APR vs COBB

[theclutch]

Disclaimer: I don't have a horse in the race. I only want OPINIONS on the matter since I am seriously looking into either of these. I'm not interested in Unitronic or any other tuners. So kindly hold off on commenting on those.

Prior to COBB coming out with the AP for my car, I would have done APR period. But the AP has some real good things about it. I'm NOT interested in other features such as "left foot braking", no lift shift, etc. as my car is a DSG.

COBB Pros/Cons for a DSG:
1) When I sell my car, I can resell the Access Port to car owners other than VW. This is a huge selling point.
2) The AP can act like a boost gauge, wideband, CEL resetter, etc.
3) I can store a LOT of profiles in there
4) I can load/unload the profiles by myself
5) Stage 1 cost is $675 for AP + filter
6) Stage 1+ cost is $975 for AP and new intake
7) Stage 2 cost is $2775 for AP, intake, downpipe and cat back exhaust
8) Seems to be a lot LESS power than APR based on their advertised numbers!
9) I would assume that they are still "debugging" their chip based on field results since they just launched this in March.

APR Pros/Cons for a DSG:
1) When I sell my car, the chip becomes a freebie to the new owner.
2) No gauges like the AP unless I spend another $200 on the APR Mobile.
3) Only 4 profiles at $150 additional
4) I have to pay for labor to install/uninstall new profiles.
5) Stage 1 cost is $750 for chip + 4 programs
6) Stage 1+ cost is $1050 for chip, 4 programs and carbonio intake
7) Stage 2 cost is $1800 for chip, 4 programs, intake, and, downpipe (NO CBE)
8) Seems to be A LOT more power than the COBB per the numbers they provided over stock
9) I would assume their chip to be much more "evolved" since they have been doing this for VW for a heck of a long time.

Bottom line, it seems that the COBB is cheaper, the APR has a lot more power, but I can resell the COBB when I switch cars or reuse the COBB on my new car. Am I missing anything? Driveability maybe? I've had APR products before and have been super happy with them. I just didn't like them eventually being free-bies to whomever I sell my car to.

 

[Gino]

It is going to come down to preference. With a Cobb AP you won't need to spend the extra money on a boost guage or maybe even a Vag Com to log the car. Not sure how much you can log with the AP tho. Say you only have the car for a year and go no further then stage 1, I think both APR and Cobb will offer great performance. At the end of that one year you can sell the AP for $500 and make that money back, where as with APR you get no money back. Look long term. Are you going to want OTS tunes or maybe even a protune/etune? Everyone seems to be very happy with the new update from APR. Both threads exist for APR and Cobb so venture back into them and just read overall opinions. Don't know why you would shut out Unitronic tho, just saying I use them and am happy. Again, they all are going to do great for you.

 

[dafuture]

I ran the Cobb AP for a month and ended up returning it. In my opinion:

-The AP Gauges weren't necessarily reading accurately
-The OTS Tunes were pretty weak, unless you start to factor in the cost of a protune
-The Cobb hardware pieces (filter, downpipe, intake, etc.) were somewhat overpriced compared to competitors
-The tunes themselves have been consistently pulling timing on multiple owner's cars, which is never good
-Their Stage 1+ and 2 tunes can only currently be used with their intake due to a change in MAF size.
-Most likely, their OTS tunes overall won't come close to the level of any of the other existing companies for quite awhile.

Cobb does good tuning work, don't get me wrong. But at the moment, they are still working out the kinks with the AP on our cars. APR makes much more powerful tunes out of the box. To get to that level of power with the Cobb, you'll need a protune, which in turn negates the money you retrieve by selling the AP vs. paying for the APR tune up front. In the end, it really depends on what you're doing with your car. To me, I would say APR in this case. Others may not agree, but that's my two cents.

 

[theclutch]

I ran the Cobb AP for a month and ended up returning it. In my opinion:

-The AP Gauges weren't necessarily reading accurately
-The OTS Tunes were pretty weak, unless you start to factor in the cost of a protune
-The Cobb hardware pieces (filter, downpipe, intake, etc.) were somewhat overpriced compared to competitors
-The tunes themselves have been consistently pulling timing on multiple owner's cars, which is never good
-Their Stage 1+ and 2 tunes can only currently be used with their intake due to a change in MAF size.
-Most likely, their OTS tunes overall won't come close to the level of any of the other existing companies for quite awhile.

Cobb does good tuning work, don't get me wrong. But at the moment, they are still working out the kinks with the AP on our cars. APR makes much more powerful tunes out of the box. To get to that level of power with the Cobb, you'll need a protune, which in turn negates the money you retrieve by selling the AP vs. paying for the APR tune up front. In the end, it really depends on what you're doing with your car. To me, I would say APR in this case. Others may not agree, but that's my two cents.

Thanks for the great response. Sorry for the newbie-ish question: if it "pulls the timing", I guess this means that the tune is too much so that it actually dials down the car or slows it down?

Also, when you say the gauges aren't accurate, what does that mean? The boost gauge is off or slow?

THANKS again for your response!

 

[Stage2Sasquatch]

You don't have to use the company's hardware for their tunes (except the Cobb intake). That makes most of your math meaningless.

 

[theclutch]

You don't have to use the company's hardware for their tunes (except the Cobb intake). That makes most of your math meaningless.

If you want to bastardize your car with mixed components from various manufacturers, sure the math may not make sense for Stage 2. For me, I like to stick to one company where they do most of their tests using their own hardware. So in this case, it makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[JS12]

If you want to bastardize your car with mixed components from various manufacturers, sure the math may not make sense for Stage 2. For me, I like to stick to one company where they do most of their tests using their own hardware. So in this case, it makes a lot of sense to me.

