Copy “Defi” Advance ZD experience
 

Has anyone tried one of these copies of the Defi Advance ZD units? For $140 that includes all the sensors it sounds way way too good to be true.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/18329369855...mis&media=COPY

whole bunch of them on ebay.

can't be that bad, biggest question is if they use typical sensors or if they're something propietary

I'm sure the shortcomings will be evident in response time, cold weather performance (cheap LED screens are terrible in really cold weather), and the connectors themselves might by wiggly.
Soundman is probably right- they're likely at least mildly decent, just not on Defi's level

so i started digging because cheap data logging is entertaining to me.

per defi's counterfeit pages, the connectors will be different, meaning that 'genuine', or 'known-great-quality' sensors/gauges are not going to work. so one would be committed to the cheap stuff for everything, or hacking connectors..

https://www.defi-shop.com/info/important/counterfeit/


this review from 2018 also shows how the gauges are all 'close', but all off by some margin, and would require independent calibration to get accurate readings
https://www.cb7tuner.com/vbb5/forum/...-from-thailand


also important is that defi discontinued that model in 2021. the newest model retails with sensors(turbo, pressure, temp, obd2) for $2715 at tein, the US distributor
https://www.tein.com/defi/defi-line-...#ADVANCE_A1_60

evasive has it for $2444
https://www.evasivemotorsports.com/s...t-and-sensors/


so the question is, is the lack of accuracy, product quality, support, and being committed to questionable sensors worth a $2200 reduction in price?

honestly, i think for the roughly $200, one gets a lot of features. for a street vehicle, i'd be willing to play with it and would consider it a valuable addition(but non-critical) for engine monitoring.

but for anyone that demands reliability, accuracy, quality sensors, and any amount of product support, i lean more towards the genuine product, even at it's high price point.

i mean, 1-2 degrees off in temperature isn't terrible, and even being 0.4v off on voltage isn't terrible either. one could learn to adjust their mindset based on the gauges inaccuracy. but the fact that their inaccurate at a single reference voltage doesn't lend a lot of credibility to them being equally accurate across their entire sweep, which is really where inaccuracy plays the biggest part.

it's easy to adjust for +/- 2 over the entire sweep, but if it's -10 at the low end, and +10 at the high end...

Thanks for the input guys.

The link from Defi about counterfeit units is interesting. I just assumed that whoever is selling these fake units were using the same exact boards as Defi. But seeing that the connections in the back of the display are in different locations that doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe it was an older version of the Defi display?

Like you are saying soundman. The accuracy of this knock off may be perfectly fine for a street car. I'm messing around with an ecutek connect right now to see if I can get the data i'm looking for. If that doesn't work I may pick one of these up. If I do I'll report back.