Cobb doesn't have any support for the 1.8T though, only 2.0T. And do they have DSG tunes?
Interesting take on Unitronic. I know I read that a lot of people consider it "safer" which could mean boring.
Looking at their dyno charts they aren't bad.
Edit: I know JB4 is other popular home tuning but I have a P3 V3 gauge. I prefer reflashing the car.
I literally always forget we can’t go Cobb on our cars. Sorry about that lol. Cobb offers custom tunes via the ECUTek platform for 1.8 customers, but still very different as they’re not building off of 2+ years experience on the Cobb tuning platform.
So ECU/TCU tunes are about way more than power figures. To me, one of the most frustrating issues with the factory tune is less about power, and more about throttle ramping. If you’ve seen a pedaltuner’s throttle amplification graph, that’s what I’m talking about.
The factory tune has an exponential growth curve, meaning throttle ramps up more and more the more you press, rather than being flat where it’s a 1-1 increase. Then there’s exponential decay where you get a lot of throttle for a little input, and it tapers to a flatter curve towards the middle/top.
I have had a stock-ECU GTI with a JB1, stock-ECU GTI with JB1 and pedal tuner, stock-ECU GTI with just pedal tuner, and I’ve had a stock GTI with Stage 1 ECU/TCU tunes from Uni, and finally I currently own a Stage 1 APR Plus (87 octane stock turbo low torque tune) 6MT Alltrack.
the two best setups I’ve had were the stock ECU GTI with pedaltuner and the APR Stage 1 6MT Alltrack. The Unitronic tunes were complete garbage, I couldn’t believe I wasted my money them. They were THAT unsatisfying. Uni tunes are essentially overpriced JB4 tunes that void your warranty. It’s like choosing the worst of both worlds. You get none of the throttle ramping/responsiveness of an ECU tune, and you get less power too, while Still getting TD1’d.
I strongly, strongly suggest anyone, even APR over Unitronic. APR is like the Apple of the VW tuning world. They make pretty good stuff. United Motorsport also does good work and they have staged IS20/IS38 tunes for the 1.8’s. Just don’t give your money to Uni, they really don’t deserve it compared to the more active tuners that actually care about the platform.