I thought I'd give a heads up to any potential Canadian VMS customers who are using the FlashExpress cable rental option. Note that you will lose a decent amount of money in the currency conversions. They require a $700 USD deposit on the cables. I ordered the TCM tune and discovered that, in the process of this deposit being processed, there is a currency conversion from Canadian funds to US funds, and then from US funds back to Canadian funds once they're returned. As expected, the bank skims a bit off the top of the exchange rate when doing this, and I ended up losing $80 CAD in the conversion.

I've been speaking with VMS over the last couple weeks about alternate deposit methods where currency conversion would not be required or the possibility of a reduced deposit but was told this is not possible. Therefore, keep in mind that you will be losing a significant dollar figure by renting these cables, especially if you need to retune. I received the TCM tune and now am looking to return to stock, and it's hard to swallow handing $80 over to the banks. It might be ok to do it once, but if you have to use the cables again you're looking at spending another $50 US for shipping and the currency conversion costs again, adding up to over $140 out of pocket for the retune. Just keep this in mind since they don't offer a way around it. If you don't mind spending this, then by all means buy from VMS, but I feel it's necessary to note this out of due diligence for potential Canadian customers. Also, please note that this is not intended to be an attack on VMS, merely a sharing of information so you can have the whole story before purchasing.

Yeah, your credit card company charges a handling fee of 2.5% on foreign currency exhanges.

That is 2.5% on the purchase, & 2.5% on the refund too !!!

So on a $700 US charge & refund: You lose at least $35 US (which works out to about $44 Cdn based on today's exchange rate).
+ any difference due to different currency exchange rates.

I wish we could get someone alot closer that can tune these cars. I would definetely be interested, and the closer the better so if i had to bring it to the dealer for warranty issues i would simply flash back to stock, a couple of times to flush the system. Still not sure how the memory is stored on our cars.

That's part of the reason I'm going the superchips cortex 2950 route. That, and that I got one for $200 CAD.

Mostly I found the VMS TCM tune to be a little much for normal driving. I like driving in the manual mode, but it shifts so hard that it's disruptive to the passengers unless I pull my foot off the throttle to simulate torque management. Lots of guys like that though, which I'm sure is why they tune them like that, and is also the reason I'm not seeking a refund. It's just unfortunate that I'll have spent a total of ~$500 to end up back where I began, but live and learn I guess. With the cortex I'll be able to customize the torque management and return everything to stock for dealer visits, which fits my need better.

I just checked my bank account to verify how the bank charged. Basically, when the actual conversion rate was about 1.26, CIBC used a rate of 1.313274. So, the $700 deposit meant a charge of $919.29. For the refund, with the same actual conversion rate of approximatley 1.26, CIBC used a rate of 1.198585, which meant I received $839.01 back. The overall loss was $80.28. This time I paid with an RBC card, I guess I'll see if the loss is the same.

I just got my deposit refunded from VMS and ended up losing $92.76 this time around to the bank skimming off the top of the currency conversion. Please guys, keep this in mind. I paid about the same amount for my used Superchips Cortex as I lost just in the currency conversions. :(

Well sorry to hear that your were the guinea pig for this fiascal but at least you will make out well with the superchips cortex 2950.

I have to do some research on this and how to flash on your own, can you give me a brief wrap up of what is involved with the above Superchips tune.

Thanks.

The superchips tuning is about as easy as you can get. You register on the site, then update the tuner through a program you download. After it's finished, you connect to the car and it'll download the stock tune. Then it'll ask you what you want to use for a tune (87, 91, etc) and you can do an advanced tune where it lets you change the shift points, speed limiter, torque management %, and a few more things. Then you tell it to tune it and it goes to town. All in all it's very easy and user friendly, and you can always revert back to stock. I'd highly recommend it.

Somehow I missed this thread. I believe we can rectify this issue.

We send the cables out as a rental tool. The problem comes from us insuring the cable, it then has a declared value. The cables cost us over $1000 so we insure them for that amount.

We are working with UPS on fixing this issue.

Our PowerFlash system is another option. This is a cable that you purchase and keep. The cost is only $250 so the customs cost is greatly reduced.

Here are the details.

http://www.g8board.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12634

Somehow I missed this thread. I believe we can rectify this issue.

We send the cables out as a rental tool. The problem comes from us insuring the cable, it then has a declared value. The cables cost us over $1000 so we insure them for that amount.

We are working with UPS on fixing this issue.

Our PowerFlash system is another option. This is a cable that you purchase and keep. The cost is only $250 so the customs cost is greatly reduced.

Here are the details.

http://www.g8board.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12634
Thanks for your reply Kirk, but would you mind explaining a little further? I believe you may have misinterpretted the problem. The banks skimming off the top of the exchange rate is the issue, not customs/brokerage fees charged by UPS. Since you guys mark the package as rental equipment I didn't pay any customs or brokerage fees to UPS due to border crossing. The place where I was losing out was strictly in the currency conversion where the greedy banks decide to take a few extra percent for profit. I'm not sure of a way around this, though, since it would be ridiculous for anyone to expect VMS to rent out cables without a deposit put down. If you know of a way to reduce this for the cable rental, though, I'm sure a lot of other potential customers would love to hear it (other than purchasing the PowerFlash cables).