Has anyone changed tunes to try alternatives?

[uberdot]

I think this was covered in a previous thread but nobody in here wants one of those soulless ugly ass Teslas. Except old guys who ironically welcome their robot overlords

 

[jimlloyd40]

I think this was covered in a previous thread but nobody in here wants one of those soulless ugly ass Teslas. Except old guys who ironically welcome their robot overlords

Hey I'm old and I don't want one.

 

[nok513]

That's nuts. Well, if they can make a Stg2 w/o a dp, I'm all for it Like, I want to make this car a hassle free fun car that when it comes to inspection, I can just drive right on through. Sure I may need to disable a Stg1 tune back to OEM, but that's no biggie. I want no hardware issues. I was literally paying to have my dp swapped back to stock, drive through, inspect, then drive back and put aftermarket back on. Such a PITA and $$$!

EQT you need to provide logs though correct? They send you a file, you run it, get new logs, send it back, they further tweak it until after a few passes back and forth it finally runs as you intend? I honestly am not sure I want to even go through that. Especially at a measly Stg1 (lol). I've heard good things about Stratified as well.

What part of APR on your mk6 didn't you like? I think stg1 and 2 ran Okay but it was awhile ago. Their K04 tune really sucked hard. Car was lifeless at lower RPM. I could barely keep up with any traffic at all. I had to like really get on it and then it sounded like I was racing everyone. Sure, it had nutty power when I really floored it, but living in Nj didn't allow me to do that often so I was mostly stuck with a very unpleasant driving experience on the daily.

I was gonna jump on the EQT Black Friday Sale but ended up going with Stratified. I liked the fact that I could run Stage 1 93 octane with a low torque file (stock clutch). After I sent them my AP info, they sent me a questionnaire with options for the flash and asked about my bolt on mods.The flash tune was tailored to my build, but not so in depth as a custom tune.You have the option to datalog to fine tune to either make sure everything is running right, squeeze more juice or dial it back if they see something wrong.

 

[Keehs360]

All we have to do is buy 70K Teslas then. No problem.
Guess only rich people will get to go faster in the near nightmare future.

I think. The more ev’s are produced and purchased. The lower the price will fall. I think they’ll be way cheaper in 5-10 years.

 

[Justgotohm]

No Ethanol. 91 octane and Torco octane booster to get to 93 octane.

I’m doing it wrong, haha. If I can get those numbers with everything I already have I need to reconfigure.

 

[jimlloyd40]

I’m doing it wrong, haha. If I can get those numbers with everything I already have I need to reconfigure.

Says you have the IS38 and unless you use ethanol it's not capable of those numbers.

 

[ourlee]

Hey I'm old and I don't want one.

Same.

 

[tehfalcon]

2019 GTI here, I've had a JB4, Eurodyne, APR, IE, Cobb/EQT, and now United Motorsports.

I loved my APR Tune over them all, but my UM tune does feel faster, just not quite as refined. My EQT tune was garb, as is my experience will any Cobb tune on any car.

 

[KyACRASH]

I loved my APR Tune over them all, but my UM tune does feel faster, just not quite as refined. My EQT tune was garb, as is my experience will any Cobb tune on any car.

wow that's a good chunk of change on tunes in a short period of time....

curious, what didn't you like about EQT? You're the first out of dozens on here to share a negative experience with their tunes.

 

[Keehs360]

I always wondered. How’s integrated engineering’s stage 1 and their dsg. Anyone have experience?

 

[Dog Dad Wagon]

2019 GTI here, I've had a JB4, Eurodyne, APR, IE, Cobb/EQT, and now United Motorsports.

I loved my APR Tune over them all, but my UM tune does feel faster, just not quite as refined. My EQT tune was garb, as is my experience will any Cobb tune on any car.

hahaha, interesting take. Good to hear someone with something different to say about EQT lol. I’ve also tried JB1, Dinan Sport Module, Unitronic S1 91+93 on my 2 previous MK7 GTIs, and now APR S1 87 on my Alltrack. I like my APR tune on my Alltrack more than any of the above tunes on either of my previous GTIs.

Especially with APR revisiting/updating tunes in the last few years ever since they got purchased by that bigger automotive company, they’ve really brought OEM-quality R&D to the OTS tuning process, truly leaving nothing on the table (for an OTS tune). My only complaint is my Alltrack used to get 20-25 mpg city and 32-35 highway, and I do like 17-23 city and 28-31 highway now. The city mileage is whatever bc improved driving dynamics, but I’ll admit I’m a little nonplussed by the reduction in highway mileage. Don’t see why the car would need to dump any more fuel than it used to to do the same exact thing.

 

[StorableComa]

hahaha, interesting take. Good to hear someone with something different to say about EQT lol. I’ve also tried JB1, Dinan Sport Module, Unitronic S1 91+93 on my 2 previous MK7 GTIs, and now APR S1 87 on my Alltrack. I like my APR tune on my Alltrack more than any of the above tunes on either of my previous GTIs.

