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07-21-2012, 10:20 PM | #1 |
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Mike Benvo Coding Review
Just posted an engine tuning review as well. As stated in that post, i just shipped my car back to California from Germany, and contacted The Tech to get an appointment for some coding. He set me up with Mike and they both worked with my schedule to get what i wanted done in the short amount of time i had to do it.
A little back story. I ordered my sedan through military car sales in Feb 11 and it was built and delivered in April 11. It's a US spec car, but had the German Nav maps loaded from the factory. I tried to get it to the local German dealership to get the maps swapped to US prior to shipping, but they weren't able to get them in. I had been following the 2012 Nav update thread, downloaded the ISO's from Kmarei's home server, contacted Sergej for the FSC code, bought 3 16gb USB sticks all formatted to FAT32, and thought i had everything ready to go for the update. I get to California, pick up the car, plug the USB into the glove box, it says an update is available, and then it gives me the error screen about incomplete/manipulated data, see your service center. So I've got no maps, it shows me in the Atlantic Ocean, wonderful... I make it to Mikes place by iPhone and tell him the story. No problem he says, we'll get it fixed. Turns out when i formatted the USB sticks I didn't set it to the default allocation unit, guess the Nav didn't like that. He reformatted my sticks and reloaded the files, inserted into the glove box and it started updating. While the Nav is updating, Mike gets started on the coding i wanted done. He ran down the whole list of options and explained everything in detail while he was working. I had some questions about a few of the options and he was more than happy to show me how they worked on his vehicle. When i ordered my car, BMW Live/Internet/Apps had just become available, but i didn't select it on my build. He took me for a spin and gave me the full demo, i had to have it. I noticed the engine tune as well during the ride and was sold on that as well. So we get back to his place, headed to the elevator to go get the laptop again, and out comes a 2 or 3 year old kid with no parents in sight, on the garage level. We both look at each other like WTF? The kid sees Mike, gives him a High Five, and just clings to his leg. Interesting. We head up to the Lobby with the kid to start trying to contact the parents, when the Mom comes running down the hall. Mike explains the situation and everything is well. I thought she was gonna accuse us of kidnapping or something, but she was just happy we found her kid. Disaster averted. Mike "Child Savior" Benvo: Hero of the Day. Finally get back to coding in the BMW Live/Internet/Apps and everything works like a champ. The NAV finished updating, I'm no longer in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the car doesn't have the annoying gong sound, along with the NAV accept screens, seat belt warnings, amber corners, etc. the list goes on. Amazing. It's like an entirely new car. I got the "stage 1" engine tune as well (see separate review) I started my 9 hour drive to Tucson and had absolutely no issues with anything, car drove flawlessly. Once again, if your thinking about getting some coding done, remotely or locally, let Mike take care of you, he knows his sh*t and was great to deal with. Thanks again to The Tech as well for setting it all up. |
10-26-2012, 11:54 AM | #2 |
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Cool. ///MFlight as some members that have the knowledge code our cars here in Europe. I dread the day I have to go back to the US w/ my M3 that has a European CIC. Great story by the way.
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10-26-2012, 01:36 PM | #3 |
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Thanks for the review. It was a pleasure working with you!!
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11-07-2012, 08:32 PM | #5 |
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He never responded back to my emails and I got my coding done locally.
Glad all worked out for you.
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11-08-2012, 10:34 AM | #6 | |
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I'm glad you were able to have it done locally, and I hope you accept my apology. It's likely that you'll have a response to your email in a couple weeks when I have a chance to get to them, please disregard the response in advance. Sorry about that.
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11-08-2012, 02:30 PM | #7 | |
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11-08-2012, 02:32 PM | #8 |
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If anyone has any requests, questions or inquiries they can always contact me. I answer PMs the same day.
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11-19-2012, 06:03 PM | #9 |
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Last week I got my LCI lights, so I gave Mike a call to see if he can do coding. Long story short, few hours later we met up in West Los Angeles. Not only that he did coding he also installed them for me. I know its not like he installed a supercharger, but still a nice benefit for me since I do not enjoy doing this type of work.
Something that I was not planning on doing was to tune my car. About a year ago I got Akra evo and to avoid any error messages I also had delete-r installed. Since i dont drive my car a lot and do not take it to track I was comfortable with just sound that I got from Akra, but obviously tune has been on my mind all this time. After speaking to Mike and asking him tons of questions I felt comfortable to give him OK to tune my car. My car has totally transformed. I did not do any dyno nor do I plan for it so I go just by my personal feel, car feels smooth from first gear and on while it also feels stronger. Of course while tuning I got a bunch of other programming options done, Mike has whole list of them, its awesome. While there are other places here in Los Angeles to get tune done, I am very happy that I ended up with Mike. |
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11-19-2012, 06:21 PM | #10 | |
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11-19-2012, 11:01 PM | #11 |
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I wish I knew that. I Pm'd Mike and email him a week ago, but never got a reply till today. Too late since I decided to go with another vendor.
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11-20-2012, 08:18 AM | #12 |
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11-20-2012, 09:37 PM | #13 |
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I called Mike before I got my coding done, he got back to me very quickly. He mentioned that he was backed up on his e-mails.
I've had the coding done almost a month ago and haven't had a single issue. Mike took the extra step and spent another hour or so a couple days later to make the turn signals blink 6 times instead of 3 even though I told him he didn't need to do so. A true gentlemen.
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