Car and Driver tests the APR Stage 1 RS7!

[Arin@APR]

We handed the keys to the APR Stage 1 RS7 over to Car and Driver and let them put it through the ringer. Using their measuring equipment on pavement, they were able to achieve a sub 11 quarter mile time and finished the 0-60 mph sprint in under 3 seconds while spinning all four of the factory tires! Our own tests on a sticky certified drag strip has netted as low as 10.6@129 mph while our customers hit as low as [email protected] using our Stage 1 100 octane software.

Take a look at the article here:

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...-1-test-review

[Pale Rider]

Seems like a good, balanced, but brief review. Still on the fence about this, what with all the various issues, some bigger than others, floating around out there.

[Arin@APR]

I believe the only issue I've seen was a misfire. Audi updated their code covering misfires on the same cylinder and we applied their updates to our latest software. Also, we recommend checking the spark gap because quite often they are pretty open from the factory. We went with .024" +/- .002" on each one.

Keep in mind we offer a 30 day money back guarantee. You can try the software and if it just isn't for you, you can return it for a refund. It's also an OBDII port flash now, so it's quick and easy to do. The ECU doesn't need to be removed and opened.

[Nabizzy]

biggest worry remains as warranty....i have faith in yalls tune as far as performance, but i don't have faith that it won't get detected....not sure I'm ready to void my warranty quite yet. this test was good though i like that someone independent tested the car as well, reassures what i already knew; the car is fast as shit, and APR makes it faster.lol.

[CanuckRS]

just a note to all that i just had my vehicle replaced by audi for an engine issue. if it was tuned, there is NO way they would have done that(at least not without a huge fight). i would wait until you're at least close to end of warranty to venture into tuning territory unless you are willing to fork over the cash if issues arise. i'm not saying the tune will cause issues, but if you have an underlying defect, the tune will be an excellent way for audi to deny you coverage, and frankly i wouldn't blame them if they did. think about it.

[Ensoniq]

I highly recommend the tune. It turns a beast into a scalded beast.

You gotta pay to play. If the risk of warranty loss doesn't fit your budget the tune may not be for you.

Hardly any traction loss ever and all that power is a great combo! To each their own.

[Nabizzy]

I highly recommend the tune. It turns a beast into a scalded beast.

You gotta pay to play. If the risk of warranty loss doesn't fit your budget the tune may not be for you.

Hardly any traction loss ever and all that power is a great combo! To each their own.

I will continue to admire from afar, engine blowup is definitely not in my budget lol. granted that is a stretch, and worst case scenario, but I'm sure I've made my point.

[AKPS4]

just a note to all that i just had my vehicle replaced by audi for an engine issue. if it was tuned, there is NO way they would have done that(at least not without a huge fight). i would wait until you're at least close to end of warranty to venture into tuning territory unless you are willing to fork over the cash if issues arise. i'm not saying the tune will cause issues, but if you have an underlying defect, the tune will be an excellent way for audi to deny you coverage, and frankly i wouldn't blame them if they did. think about it.

You could have fought as long and hard as you wanted. By the time you spend money and years fighting it wouldn't be worth it... If your tuned and it's detected you will get no warranty coverage from Audi. Period.

It sucks but it sucks more that Audi uses mods to hide from their known factory issues that are well documented.

[moosehead1]

....to hide from their known factory issues that are well documented.

Not sure of Audi issues documented, but they certainly are not "hiding" by replacing a blown powerplant, let alone entire vehicle, under warranty in an untuned rig.

[CanuckRS]

You could have fought as long and hard as you wanted. By the time you spend money and years fighting it wouldn't be worth it... If your tuned and it's detected you will get no warranty coverage from Audi. Period.

It sucks but it sucks more that Audi uses mods to hide from their known factory issues that are well documented.

and i don't blame them for not covering me if i was tuned. they put their vehicles through extensive testing and then back it up with a 4 year warranty. now if someone comes along and wants to modify their rig, why should audi pay for your errors if something goes wrong?

having gone through the process with audi, they have really backed up their product and provided excellent support to me throughout the ordeal.

it's easy to talk trash about a company but my experience has been that they really do try and support their customers as long as you are reasonable and level headed.

[/dev/null]

Not sure of Audi issues documented, but they certainly are not "hiding" by replacing a blown powerplant, let alone entire vehicle, under warranty in an untuned rig.

I know that Audi will replace a vehicle for a blown engine first-hand, in fact that’s what drove ME to buy an A6TDI. A good bud bought an A6 about 18 months ago and shredded the engine with under 200 miles - he got a new rig and the blown car was shipped back to Germany without any questions (well, Im sure there were a few, but it took all of an afternoon for him to pick out a new car).

