library of local tunes that you can resell remotely as custom. From what I hear, if it doesn't work properly you just say it's a mechanical issue and keep them chasing a non-existent issue until they are so frustrated that they forget all about the money they wasted with you. I personally haven't experienced this, and I'm pretty good at filtering through the internet BS, but when you hear enough of the exact same story......

 

[nnnnnn]

Tuners don't tune these cars from the ground up. They use existing available calibration given to them or however they obtain it from Ford, Roush, Whipple etc. The real tuners are actually Ford, Roush, Whipple, KB etc that develop FI kits that also have engineers.

Lund and all these other tuners simply tweak the existing calibrations from Roush, Whipple etc in my opinion because true tuning takes extensive time to build. Might as well refer to Lund as tune tweakers running stuff off existing calibrations and living off it. I'm not a tuner but this is not that hard to figure out based off what OP originally posted that these guys are simply trying to tweak an existing calibration file to use for his car and it didn't work out. They don't actually tune the car from ground up and build their own calibrations. Don't expect too much from these tweakers actually. There is a reason they will or always refuse to tune brand name parts they have never heard of.

In 2023, Ford is basically trying to cut these tweakers off by locking the PCM which is why Lund is trashing the new s650. I don't think the base file calibrations will be made available to them either. Lund heavily promotes cars pre-2023.

 

[shogun32]

If Lund were stealing Roush tunes I'm sure the lawyers would have made short work of that little exercise.

The tuning devices, eg. SCT, HP, have say a dozen knobs out of a thousand inputs, but they are the 12 that dominate the algorithms and so they modify those or alter the absolute roof/floor values of certain parameters, or alter the rate-of-change. That's "all" there is to this really.

for a naive/simplistic view of "all".

 

[2022 Mach 1]

Don’t forget these guys got busted by the feds, so I am sure this had a huge impact on their operation going forward… there is roughly 20 states that follow California emissions laws. In California you cannot do a custom tune unless it has been carb certified and no tuna is doing that. The industry will fade out at some point, leading only fly by night folks providing custom tunes.

Its funny you used "tuna" cause, Yea you can still get a tune. A well nationally known tuner her in california will tune you car, no trouble. I'm sure you all can fiqure out who.

 

[nnnnnn]

If Lund were stealing Roush tunes I'm sure the lawyers would have made short work of that little exercise.

The tuning devices, eg. SCT, HP, have say a dozen knobs out of a thousand inputs, but they are the 12 that dominate the algorithms and so they modify those or alter the absolute roof/floor values of certain parameters, or alter the rate-of-change. That's "all" there is to this really.

for a naive/simplistic view of "all".

Thanks for clarifying it. Didn't know, so yeah these tweakers don't tune but just adjust existing parameter values.

 

[Evolvd]

Thanks for clarifying it. Didn't know, so yeah these tweakers don't tune but just adjust existing parameter values.

That’s what “tuning” is (to adjust for precise functioning). If they were building ECM calibrations from the ground up that would be “engineering”.
You know, like “tuning a carburetor” or “tuning an audio system”. You’re not building the system, you’re adjusting it to meet a specific set of parameters.

Now that we’ve digressed into irrelevancies…let’s get back to bashing Lund and how they treat customers.

 

[nnnnnn]

That’s what “tuning” is (to adjust for precise functioning). If they were building ECM calibrations from the ground up that would be “engineering”.
You know, like “tuning a carburetor” or “tuning an audio system”. You’re not building the system, you’re adjusting it to meet a specific set of parameters.

Now that we’ve digressed into irrelevancies…let’s get back to bashing Lund and how they treat customers.

It is really not irrelevant. They may treat customers badly and say things are mechanical problems because they actually can't engineer calibrations is what I am saying or actually do what customers expect them to do for the money they are paying. A customer expects the tuner to give a file that works if their combo in their car has no mechanical issues. That is the point I am trying to make here. So the default argument for them when things don't work out or they get a unique case is to say that it is a mechanical issue because all they deal with are identical setups that these files have worked on. It's just the default go to for them because they cannot engineer their own calibrations.

For a customer, you're left with few options other than to use combinations of parts that have been proven to work that the tweakers/tuners can use and have data on. Anything outside of that and you're throwing money away because they cannot build new calibrations from scratch. Just a caution for customers building setups. Don't try to get a custom tune for weird parts combo, you'll get the typical lund treatment from what I am reading here.

For the OP, not sure how things are working out so far for your setup. Please update us.

 

[nnnnnn]

@az89gt what is going on with your car currently? Who is tuning it?

In 11 tune revisions, Lund couldn't tune your car and were telling you that you have mechanical problems. Please update.

