Comments by "Stephen Hendricks" (@stephenhendricks103) on "" video.

  1. Congrats, Joe. This is the most ludicrous vehicle you've ever reviewed. But not necessarily "ludicrous" in a bad way, more in a Tesla ludicrous mode way. :) Having owned a couple of GTI's with APR Stage I tunes, I can attest to both its reliability and its performance. A word about the stages of APR tunes. Stage I is a quick ECU tune at a reasonable price (circa $700.) Stage II adds a race exhaust and an upgraded intake system at a very reasonable ($150), the latter of which can be added separately to the Stage I package. Stage III involves a much more extensive modification, replacing the original VW turbo with a significantly larger, higher pressure Borg Warner unit. It's MUCH more expensive and can run as much as a total of $6,000 (including the Stage I and Stage II mods and the new turbocharger.) Frankly, I'm a bit skeptical that the vehicle actually has a Stage III APR tune including the new turbo given the 300 HP claimed in the video. Depending on the particular brand/model a Stage III mod is rated at well over 400 HP. But I'll take your (and Walker Ford's) word for it. As far as the AT in this particular vehicle, I'd prefer VW's DSG but either a conventional AT or DSG is preferable to a manual transmission in one respect. With either one, the new owner won't have to be concerned with frequent clutch replacements and/or upgrades, a more or less expected issue with any APR (or other manufactuers') tune for any stage. VW's and Audi's DSG's and AT's can handle the additional performance without significant wear. It's widely recognized that VW traditionally publishes extremely conservative estimates of their vehicles' HP and torque, a practice that probably results from tax and insurance costs for higher performance vehicles in Europe. The EA888 engine in either its 1.8L or 2.0L form is an excellent, durable engine and one of the best candidates for performance tuning. An APR Stage I tune adds most of the available performance improvements in real world driving with few if any sacrifices. I added a Stage I tune to my MK6 GTI at about 40K miles and put another 40K on it before replacing it with a MK7.5 GTI. It cost me about 10% in terms of fuel economy and probably about 10,000 miles in tire replacement. But I'm a pretty conservative driver on the street and the additional power is VERY tempting so YMMV.
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  2.  @vdubbg  Depends on what you're looking for. Personally, I think a Stage III tuning in a FWD VW that approaches 400 HP isn't worth the investment unless one is looking for a track tool. And a track setup in a Beetle is silly. But obviously, YMMV.
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