APR Presents the 1.8/2.0T EA113/EA888 Gen 1 Cast Downpipe Exhaust System!

Zillon said:

decisions.

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.. Are not why deflategate is ridiculous.

XGC75 said:

.. Are not why deflategate is ridiculous.

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I don't watch sports.

My take is this: Someone may or may not have told someone else to deflate a bunch of balls, some balls may or may not have been deflated, the media hyped it up, and the Patriots/Belichick got off scot free. Did it affect the performance? Not really.

So, lets analyze RSC-gate. Essentially, APR claimed to use RSC technology in their exhaust systems, and the public found that the RSC technology that existed wasn't what they said it was. Naturally, the internet machine hyped this up. Amidst all of this, APR not once took responsibility or issued an official statement other than "we will not participate in internet pissing matches."

Did "RSC" work? Sure. No drone, I get it. But was every application of RSC Technology as intricate as it was explained to us across all of APR's applications of RSC? Nope. Despite this, APR publicly claimed their exhausts were priced where they were due to the 'expensive' and 'labor intensive' RSC technology in every exhaust. Pretty bold move that bordered on false advertising, but truthfully it just boiled down to poor marketing decisions.

And let us not forget APR sent a vendor to personally attack a member of this forum.

That being said, I'm all for moving on. Here's to a future of honest claims, honest products, factual evidence, and full transparency from APR.

Bender said:

My role here is to protect our members, not to protect our vendors.

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I like the sentiment. However, as a skeptical reader I have to keep in mind that GolfMK6 is a special advertising business. Golfmk6 wants to maximize the number of eyeballs reading a particular topic (leads generation) so as to maximize the amount of money you can charge advertisers (sponsors). GolfMK6 is still taking APRs (and many others) money right?

Seems the business model here is to give people something to talk about to increase readership/participation numbers?

Not trying to sling mud, just trying to point out what a loyal customer of GolfMK6 is observing in the interest of transparency for all. (I may be off here, and I accept that)

TheCastle said:

I like the sentiment. However, as a skeptical reader I have to keep in mind that GolfMK6 is a special advertising business. Golfmk6 wants to maximize the number of eyeballs reading a particular topic (leads generation) so as to maximize the amount of money you can charge advertisers (sponsors). GolfMK6 is still taking APRs (and many others) money right?

Seems the business model here is to give people something to talk about to increase readership/participation numbers?

Not trying to sling mud, just trying to point out what a loyal customer of GolfMK6 is observing in the interest of transparency for all. (I may be off here, and I accept that)

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No clue to be honest. That is all done via the admins who are generally absent. I am here because I like you guys and that is it.

TheCastle said:

Seems the business model here is to give people something to talk about to increase readership/participation numbers?

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I mean, the site owner/admins may ultimately have that goal in mind, but there's never been a directive given from anyone.

We talk about what we want to talk about.

Bender said:

Here is the issue: APR never owned up to their part in the false advertising of features in their exhausts. While I personally think this was done at their direction, that doesn't matter. There was never a mea cupla. It is their responsibility to do right by their customers and to act transparently. Since they did not, every action forward is suspect. THEY got themselves into this mess even if it was accidental (which, if you were in business, you would know accidents like this don't happen).

Do I think the likelihood is that this cat is the real deal? Most likely it is. Am I confident enough to put my money down for it? Absolutely not.

If I can't have that level of confidence, then it is my duty as a moderator to challenge the vendor. I have done it for years on here but now that it is the 'sacred cow' that is APR people get butthurt about it.

I have no skin in this game but I don't want someone that does to get burned.

I'll be very clear as to what I want from APR: I want them to own up to their old fuckups and go above and beyond on EVERY product for the foreseeable future. I want them to be transparent. I want them to stop being arrogant. Hell, word on the street is that today they are not even letting their distributors ask questions in front of other distributors (online) about their products. That is the height of a lack of transparency, the height of arrogance, and fundamentally shows an extreme lack of integrity.

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I definitely see your points and am not trying to convince anyone of their convictions. Maybe it bothers me a bit as a long time customer (not fanboy as I've used other tuners in the past) to see them "climb" to the top just to have some BS exhaust fiasco take some of that credibility back. If they were building in house units and this happened, I'd probably move on myself. As a business man I do understand how important reputations are and customer service. I doubt APR wanted this to happen, I mean... It's self destruction from an outsiders perspective, which is why I believe it wasn't "intentional". However, it seems that they are asking concerned customers to contact them directly..Is this to possibly rectify things? Has anyone actually called them recently with a legit purchase of their old line up? Are they offering any exchanges for those who were effected? It's easy to point fingers, and unless you were directly effected, you won't get anywhere with them, especially on an internet forum...