So far though based on comments, it's been shown that Lund has been over estimating their own intelligence, their treatment of their own customers is disgusting and their customer service is terrible.

 

[Evolvd]

It is really not irrelevant. They may treat customers badly and say things are mechanical problems because they actually can't engineer calibrations is what I am saying or actually do what customers expect them to do for the money they are paying. A customer expects the tuner to give a file that works if their combo in their car has no mechanical issues. That is the point I am trying to make here. So the default argument for them when things don't work out or they get a unique case is to say that it is a mechanical issue because all they deal with are identical setups that these files have worked on. It's just the default go to for them because they cannot engineer their own calibrations.

For a customer, you're left with few options other than to use combinations of parts that have been proven to work that the tweakers/tuners can use and have data on. Anything outside of that and you're throwing money away because they cannot build new calibrations from scratch. Just a caution for customers building setups. Don't try to get a custom tune for weird parts combo, you'll get the typical lund treatment from what I am reading here.

For the OP, not sure how things are working out so far for your setup. Please update us.

Not one flash tuner engineers their own calibrations. That’s the whole point of “tuning”. You take the existing calibration tables and you “tune” them to adjust for the changes of parts to optimized air/fuel ratios, timing, loop operations, etc. Obviously this excludes Whipple, Roush, and others who actually design their own calibrations.
So when you ask for a “tune” you’re getting a modified set of OEM calibration tables to provide a more precise function from the parts you’ve installed. When you’ve been “tuning” as long as Lund has you don’t need to make a new calibration for every single customer. It’s cost and time prohibitive considering the majority of folks are running the same or similar aftermarket parts so there is no fine tweaking needing to be done. So this notion that they are supposed to be catering to every single customer as if their build is somehow unique is unrealistic. Even if you have a combo they’ve never seen before they aren’t going to build anything from scratch, NO TUNER DOES THIS! Which is the point you seemed to miss. They will find a calibration file that is the closest to what you have and then you go from there.
Which brings us back to the original topic. Lund’s ego has gotten so big it appears they feel like they can’t be wrong since “that tune has worked on every other car with your mods” and instead of working with the customer they blame the car for the problems. This is the marker of greed and ambivalence. The owner needs to do due diligence and ask appropriate questions of the tuner to ensure they understand what you’re asking of them. Just like you wouldn’t take your Mustang to a Chevy dealer and assume they can properly rebuild your motor, you also shouldn’t assume a tuner can properly calibrate your tune simply because they are popular in the community.

 

[CORNYOTE]

Tuners don't tune these cars from the ground up. They use existing available calibration given to them or however they obtain it from Ford, Roush, Whipple etc. The real tuners are actually Ford, Roush, Whipple, KB etc that develop FI kits that also have engineers.

Lund and all these other tuners simply tweak the existing calibrations from Roush, Whipple etc in my opinion because true tuning takes extensive time to build. Might as well refer to Lund as tune tweakers running stuff off existing calibrations and living off it. I'm not a tuner but this is not that hard to figure out based off what OP originally posted that these guys are simply trying to tweak an existing calibration file to use for his car and it didn't work out. They don't actually tune the car from ground up and build their own calibrations. Don't expect too much from these tweakers actually. There is a reason they will or always refuse to tune brand name parts they have never heard of.

In 2023, Ford is basically trying to cut these tweakers off by locking the PCM which is why Lund is trashing the new s650. I don't think the base file calibrations will be made available to them either. Lund heavily promotes cars pre-2023.

My tuner did exactly that. I sent him the base file from the car and he started from that. He builds a custom tune to my car, not someone else’s. Yes it generally takes more revisions and time than a “canned” tune absolutely, but that tune is absolutely optimum for my exact car at that exact time. If I go to the track and datalog the car, he will take my log and immediately return a tune for those conditions, that air, etc etc. yes when you have the customer base Lund does that’s maybe not feasible if you don’t maintain a staff of actual tuners.

 

[5.0carlo]

People in this industry seem to come and go.

I was on corral when Kurgan was the next best thing in the fox tuning world. Then something happened and he was gone.

On yellowbullet Lutz race cars had an issue with a customer and it damaged his rep though I doubt he feels it because of the TV show.

 

[WildHorse]

Just watched one of Alex's notch videos. Coooool.

For years he preached: " if you run bead locks & you're NA, you're gay "

He just installed bead locks on his NA NOTCH. Cool vid, ghay boy.

Also, for years he preached: " if you run the loudest most obnoxious exhaust, you're gay "
He just installed one of the loudest, most obnoxious exhaust, on his Z06. He just 'self snitched' as he puts it.. proving he's a closet ghay boy.

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