I didn't start this thread to bash Lund or any other company for that matter. I am truly trying to see if there's any life left for this device, that I just paid $600 for, other than taking up space on my desk. That being said, if I would have read something like this prior to buying the tuner a couple months ago, I can honestly say that I never would have bought it. All I read was rave reviews, and not once did I see anyone mention anything about not being able to sell it when I was done with it. It has been my experience in the past that the tuners could be sent back to the dealer to have formatted or unlocked for a fee, which I was always more than happy to pay.
One more time before I answer the questions in this thread, it is not my intention to bash Lund Racing in any way, I am purely going to state my own personal opinion from *my* experience. If you think you will get offended by me being honest, please stop reading this post, and move on. On the other hand, if you want to hear about my experience and opinion, by all means, feel free to read and even contribute.
So to answer the questions as to why I went back to stock......one simple answer......driveability.
To answer the question properly, I'm going to start from the beginning. I ordered a Lund Racing tuner which came with their 91 and 93octane "Daily Driver" tunes, and also their 93 octane "SuperSport" tune. I started by installing the 91 octane Daily Driver, and immediately noticed an increase in power, but also noticed that the shifting was quite hard, and idle was a bit rough. I ran this tune for a couple days with 93 octane fuel hoping that things would settle down after putting a few miles on it, and they didn't. In fact, shifting got much harder, and the idle upon startup was just awful, and would take a few seconds before it would clear up enough to drive. Now this was all with normal driving, and since this is supposed to be their most tame "Daily Driver" tune, I wanted to see the progression through the tunes. So before I moved to the 93 octane Daily Driver, I wanted to feel WOT, and yes, the benefits of the custom were immediately obvious. Torque management was greatly reduced, boost was obviously increased, but the shifts........good lord. It felt like the transmission was going to blow up on the spot it slammed into gear so hard under 100% throttle, so I immediately lifted. When I looked in the mirror, I also saw a cloud of black smoke behind me. So it seemed that to be on the safe side with A/F ratio, and being a 91 octane tune, they set it up to dump quite a bit of fuel. Not sure if this is good or bad, just an observation.
So at this point, I immediately send Lund an email to complain about the rough idle, and shifting. At first I was told that I was the only one complaining about it, but shortly after they released an updated set of tunes which addressed the shifting, so I clearly mustn't have been the only one complaining. I will give Lund props here, they were definitely willing to work with me on the shifting if I didn't like the update, so that should be noted.
So here I am with a complete new set of tunes files, which are also the current tune files you would receive if ordering one today. I skip the 91 octane tune and go straight to the 93 this time. Overall shifting is MUCH better. Normal driving is much more tame, and WOT no longer feels or sounds like you're getting rear-ended. Power feels great, just like before, and I also notice that there's no smoke this time at WOT either, so overall the new tune file is night and day better than it was before, BUT not without driveability flaws. During normal driving situations, which is how I drive this vehicle 99.999% of the time, if I increase throttle such as entering the freeway and increasing speed to match the flow of traffic, and then quickly let off the throttle (such as going from 75% throttle to 0 in an instant), there would be a pause with downshifting and then it would slam into gear, and it would do this every single time I let off the throttle too fast, which gets quite embarrassing when you have passengers in the car, and you are jerking their necks around just driving in normal traffic. I've even had a few people ask me why I haven't brought my car back to the dealer to have the transmission looked at, and then have to explain how it's the tune, not the transmission.
So that's just one issue. The biggest issue that now has me back to stock is the absolute most annoying and embarrassing, which is the rough idle at every single startup. Every time I started the engine, I would have to sit and wait for the idle to clear up before I could even think about putting it in gear or moving, and the rough idle has gotten so bad over the past couple weeks that it made my car sound like a piece of junk. The whole car would shake, and it would sound like it was only running on 3 cylinders for nearly a minute, which doesn't sound like much, but trust me when I say it's the most annoying thing in the world when you are in a rush, and can't move until your engine decides to actually run on all cylinders. I actually started a thread about this not that long ago, and several people are experiencing it with and without a tune, but I can tell you that the very first startup after returning my computer back to stock resulted in a perfectly clean/clear/smooth startup with no rough idle what so ever. All of my shifting is back to normal, and I can back to being proud of my car instead of being embarrassed.
So, to sum all of this up. If you don't drive your Sport as a daily driver and all you're interested in is pure power and speed, and don't care that it will be at the expense of some driveability issues, then these tunes are definitely for you because they certainly deliver in the horsepower dept.......BUT......if you do drive your Sport on a daily basis, and maybe share this car with your wife then be prepared for complaints from the wife, random comments from your friends telling you to get your car fixed, and the annoyance of the worst idle you have ever felt every single time you start the car.
Keep in mind, I'm commenting on power and I never even loaded the SuperSport tune which is supposed to be their high boost awesome race tune. Honestly, with the way the 91 and 93 octane tunes acted, I am just scared that it's going to break something. I'm going to leave well enough alone, and just move on.
Now, I'm sure people are going to feel compelled to post how their Lund tunes are the greatest, and they don't have any of these issues, etc. etc. which is fine. I'm sure there are people out there that aren't having these issues, and I wish I were one of them, but unfortunately I'm not, and I just decided that the pros definitely didn't outweigh the cons in this situation.