Should you remap your car? (530D N57)

Should you remap your car? Specifically this F10 530D you’ve seen on the channel before, with it’s 6 cylinder 3L diesel N57 engine. What are the benefits, and the drawbacks? Lets chat.

First, what is remapping? Well, a ‘map’ is a table of values your engine’s computer uses to work out how much fuel, air (and if it’s a petrol), ignition timing to use per stroke to develop power. Remapping is when you overwrite those tables, normally to add more fuel and air to make more power, although technically you can put any map on for ‘eco’ modes and everything in between.

So, why would you bother? Well, this N57 F10 530D offers a decent but not amazing 241HP stock, and 540NM of torque. With a decent new map it now makes an estimated 300HP and 600NM of torque, and anecdotally gets closer to the advertised fuel consumption too. It pulls much harder, has an improved 0-60 times and is a lot more fun to drive. Foot to the floor, it really does pin you back in your seat.

That all sounds great, but what are the drawbacks? Well, the immediate one is cost. If you can find someone on something like Facebook marketplace, you might part with £150 for the map and installation. If you’d rather a more reputable firm, then you might be spending more like £250 – 300 instead. But, I’m not sure there is another single thing you can do to your car to get that much of a performance gain for that little money.

You may be concerned for your engine’s health after a remap, and for some models you definitely should. Remapping doesn’t make sense for every car, most NA engines will see no benefit unless you’ve changed hardware components enough to need a tune, and some forced induction engines are already very close to their safe limits. There are a good number of engines that are nowhere near their limit though, especially those that come de-tuned from the factory like my 2013 S4, and where the same engine is used in higher power configurations like this N57. In a 535D it makes pretty much what the remap offers on this 530D meaning it’s well within the engine’s (and transmission’s) limits.

Obviously, you need to do your own research for your specific car. Find out what’s possible, what is considered a ‘safe’ remap, and balance cost, drivability sacrifices and potential fuel costs (or savings in this case). For the owner of this 530D, he’s very happy with it. It’s more fun to drive, and the fuel savings are a nice little perk. For him, it is definitely worth doing. For you? Well that’s up to you.