Id love to tune my A6 TDI and have given lots of consideration to it - but having just figured out how the tiptonic really works (aka "RTFM") with "sport mode", and the fact that the diesel has tons of torque (mind you , Im not racing it - just enjoying the crap out of the car), Ill sit on the sidelines till the car is past warranty before fooling around with a tune. On the other hand, its my wifes daily driver - If I were to put that kind of power in her hands I would be looking at revoked insurance and hiring her a chauffeur...

Sounds enticing though.

[kiku]

How come any tune discussion turns to TD1 warranty discussion? There are plenty of threads about what you should do to prevent that, proven many many times. Geeze, so annoying.

[DrBeerMD]

^^^^Exactly Kiku!

I love my tune, wouldn't have done anything differently and love that it's getting some good press.

Now Arin...........please quit teasing us and lets release this Stage 2 for the RS7 please!!!!

[Nabizzy]

sorry to disappoint you guys, but obviously if it always comes up its an issue on people's minds who are on the forum. As many threads there may be on people telling you how to avoid TD1, there are also threads on people who got flagged doing what they were meant to. Its definitely not APR's fault, like CanuckRS4 said, I don't expect Audi to warranty cars with issues directly related to someone cranking up the boost on an engine that has a lot of R&D in it already. Just voicing my opinion on a public forum, not trying to offend anyone.

[Brooklyn]

I think everyone understands both sides of the issue. It's a well known one, and while it is generally accepted that flashing back to stock will avoid the TD-1 flag, it remains to be seen whether that works in all instances and whether Audi will eventually figure out a way to defeat that trick. There are those of us who understand that Audi designed their product and implemented a warranty system based on those design parameters, and others who believe US consumer protection laws will kick in should Audi attempt to deny a warranty based on an aftermarket part that may not have contributed to the issue triggering the warranty repair request. Lost in the latter discussion, of course, is the fact that Audi brings a tremendous amount of money to the fight and the best legal representation that money can buy. Can the average owner here leverage the same resources? Probably not. I believe most have therefore concluded that if you tune your vehicle, you are rolling the dice. There are things you may be able to do to mask that tuning from the dealership, but ultimately you run the risk of them finding out and not being able to get something repaired under warranty. Until Audi changes its stance, there is really no point beating the dead horse of whether Acme tune violates your warranty or not. Assume it does and go from there. I'm sure if/when a major tuning company comes up with an absolute warranty safety net, they'll be the first to let us know. As I've stated in more than a few posts, I'm shopping for a S6 now primarily because I'm wary of tuning my A6 and having something go south and the CPO warranty I specifically tracked down going up in smoke.

[pandi]

I think everyone understands both sides of the issue. It's a well known one, and while it is generally accepted that flashing back to stock will avoid the TD-1 flag, it remains to be seen whether that works in all instances and whether Audi will eventually figure out a way to defeat that trick. There are those of us who understand that Audi designed their product and implemented a warranty system based on those design parameters, and others who believe US consumer protection laws will kick in should Audi attempt to deny a warranty based on an aftermarket part that may not have contributed to the issue triggering the warranty repair request. Lost in the latter discussion, of course, is the fact that Audi brings a tremendous amount of money to the fight and the best legal representation that money can buy. Can the average owner here leverage the same resources? Probably not. I believe most have therefore concluded that if you tune your vehicle, you are rolling the dice. There are things you may be able to do to mask that tuning from the dealership, but ultimately you run the risk of them finding out and not being able to get something repaired under warranty. Until Audi changes its stance, there is really no point beating the dead horse of whether Acme tune violates your warranty or not. Assume it does and go from there. I'm sure if/when a major tuning company comes up with an absolute warranty safety net, they'll be the first to let us know. As I've stated in more than a few posts, I'm shopping for a S6 now primarily because I'm wary of tuning my A6 and having something go south and the CPO warranty I specifically tracked down going up in smoke.

Great post brother!

[Silverarrow240]

Great post brother!

+1, as usual Brooklyn...

[VeryBadman]

+1, as usual Brooklyn...

And +2, it's not like I need my car to be even more powerful. Want? yes but not enough to justify the risk if anything goes wrong.

[Pale Rider]

And +2, it's not like I need my car to be even more powerful. Want? yes but not enough to justify the risk if anything goes wrong.

±3. I think this is where I am landing as well. The RS7 itself is such a beast, that as much as even more power would be silly-grin fun, I am not sure the incremental increase is worth the uncertainty. I have spent a lot of time reading what feels like just about every post every where on the APR and GIAC tunes. I have also met with two local dealer/installers. Granted, internet posts are not completely reliable, but there are enough reports of issues to make me wonder if that's how I want to spend any of my time with my car [e.g., working to exorcise gremlins from the tune itself, installing beta files, etc.]. And while I appreciate APR's 30-day guarantee, in all candor, that is pretty short for something that costs about $3k and runs the risk of jeopardizing one's basic vehicle warranty. Moreover, it doesn't—nor is it intended to—substitute for the warranty risk on the car. I have also taken the time to meet with two local installers, discuss the pros and cons, including my own concerns about APR's future, etc.; and as a lawyer, I am not afraid to stand up for my rights if and when a vendor, including Audi, seeks to be unfair. But again, I am not sure that's how I want to be thinking about spending my time with my car. Both my cars represent an escape from worrying about such things I almost went down the Stasis supercharger route with my R8; in retrospect, I am glad I did not. These two cars are already such a blast. Would more be even more fun? Of course! But the incremental cost/benefit is just not compelling enough when I factor in all these uncertainties. The beauty of having choices is that each of us gets to make our own.

