Unitronic Stage 1+ ECU and TCU tunes installed. Wow.
I went with the Unitronic Stage 1+ ECU tune/Stage 1 TCU tune on my 2018 GSW S 4M DSG. My driving is ~70% highway/30% around town. The tune was done at 2,750 miles so car was new but broken-in. Here are my impressions/comments etc.:
Background:
I purchased the tunes on sale from DAP including the cable for $1150 delivered. It showed up 2 days later. After getting the Unitronic software installed on my laptop and the cable registered, loading the tunes took about ~30 min. I used a battery charger per DAPs video. Plenty of info out there on all of this; I strongly suggest you watch the videos/read the instructions…twice. I goofed the cable registration and Unitronic provided live support to fix it; v. happy with their tech support so far.
Driving:
The ECU tune makes the car much more lively and gives it much stronger acceleration – it isn’t a race car by any stroke of the imagination. I have done some 0-60 testing and gotten a few runs in the low 6s/high 5s so I think that is outstanding for a car like this (1/4 tank of gas, no spare tire/junk in car etc.). The TCU tune is the true gem of this upgrade with correct shift points in D and a better/more useable S mode; I can’t say enough good things about the TCU tune. The launch control RPM is higher now as is the redline for shifting under WOT (not such a concern to me). You can see what gear you are in in D or S modes now (again, not a big one). I would say the car feels stock still and if I wouldn’t have told my wife she may not have noticed. On the highway it’s so nice to get around cars quickly now. To sum it up…OEM+ and super happy with the tunes from Unitronic.
MPGs:
MPGs remain nearly unchanged on my highway commute (~100 miles round trip each day) but I believe I have lost ~1 mpg based on data I have collected/Fuelly; I’m sure my city mpgs have dropped a bit from all the “testing”..hahahah but overall, it’s not a huge mpg penalty as far as I can see. The jump to premium fuel cost is new to me and this will add ~$400 a year to my fuel costs at today’s prices. Fuelly shows that I am at 25mpg average over the last 4 mos with highs around 30 for just my commute and lows around 20 if I am just burning it up around town. Keep in mind roof racks can knock ~3mpg off of your mileage, especially so on the highway.
Closing:
Would I do it again? YES! It’s exactly what I wanted…a more lively stock car to drive as my DD and commute to work in. I effectively have a GTI wagon now.
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