Off topic story:

These guys flashed my buddies brand new MK7 at Waterfest and the car died on the side of the road after a day at the drag strip. We called a friend who was still at the show and he approached the APR booth with this issue. As they had just released the software, they were obviously concerned as to what happened. Long story short within an hour, the ENTIRE APR crew (20+ guys) roll into the parking lot where we pushed the car into, diagnosed the issue within 20 minutes and swapped the fuel pump from their shop car and towed it back to the show. This allowed us to not only enjoy our stay in NJ, but get back to Ontario as scheduled and not wait upwards of one to two weeks for parts to come in on a new model (this was in July so parts were very hard to come by). This was WELL above the norm and totally caught us off guard (we were already making arrangements to stay for the week). I don't think anyone was expecting them to do this, but they did, and man were we thankful. And that's why I'm an APR customer today and positive supporter of their brand. Did they F up ? sure, sh!t happens in business. Was it fair to those who were effected, not at all and I hope those who were don't give up and stay on APR's tail until you get a resolution. Hopefully nothing like this will happen again and I think with the impact that's been made already, this may have been a quality control check for every tuner/brand to make sure they have their I's dotted and T's crossed.

Pick your poison, APR is still the beast of the VAG tuning industry and has the largest outfit to cater to the needs of the masses. I still to date have never had a hardware, software, or customer service issue with them. And this along with many other reasons is why I'll continue to support them, regardless of a poor business model/mistake.

- Dylan

16plus4v said:

I definitely see your points and am not trying to convince anyone of their convictions. Maybe it bothers me a bit as a long time customer (not fanboy as I've used other tuners in the past) to see them "climb" to the top just to have some BS exhaust fiasco take some of that credibility back. If they were building in house units and this happened, I'd probably move on myself. As a business man I do understand how important reputations are and customer service. I doubt APR wanted this to happen, I mean... It's self destruction from an outsiders perspective, which is why I believe it wasn't "intentional". However, it seems that they are asking concerned customers to contact them directly..Is this to possibly rectify things? Has anyone actually called them recently with a legit purchase of their old line up? Are they offering any exchanges for those who were effected? It's easy to point fingers, and unless you were directly effected, you won't get anywhere with them, especially on an internet forum...

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Seeing as how almost all the evidence for the exhaust came directly from APR, it is very obvious that they were complicit. As mentioned by other APR employees, the switch in the quality of stainless was done at the request of APR. I brought Joel Schurtz to APR in an attempt to improve margins and provide a better product (as he has done so for Eurojet, Stasis, Uni & SPM in the past, google the name or SN: Mettle on this forum) and get away from Corsa. He has done just that with this program, albeit I'm not a fan of the sleeve clamps being used for cost reduction.

APR has a strong marketing game and that's that. Your definition of "build" is interesting because APR is now effectively doing what AWE has done for years, yet just a few years ago, Arin@APR went on a rampage on Audizine, attacking AWE for their practice of bringing in Chinese manufactured exhaust components and assembling them in-house. Now that it's done by APR, it is considered #gamechanging and #proprietary #patentpending. No, it's just modern manufacturing techniques and cutting out a middleman.

Just look at how they describe their standard perforated core resonator. "Low-profile, broadband noise cancellation resonator." Come on...

Should I make the same 3rd grade explanation of marketing as I did for brand licensing? Marketing is all about getting product sold.

TheCastle said:

I like the sentiment. However, as a skeptical reader I have to keep in mind that GolfMK6 is a special advertising business. Golfmk6 wants to maximize the number of eyeballs reading a particular topic (leads generation) so as to maximize the amount of money you can charge advertisers (sponsors). GolfMK6 is still taking APRs (and many others) money right?

Seems the business model here is to give people something to talk about to increase readership/participation numbers?

Not trying to sling mud, just trying to point out what a loyal customer of GolfMK6 is observing in the interest of transparency for all. (I may be off here, and I accept that)

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I have never once heard from or been contacted by an admin.

corydd said:

According to that video, the catalyst is designed and emissions tested in California, which is pretty much the strictest state. The spokesperson more or less guaranteed it would pass an emissions test anywhere in North America. Very interesting. I'm assuming it would fail a visual though.

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Based on lots of different discussions here on this forum, I was never planning on purchasing an APR downpipe, due to the specific build plans I have for my car. However, I'd be very interested to see if someone here in CA were to buy one of these, and pass the emissions test on a stock tune with an O2 spacer. That might be enough of an incentive to change the direction of my build.