[pandi]

±3. I think this is where I am landing as well. The RS7 itself is such a beast, that as much as even more power would be silly-grin fun, I am not sure the incremental increase is worth the uncertainty. I have spent a lot of time reading what feels like just about every post every where on the APR and GIAC tunes. I have also met with two local dealer/installers. Granted, internet posts are not completely reliable, but there are enough reports of issues to make me wonder if that's how I want to spend any of my time with my car [e.g., working to exorcise gremlins from the tune itself, installing beta files, etc.]. And while I appreciate APR's 30-day guarantee, in all candor, that is pretty short for something that costs about $3k and runs the risk of jeopardizing one's basic vehicle warranty. Moreover, it doesn't—nor is it intended to—substitute for the warranty risk on the car. I have also taken the time to meet with two local installers, discuss the pros and cons, including my own concerns about APR's future, etc.; and as a lawyer, I am not afraid to stand up for my rights if and when a vendor, including Audi, seeks to be unfair. But again, I am not sure that's how I want to be thinking about spending my time with my car. Both my cars represent an escape from worrying about such things I almost went down the Stasis supercharger route with my R8; in retrospect, I am glad I did not. These two cars are already such a blast. Would more be even more fun? Of course! But the incremental cost/benefit is just not compelling enough when I factor in all these uncertainties. The beauty of having choices is that each of us gets to make our own.

Another great post... but you lost me at the LAWYER part! lol..

[GTS21]

I'd love to get my RS7 tuned, and I can live with the risk of paying to play, but I have ZERO interest in CELs, misfires, data logging, etc.. I just want the car to be faster and reduce or eliminate the damn throttle lag.

[kiku]

For all of those nay saying about the value in the Stage 1 tune: drive a stock RS7 for a week, then drive a Stage 1 RS7 afterwards. I doubt you'll have the same opinion. Its a completely different car. Hell, even driving an R8 V10 makes it feel like driving a regular car. Its not just the power, its the quality of power being delivered, so well behaved.

Again, and I'm repeating myself, simply go to your APR dealer and they will flash it back to stock in no more than 5 minutes. Go about your merry way to the dealer.

[HeelBuff]

PR - you made a very thoughtful, perfectly rational post and I respect your steadfastness. A lot of truth there. Some of us who are weaker souls started with a similar viewpoint and seemingly similar (at the time) conviction, but, alas, our character folded like aluminum foil right before our 5K oil change. We realized there is nothing rational about having an RS7 and easily rationalized that epiphany into doing the irrational. And it feels SO good!

[Nabizzy]

So as far as my knowledge goes, which may not be knowledge at all, once you flash back to stock, you have to drive a bit to get basically the history of the car's logging of boost numbers etc

so,

what if i did the tune, then switched back at like 24500 miles for the 25K mile service

this is of course barring disaster coming in the form of having the car have some major issue that requires it to be read, in which case this method might not work as well as it does in my head


just hypothetical

[clintb]

So as far as my knowledge goes, which may not be knowledge at all, once you flash back to stock, you have to drive a bit to get basically the history of the car's logging of boost numbers etc

It that true?

I thought we just needed to re-flash back to Stock (OEM) then dropoff at Service

At least that's my plan for Wednesday?

[Arin@APR]

So as far as my knowledge goes, which may not be knowledge at all, once you flash back to stock, you have to drive a bit to get basically the history of the car's logging of boost numbers etc

Once you're flashed stock, it's stock. There's no logging / history, etc to worry about.

[clintb]

Tks Arin

[clintb]

Arin... sent you PM

[cheezItt]

Hi Arin,

I just picked up a S7 with an APR tune. I brought it into my dealer to get it serviced without even thinking about the tune. So instead of flagging the car as TD1 they just reset the computer and wiped the APR tune.
I am assuming this can be flashed back?

Thanks

[Nabizzy]

Hi Arin,

I just picked up a S7 with an APR tune. I brought it into my dealer to get it serviced without even thinking about the tune. So instead of flagging the car as TD1 they just reset the computer and wiped the APR tune.
I am assuming this can be flashed back?

Thanks

Yeah they flash it back on...if I'm not mistaken APR is one of the few companies that offer free reflash you just pay labor at the shop that you get it tuned at

[moosehead1]

Once you're flashed stock, it's stock. There's no logging / history, etc to worry about.

Quoted.