Max Power Pets Punch

Pete's Box is the automotive equivalent of Viagra. It's like a pill, not a full fledged surgery. Just add it and see your car rear up with vigour. We tested it on a Skoda 1.9 TDi for you to see the results for yourself....

Till the year 2000, I had driven many diesel cars. And hated most of them. I could not believe that people actually spent many lakhs of rupees buying diesel cars over petrol. It was only when I first tested the Mercedes-Benz E220CDI, a refi ned, fast and frugal common-rail diesel, that my views on diesel cars changed. Of course, as good as that car is, it's quite unaffordable for the masses.

It was in 2002 when Skoda launched its diesel range with the Octavia TDI, and mere mortals could then begin to think of buying a diesel that was fast, frugal and refi ned, and yet still affordable. I bought my Octavia TDI in August 2004 and then, in the search for some added performance, tried calling a couple of UK-based companies like Super Chip, to see if they could remap the Skoda's ECU for more power. However, all of them said that they needed the car to be brought to the UK. Then, last year, I spoke to a certain Mr Raza from Four Seasons Automobiles in Mumbai, who are the authorized dealers for Pete's Performance products. Salvation was finally at hand.

He immediately couriered one Pete's Digital Diesel Tuning Box to Pune. And it took me all of 10 minutes to connect this performance box to my car. It so happened that the car had just been serviced before I fitted the box, and my wife, who normally uses the car, did not know that I had fitted the performance box to the car. After driving it, the first thing she said was that she had been telling me for a long time to get the car serviced, and now how much of a difference the service had made. Of course, I had to then tell her that it wasn't the service but the Pete's Box that was making all the difference.

I have now used the car for over seven months with the Pete's Performance Box installed, and there has been no problem at all. The car feels much more responsive than before and is a joy to drive. Last year, when we drove to Mahableshwar, the car did a phenomenal 19km/l, despite me driving at speeds of up to 170km/h in small bursts. A close friend of mine, who drove up in his Porsche Cayenne, ended up using 60 litres of petrol to get to Mahableshwar, whereas my car did the Mahableshwar trip in 18 litres of diesel- that's fuel economy for you!

It has been long overdue that we did a comprehensive performance test on my Octavia, with and without the Pete's box. And that the box really does make a big difference, you can see for yourself in the figures. With the Pete's Box installed, the Octavia in quicker by 1.4 seconds in the 0-100km/h sprint, and the top speed has gone by a whopping 14km/h. Electronics really do work! And more than just figures, it is the improvements in drivability which are also very impressive - the car feels much better in city traffic, in-gear acceleration has improved a lot and so has fuel economy. In stock form, my car used to do 13.5km/l in the city, whereas now it does 14.5km/l. The highway fuel efficiency figure has also increased by 2km/l over the standard car.

This report is going to cost me Rs 30,000 as the wife now refuses to drive the car in standard trim. But seriously, this simple modification makes the car comparable to the new Skoda Laura in performance and Rs 30,000 is not such a big price to pay for such a dramatic improvement. The Pete's performance box delivers everything it promises, so there. Aspi Bhathena

SPECS & PERFORMANCE	With Pete's	Stock
PERFORMANCE:
Top Speed:	188.5km/h	174.8km/h
ACCELERATION
Speed	Time Taken(seconds)	Time Taken(seconds)
0-20km/h	1.48	1.5
0-40km/h	2.79	2.84
0-60km/h	5.27	5.43
0-80km/h	8.54	9.21
0-100km/h	12.03	13.5
0-120km/h	19.21	21.95
0-140km/h	26.27	30.89
TIME TO DISTANCE
Quarter Mile:	18.63s @ 117.97km/h	19.23s @ 111.88km/h
Standing Km:	34.13s @ 153.80km/h	35.80s @ 146.73km/h
ROLL - ON
30 -70km/h	6.63s	6.90s
40 -80km/h	9.83s	10.91s
50 -100km/h	6.27s	18.82s

Source: Car India July 2006.