944 man
Active member
Im sure that many people recall the 'JMG uses Promax code' ECU EEPROM scandal from a couple of years ago. I wasnt ever comfortable with the way that JMG were portrayed, although I accepted the claims made on their face value, as there was only one side of the story to hear. I went away under the opinion that Jon Mitchell had been had, rather than that he had deliberately done something wrong, which seemed to be what was suggested.
Anyway, JMG have kept their own counsel as far as I have been aware - up until now. I havent read TIPEC much of late and Ive contributed less, but a thread about JMG products caught my eye and I read it, probably to see if the usual accusations would appear.
They did, but of far more interest, I think, is the following post made by Jon Mitchell. To the best of my knowledge this hant been posted, repeated or even referred to on this forum, and I think that after space that the allegations received, it is appropriate that this reply is seen.
Simon
*edited to make the quoted text easier to read*
Anyway, JMG have kept their own counsel as far as I have been aware - up until now. I havent read TIPEC much of late and Ive contributed less, but a thread about JMG products caught my eye and I read it, probably to see if the usual accusations would appear.
They did, but of far more interest, I think, is the following post made by Jon Mitchell. To the best of my knowledge this hant been posted, repeated or even referred to on this forum, and I think that after space that the allegations received, it is appropriate that this reply is seen.
ORIGINAL: Jon Mitchell
About two years ago there were some outrageous claims made about our chips on forums being copied from another vendor. Both the vendor and some of his allies made a whole host of allegations, which to be honest had me with flames coming out of my ears.
My initial reaction was to instruct my solicitor to start a very public fight against the other vendor and anyone making the slanderous accusations. However the company solicitor advised that because every chip on the market uses data and code with a copyright belonging to Bosch, that it would be impossible to win such a fight, other than for the slanderous allegations.
He advised that as the 944 tuning market comprised of such a small percentage of our yearly sales, that it would be foolish to get into something messy and protracted fight.
So we chose to bite our lip, withdraw our chips from sale via mail order and to avoid the forums which were obviously populated with a select group of trolls insistent on slandering our name, many of them the same people who previously were involved in using every opportunity to dirty the name of this very other vendor on forums and even via a secret mailing list that they included me in on. Some of these people are now regular customers of the other vendor and seem to have a good relationship with them, I bet there would be some bad blood if I were to publish publicly the contents of this secret mailing list. But whats the point? Those people know who they are, the words "two faced" come to mind.
Our chips are not copies of this other vendor, I don't know all the ins and outs, but if this vendor knew as much as they claim about chips and the contents of a Porsche DME, they would not have gone on the record several times in forums claiming that there is no "software" inside a 944 chip, which is frankly stupid, a large amount of code resides on the chips which is the code the ECU executes as its software. Some chip manufacturers just edit map data by poking new figures into addresses within the chips to alter the maps. Ours result from compiling a modified version of the original source mode from Bosch to generate a new chip every time. If anyone wants to view the original compiled code in printed form, they are welcome to visit by prior appointment to see it in person.
Behind the scenes, I have not been able to let this lie and the chips have been proceeding through an ongoing development where all the software and data is new and our own copyright with no trace of the original Bosch code, for which the copyright belongs to.
As well as this, all our current chips are made onto a new daughter-board and are watermarked within the code to ensure no one copies them again. If they do get past the security and copy them we will take immediate legal action.
Just to put things in perspective, we used to buy parts from this other vendor and had a good relationship with him. A real shame this relationship went down the pan when we were called as expert witnesses against him for a member of the Porsche community who he had sold a defective part to and refused a refund. The person in question won his claim and even though I tried to be fair and even help out this other vendor over this (It felt very awkward and I was not sure it was entirely fair, the relationship ended there.
I didn't think it was also fair when this other vendor had people (some of the same people who promote him now) dragging up his past in open forums, claiming he worked for "toysRus", was a banned director, had mechanics who's backgrounds were in heavy transport not Porsche, among many other claims. So I did not hop on that band wagon for my own benefit, even though he will find any opportunity to try to dirty my and my business name.
Back a few years ago, we used to sell this other vendors chips sourced from Dan at Guru racing, who I believe their current chips are still copies of, even though guru went out of business, I could be wrong though.
The first time our chips were used was on a customers car who now has one of our 3.2 turbo based 944's. we had installed a Lindsay Racing turbo, lindsay racing 55 lbs injectors and a lindsay racing wastegate all sourced from the "other vendor". This was back in the days of the 944 titanic dyno days, a regular event back then, on what used to be known as the "rollers of truth" because they provided accurate results, which were often much lower than other rolling roads in the country and upset many people, but they were trusted as THE benchmark. This car hit the rolling road at one of these events and produced (from memory) 343 BHP with a decent level of torque, instantly putting it at the top of the UK 944 Turbo league table at least 20 BHP higher than any of the cars with the same performance parts, from the same vendor, running the same boost. The only difference being our chips. This is all public record stuff and can be independently checked.
