[stilov]

I'm sorry, one anecdotal experience of someone I have no knowledge of and hearing second hand does not justify saying tunes don't make much difference.

Obviously every car and every tuner (meaning person who writes programming, not some generic flasher product) are different.

A tune is also related to what changes someone makes on a car. In fact many rewrites of programs are required on many modifications. Ex. You can't run different fuel systems, different turbos, different cams without programming.

A lot depends on a ecu's range of values whether it can compensate adequately for a given modification.

As I see, a nearly stock boxster with minor bolt ons does not benefit much from tuning.

My other porsche would not run without reprogramming.

I have built several vehicles in which the "flash" as you call it made drastic differences and I have had cars that the benefit was non existent. (My e39 m5 for example)