A counter-argument to this is that there have been at least a few cases of issues running the COBB Stage 1+ tune with the COBB intake. My fuel trims were all over the place running that configuration and COBB provided minimal support.

I've since replaced the COBB intake with the IE intake and got an eTune and am really enjoying the car now.

I always wanted to have a one-brand build, but you give up a lot of options in doing so. If you're only planning to go Stage 1 or Stage 2 max, then I can see some appeal to sticking with one aftermarket company.

 

[lilfleck]

If you want to bastardize your car with mixed components from various manufacturers, sure the math may not make sense for Stage 2. For me, I like to stick to one company where they do most of their tests using their own hardware. So in this case, it makes a lot of sense to me.

I think you should really rethink this argument. You are obviously concerned about value. I think comparing APR's hardware value with other manufacturers is a whole other discussion.

If you go with APR's intake, that thing will turn green over time. Total buzzkill really...

Everyone else covered the software portion pretty well, not much to say there. How long do you plan on keeping the car? If a while, maybe you want to buy a used cobb and experiment a little. See how fast/slow Cobb develops for this platform (it is an aging platform at this point w/ MK7 in the spotlight).

If you are stuck on APR, I would say go with them. The K04 package is quite wonderful for a daily driver. So much power, so much refinement, just fun! Ok, so I went off the rails, but just wanted to throw it out there. The biggest cons w/ this power level is increased maintenance (more frequently oil and spark plug changes -- 5k)--oh and tires will go quick too!

 

[Alex@Stratified]

I think a lot of people are expecting the OTS tunes to be the highlight of the COBB experience. Having worked with the AP for many years on many different platforms the highlight is not the OTS tunes as pro-tuners who specialise in tuning can easily refine and improve upon these tunes or make their own altogether which is what we do.

The highlights are:

- The AP enables pro-tuners to easily access and modify the ECU and you will see that a quality experienced tuner will be able to dial in a car with any mix of parts (as long as it's mechanically sound) using the AP. The AP is a tuning tool first and foremost. You can then choose your tuner and build something that is truly customised to your car and needs. You can run multiple files from multiple tuners.

- The AP gives you diagnostic capabilities and datalogging that are easy to access. This means analysing data yourself, sharing, asking questions, having fun with it. The gauges are also a nice thing if this is something you're into.

The AP can be resold and used on a different car but it has to be within the supported platform. The MK6 AP can only be reused by another MK6 once unmarried from the original car.

 

[WalkerT]

Two words,

Customer Service



For refference I have had APR, Unitronics, and now COBB. Unitronics rocks at this. Cobb has been there for all my questions as well. Two thumbs up for them.

 

[mamock116]

I have the Cobb AP and honestly the ots maps are weaksauce compared to my friends stg1 APR car. Also I have -3 knock in all cylinders under load. Doesnt matter if I run the 93 octane map or the 91 octane map.

 

[fastgoober]

Had a cobb on my Subaru, loved it, super easy to install and change maps.

 

[dafuture]

Thanks for the great response. Sorry for the newbie-ish question: if it "pulls the timing", I guess this means that the tune is too much so that it actually dials down the car or slows it down?

Also, when you say the gauges aren't accurate, what does that mean? The boost gauge is off or slow?

THANKS again for your response!

It's not exactly that the tune is too much. It's more like the engine is trying to prevent damage to itself by changing the point in the combustion cycle when the spark plug is fired. In other words: less combustion, less power. The OTS thnes have not adjusted for this well, and many people have seen this occurring in their data logs.

As for the gauges, they are reading off the car's sensors, which allow 2 things to happen. 1 is that there is a distinct delay between what the car is doing and how long it takes to process that data, send it to the AP, have the AP reformat it, and show it on a digital gauge. This is why many people who buy the digital P3 gauges end up using an analog boost tap.

Not to step on anyone's toes, but the exact hardware you use from company to company generally does not provide much variation. If you insist on using all Cobb parts or all APR parts (just examples), you may end up paying more than a comparable piece from another company. Certain parts, like an intercooler, may act on performance differently, but something like a downpipe or an intake will generally not have a ton of variation in performance regardless of brand. That being said, I would also highly recommend checking out the classifieds on here to see what deals you can grab. I've ended up getting much higher quality parts used than I ever would have spent for new stuff.

All that being said, Alex@stratified is absolutely right in saying the major benefit of the AP is custom tuning. You just have to decide how far you want to go with the car. But I definitely wouldn't be looking at the AP just to run their OTS tunes. It's just not worth it at that point.

 

[lilonespaz]

My bastardized car, with different parts from different companies, will beat your brand specific car.

 

[Andrew2834]

I wil tell you that I was in the same boat and I went with Cobb. I onyl wanted apr but then the Cobb came out. I leaned more toward the Cobb since I was hearing many people say that they we're having problems with new apr update. The ape does have better numbers but if you run a custom tune on Cobb, you can make even more power than any of the other tuners. I've heard of someone making 320wtq with just basic bolt ons. Also I've had my Cobb for about a month now and it really isn't buggy at all. The only thing I've seen that's kind off of was the virtual dyno whcih can't be 100% correct so it doesn't bother me. It's also really nice to see if you have engine knock, a boost leak etc etc while driving and the ability to switch to stock if anything ever starts to act funny, knock on wood. Not to mention the ability to read and erase codes. Also keep in mind that if you went stage one and then want to go stage two with apr, it will cost you 150 dollars. Unless you buy their 800 downpipe from them lol My first Cobb and it's super easy to learn and use if that's your worry as well. Just my two cents