So if our chip was a copy of the other vendor, why did we make so much extra power back then?
What chip was in that car that previously had not been seen?
That same chip is still in the same car, now living back in the UK and I have not seen the car since it moved to Scotland five or six years ago, which the current and previous owner will be able to verify. So I can say I have historical evidence of having that chip when the other vendor was using something inferior.
At the time I did not make a big song and dance about that chip, I was a little cautious and wanted to make sure it did not do anything nasty to the car which I would have to put right. I also did not want to have to do the same to several other cars if I openly sold lots of these chips to multiple people, changing hundreds of head gaskets and engines under my liability was not something I wanted to get involved in for the sake of making some extra money. But in time I did let some other people buy the chip and eventually put it on the open market. Following this, the same 944 Turbo league table started to fill with cars with 9XX chips at the top of the league table, cars previously tuned with the other vendors chips made more power than before.
One of the customers with a very standard car other than a dual port wastegate and injectors, fitted by himself, and our chip, hit the top of the UK league for the most amount of torque. Another with our chips and the first UK ball bearing turbo used our chips again, without modification to beat that torque figure at a mild level of tune, proving how flexible the chips were.
Later when we made the first 3.2 Turbo engine for a 944 Turbo (well we designed it with our contacts in F1 motorsport and handed our parts to SPS for assembly) we needed a chip to run it in with, we tentatively used our chip again and the chip adapted well to this totally unexpected scenario, ran perfectly for running in purposes and even provided great MPG until the engine was run in and a Vitesse MAF kit was used to release some of the engines potential properly.
In other words, how the hell was this a chip copied from this other vendor????
I am sorry for venting here, its not something I like to do, because I do not feel it is professional, but I am tired of keeping quiet whenever my business gets slanted by people with an unfounded axe to grind. If anyone ever has a complaint against my business, tell me, if I do nothing about it to make it up to you, feel free to publish publicly with what as a nasty person I am, this does not happen because I am one of three generations of Porsche technician, I love the cars, I love my work and I live to help people out, as many people will confirm, even if it leaves me out of pocket. We have even this week changed the head gasket effectively free on a car I sold 4 years ago, why? Because the owner was talking about getting a bank loan that I knew he could not afford, I like to be the nice guy, not the bad guy and help wherever I can, I'm not in business for the money.
JMG Has its original roots back with my father in the early 1970's and now my son Mark is also a director here, we are a family business and previously we even had Declan, one of my other sons, working here. Some of you will also have met my wife Julie when visiting in previous years, we are a true family business and not in it just for the money, but it is in our blood.
However, what I am about to say is not because I want any form of sympathy, but just to address one complaint which has been fielded in this thread and many others in several forums, which is over the last couple of years, in particular between the summer of 2010 and the summer of 2011 our customer service, in particular our returning calls and emails was appalling. In the summer of 2010 my wife Julie, who I had been separated with for three years, but on friendly terms, died suddenly, without notice and tragically. This left my two sons and I, as well as the rest of the team in an emotional rollercoaster, the dust of which is only just settling now. Unfortunately, but I think understandably, this caused our communications skills and customer care to go completely to pot, with around the same time the allegations regarding the chips started, which is another reason I just dropped them as a product until I was in a better position to deal with things. The aftermath was that James who worked here and knew Julie for years, and discovered Julies death went off the rails and no longer works here. Declan thought he needed to work elsewhere as he could not keep his mind on work, responding to emails and telephone calls was causing him too much distress.
So my only public apology is to customers and potential customers who suffered our poor communication, or our eye not being on the ball during our time of distress, for this I am so sorry and ashamed, however none of us are emotionless robots, so hopefully you will understand and give us another chance in the future.
For some of the trolls, who used to like to talk down the other vendor and now I am your chosen target, beware, make sure your facts are straight. One of you, who has already posted on this forum made a comment in Twitter over the last week that JMG did not help Spax out during the development of their coil-overs for the 944/968, he even went on to say "More JMG Bullshit methinks", well this person needs to contact Spax and ask them, if Spax do not remember remind them of the emails we shared, the telephone conversations we had where I advised them of the differences between 944 hub variants and even the original MO30 suspension that I sent them so they could see how they were put together... A real man would apologise for such a comment, a worm would act like it was never said, or in this case Tweeter'ed.
All the best and sorry for venting, but seriously enough is enough.
Jon Mitchell - JMG Porsche
Simon
*edited to make the quoted text easier to read*
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