I was talking to a salesperson at a south Florida VW dealer and he told me that he recently spoke with the area service rep about chipping. The service guy told him that chipping does no harm to the engine, as they are built to handle more boost. He went on to say that if he owned a car with the 1.8T that'd he would chip his car. I also spoke to the sales guy about the warranty subject. He told me just to get a socketed chip to avoid any hassle, but the dealer (at least this one) doesn't check for the chips.