Long story short: Bought a CPO car that already had a tune on it but not yet flagged TD1. Dealership is mod-friendly and usually has no problem getting powertrain warranty work done on modded cars that haven't been abused. But they suggested I try the car without the tune and they would do everything they can to ensure any warranty issues that come up are covered (short of guaranteeing it). After much consideration, I decided to cover my butt for the short-term and flash back to stock for now, knowing it's easy to flash back the tune in the future. Overall, the stock car is great. It's fun to be able to hit it hard in 1st and 2nd gear and not just have pure wheelspin. Driving a slow car fast vs. driving a fast car slow, etc. etc.
Buuuuut of course I want more power.
Understanding I'm not looking to infinitely upgrade my car to the max... Do I:
- Risk the powertrain warranty and add the APR tune back?
- Pros:
- It'll only cost me ~$250 for a bit of labor and to transfer the APR license, then I can flash any of the tune variations and the DSG tune.
- Comprehensive, safe, high quality tune.
- Cons:
- The car is 2015 and I don't know that it has a revised turbo, so there's the risk that the turbo goes and I don't have a warranty to cover it.
- You can't really mess around with the APR tunes.
- I actually didn't like the APR DSG tune very much, so I might leave it off.
- Buy a used JB4 and play around with that until my CPO warranty is up?
- Pros:
- Inexpensive and easy (I regularly find them used for under $350)
- Fun to tweak and mess around with settings.
- I can tailor the power band in a way that limits low-RPM traction loss.
- Can be taken off if there's an issue for warranty consideration.
- Cons:
- Not as powerful and smooth as a proper tune.
- Used JB4 won't get the custom map support from George.
If your 2015’s turbo hasn’t failed yet, You got one of the better ones. The bad ones went pop real early. What’s your build date? Anything in the actual year 2015 is better, since the “early build dates” were in 2014. 2015 was the 3rd year MK7s were out in the wild (3 in ROW, ~.5 years in NAR), and was the year they addressed the vast majority of initial build quality issues. (Turbo, injectors, some other things I can’t remember since it’s been 6 years).
Imo since your car is already TD1’d there’s very, very little benefit to running a “stock tune” - as it’s not actually the stock tune. It’s reverse engineered to mimic the stock tune. Aka there’s no real difference between your “stock tune” and the APR tune, besides the extra power.
you
could do the following:
1. Get a JB4, run it until Tax Return next year (or following year, whenever your warranty is up).
2. Sell JB4, recoup 90-100% of cost. go APR Low Torque 91, and run 93. The engine will never pull timing, even in 110 degrees with 100% humidity provided your valves aren’t caked and the injectors aren’t stuck and the coils aren’t shot and the plugs aren’t fouled. This is my general perspective. Run 91 tune on 93, enjoy optimal performance in all conditions, even on stock hardware w/o Intercooler.
3. Profit