Why are tunes so expensive? Forgive me if the question seems stupid, but I drive a 92 Bonneville, and the only PCM option for me is/was a Hypertech EPROM that cost me ~$100 if not less, and a guy more recently has offered custom tuned EPROMs for less than that. Simply plug and play. In the Series I 3800 world, noone ever offered a dyno tune. It appearantly only takes a couple days to knock out a tune to get 30-some RWHP on a testers car...

It would seem the 300-400 dollars are nearly complete profit, IMO. Seems like a lot. Am I misguided in my thoughts?

Why are tunes so expensive? Forgive me if the question seems stupid, but I drive a 92 Bonneville, and the only PCM option for me is/was a Hypertech EPROM that cost me ~$100 if not less, and a guy more recently has offered custom tuned EPROMs for less than that. Simply plug and play. In the Series I 3800 world, noone ever offered a dyno tune. It appearantly only takes a couple days to knock out a tune to get 30-some RWHP on a testers car...

It would seem the 300-400 dollars are nearly complete profit, IMO. Seems like a lot. Am I misguided in my thoughts?

It takes a couple of hours. The dyno time is expensive. Around 100 per hour.

You can't send in your PCM and have them apply their tune to it?

The guy has to invest in a DYNO: $50,000+, he has to have a shop to put it in: 100,000+, he has to buy the hardware and software to do the tune with: 1000+, plus you gotta pay the guy for his time and expertise. You might be getting a deal @ 300.00

Dyno tunes are personal to your car. Not a generic tune. You can do any mod you want then a dyno tune and it will be matched to your personal mods.

plus these are'nt bonnevilles... or whatever those things are! Computers in cars have gotten quite a bit mroe complicated since then!!

Computers in cars have gotten quite a bit more complicated since then!!

I would hope so.

yea tunes are worth their weight in gold. especially if you have a hp tuners program or something of that caliber where the cars will run off of it.

chrish

When my car was on the dyno for the 1st tune for that model, I was there 6 hours. Adjusting and uploading those changes take people time. Time is money.
When I'm at a customers site, it's $189 an hour plus travel time.

I have close to 15k invested in my software and laptop with accessories , and around 50k in my dyno with accessories , plus the rent for the shop , another 50k in tooling and equipment , insurance , payroll for employees + fees , advertising expenses , commercial internet fees , commercial phone bill for 3 lines fees , etc , etc , etc , and all these equate to monthly payments ! We gotta pay the bills so we can stay around and keep doing what we all do ! There are many expenses that are involved in a legit tuner/install/performance parts shop , we make a lot less than everyone thinks , Hypertech is making more than we are , and we are giving you a custom tune , not the same tune for thousands of cars .