Especially with APR revisiting/updating tunes in the last few years ever since they got purchased by that bigger automotive company, they’ve really brought OEM-quality R&D to the OTS tuning process, truly leaving nothing on the table (for an OTS tune). My only complaint is my Alltrack used to get 20-25 mpg city and 32-35 highway, and I do like 17-23 city and 28-31 highway now. The city mileage is whatever bc improved driving dynamics, but I’ll admit I’m a little nonplussed by the reduction in highway mileage. Don’t see why the car would need to dump any more fuel than it used to to do the same exact thing.

Seeing something similar with IE stage 1 on my wagon. According to Fuely.com I avg. about 23-26 MPG with a 60/40-70/30 split city and highway. 23 in Sport mode haha.

On the freeway i've noticed watching the current MPG gauge that the engine is more twitchy on the freeway with minor pedal variances. Adding just enough fuel to not demand noticeable acceleration, but to drop MPG to around 25ish while doing 70-75 (Digital MPG noramly reads 36-40 MPG for me doing that on a flat bit of road. Maybe something similar for you? I know the tune smoothed out pedal feel around town, so maybe it's just a bitch twitchy on the freeway now where it'll give it more gas to inch me up 5MPH.

 

[Daks]

I had a UM Stage 2+ tune on my MK6R and it was a good tune. It had a lot of features you could change yourself: selecting your own boost level, octane, and it drove very smoothly, no dead zones. I had one issue though: whenever I was getting off on the offramp and say I went from fourth to neutral and just used the brakes instead of downshifting, the car would turn off - they tried to resolve it a few times but never did. Other than that, I really liked it. I then got a MK7 TDi and tuned it with Malone stage 2 - I loved that tune. The car drove like stock with gobs more power, it was perfect. Can't say enough about those guys. Should have probably went with them for the GTI Tune. I ended up going with Unitronic as it was the most "conservative" tune and I hoped that the stock clutch would hold, well it did not. The tune also has this weird thing where it backs off power around 4000 RPM, my thought is that it was traction control related, so I disabled the ESC, but I never got a really good chance to test it as the clutch started to slip around the same time that I did this. all in all, I don't love it. If that issue got fixed I would have thought that it is a fine tune. I picked up a clutch and downpipe last night - getting it put in tomorrow and going to Unitronic Stage 2, as it is only $150 to get to S2. My plan is to keep that until the summer, save up a bit of cash and then get an intercooler and figure out what tune to go with next. I'll wait until the clutch gets broken in and report on the tune.

 

[StorableComa]

Sounds like with the 2.0T it's best to go custom/log revamp tune route as the AP and Cobb are around with plenty of tuners. That way you can work to fit your sweet spot.

 

[Dog Dad Wagon]

I had a UM Stage 2+ tune on my MK6R and it was a good tune. It had a lot of features you could change yourself: selecting your own boost level, octane, and it drove very smoothly, no dead zones. I had one issue though: whenever I was getting off on the offramp and say I went from fourth to neutral and just used the brakes instead of downshifting, the car would turn off - they tried to resolve it a few times but never did. Other than that, I really liked it. I then got a MK7 TDi and tuned it with Malone stage 2 - I loved that tune. The car drove like stock with gobs more power, it was perfect. Can't say enough about those guys. Should have probably went with them for the GTI Tune. I ended up going with Unitronic as it was the most "conservative" tune and I hoped that the stock clutch would hold, well it did not. The tune also has this weird thing where it backs off power around 4000 RPM, my thought is that it was traction control related, so I disabled the ESC, but I never got a really good chance to test it as the clutch started to slip around the same time that I did this. all in all, I don't love it. If that issue got fixed I would have thought that it is a fine tune. I picked up a clutch and downpipe last night - getting it put in tomorrow and going to Unitronic Stage 2, as it is only $150 to get to S2. My plan is to keep that until the summer, save up a bit of cash and then get an intercooler and figure out what tune to go with next. I'll wait until the clutch gets broken in and report on the tune.

glad you’re planning on leaving Uni behind. Just not a very engaging tune. I wouldn’t say my APR tune on my car drives “like stock except more power” as the stock tune sucks. It drives the way the stock tune ~should have~ except more power. That was my beef with my Uni tune on my GTI - it drove exactly like stock, with more power. That was an issue, as power isn’t really the issue on a car like a GTI with 260WTQ as early as like 2K RPM. The issue is DSG tune and throttle ramping/response, and my Uni Stage 1 ECU/TCU Did nothing for throttle or transmission shiftiness. Still stole power from me by shifting from 3rd to 4th @ 2K RPM, right as boost hit after the 2-3 shift...

it’s possible the 7.5 tunes are better, since they were made more recently. Mine was a 2015 GTI and for all I know the tune was the same one they released for the first MK7s way back then.