Warning: I ramble, this will be long. There’s a TL;DR at the bottom in bullet points if you don’t want to read my novel.
Back in October, where after purchasing a CPO 2013 Golf R, and looking at the HP / torque increase numbers from the APR tune, I decide to get the tune done. I heard great things about it, it is super reliable, no issues for a daily driver, noticeable power increase – great, where do I sign up!? So, I book my appointment with a local tuner shop (Imola Motorsports, they’re great), take the Golf in, get the Stage 1 tune, and absolutely love it. I was afraid I wouldn’t notice it, but it was night & day. Loved it so much I started thinking about doing the 2 or 2+, but decided to hold off til spring before making that move.
Fast forward to Christmas Eve, I load up the car and head out for the 6 hour drive back home. The drive is uneventful, stop a couple times along the way for food / gas / etc, and then finally arrive at my parents’ house. Stop the car, go inside, say hello, unload the car, etc. My dad asks if we can go check out the car, he knows I am into cars, and he hasn’t seen it before. Get outside, both get in + buckle up, I put it in reverse, and off we go.
This is where things went south. As I was backing down their driveway something didn’t feel right, it was sort of chugging, like it wanted to stall. I thought maybe it was just some quirk of the long driveway + being in reverse. Put it in drive and prepare to pull onto the highway and it didn’t feel right. Go to pull onto the highway. Stall it. Try again, make it 3’ onto the highway, sideways, and it stalls again. This is an “oh ****” moment because the speed limit is 55mph and there’s a corner I couldn’t see around when pulling out. Frantically get the thing started again, make it a couple feet, stall, then again and manage to get off the highway.
Now I know something’s ****ed up. On the side of the road, experiment with clutching in and flooring it, car won’t get above 1500RPMs for more than about a second, it’d get up to around 2k RPMs then drop back down to 1300-1500RPMs. I try stopping it, restarting it, changing the tune back to the stock program, etc., nothing helps. Eventually the check engine / EPC lights come on as well. Making sure the coast was clear, I start / stall the thing across the road and roll it back down my parent’s driveway. It’s Christmas Eve, even if I could call roadside assist, what’s the point no shops are open. I let it simmer for a couple days, google it, lot of guys say it could be the MAF, I figure ok great a MAF, a plug and play part, I’ll be back on the road in no time. I had to drive back early the day after Christmas to work, and I also had to work the following day. So I wait until the morning after Christmas first thing and call the local VW dealer, they’re not happy about it but I manage to get them to look at my car first thing.
I call roadside assist and wait until about 4 hours after their originally scheduled pickup time to come get my car and tow it to the dealer. Car gets to the dealer, they get it into the shop and I wait in the lobby.
Hour goes by and they come back and say “Bad ECU”. Of course I’m wondering if they just noticed it was tuned, assumed that was it, and weren't even looking at something basic like MAF. Talk with them some and the guy’s like, nope, we checked, it’s the ECU.
Then the other bad news – the nearest replacement one is in Germany. And it’ll take a week to get it in stock. ****ty. So, it is what it is, and at 5 or 6pm that night I grab my VW provided loaner, and make the trek back 6 hours north.
About a week and a half later the new ECU arrives, the dealer throws it in, and the car is running perfectly. They pay someone to drive the car up here and grab my loaner. VW was amazing through all of this, great customer service through and through, they just got it taken care of.
I then go to some local car forums, explain the situation, ask if I should start contacting APR + the shop that did the install. People talk me off the ledge, say “blah blah bosch is garbage” “ecu’s go bad all the time!”, then I think, well, at this point I really have no way of knowing whose fault it is, so I’ll just be happy I have my car back and let it go.
Fast forward a couple weeks. I’m noticing the lack of power, and I already paid for the tune so I’m wondering if I should step into the great unknown and get it flashed again. I google for issues with APR tunes on Golfs / GTIs. I find tons of different threads, though most involve cases where the ECU had to be physically opened. Considering the 2015’s are coming out and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to have the car, I decide it’s not worth the risk. I see one poster who had a similar issue and a similar mindset afterwards who was able to get a refund from APR because they did not plan on reflashing their new ECU.
So I figure, OK, I’ll email APR, explain the situation, and get the refund process started. Did not get the response I was expecting.
Emails are below:
-----Original Message-----
From: zzzzzzzzzzzzz@zzz.com
Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2014 9:25 PM
To: APR Main Email
Subject: Tech: Fried ECU
Name: xxxxxxxxx
Phone: yyyyyyyyy
Email: zzzzzzzzzzzzz@zzz.com
Type: Tech
Subject: Fried ECU
Message:
Hi,
After flashing my ECU, it subsequently failed and had to be replaced. The dealer was nice enough to do this under warranty and did not bother checking to see if it was flashed, which is great. But going forward I do not plan to reflash the new ECU as I'm sure the flash had something to do with it. I have read on the forums in circumstances like these where I do not plan to reflash my new ECU, I can get a refund on the product purchased? I had it performed at Imola motorsports a couple months ago under my name, serial # from the email is "1111111".
Please let me know what steps I need to take to get the refund. And also in general I can't lie I'm disappointed by this product. I've owned numerous cars over 16 years of driving, and I've never been left stranded like this before. My car died 6 hours from my home on Christmas eve, and to get a new ECU required ordering one from Germany, meaning I had to drive a loaner for the next week and a half, and then pay to have my car shipped back to me. Please try to figure out what it is that's going wrong with these. I'd love to support your product / company but I just can't after this.
Thanks,
-[Me]
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[APR]
What year/Type vehicle was the flash performed on? And what is your VIN #?
Thanks
Victor Leznik
Retail Sales/Support Supervisor
T: 334 502 5181 x206
F: 334 502 5180
vleznik@goapr.com
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[Me]
13 Golf R, don't have the vin handy but assume u can look it up from my email address or the order #? Otherwise I can grab it for you later
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[APR]
What happened to the ECU? This would have been the first ECU failure on the Golf R. you may have had a check sum Error in which case a simple re-flash would have fixed the issue. Please provide me the last 6 digits of the VIN.
Thanks
Victor Leznik
Retail Sales/Support Supervisor
T: 334 502 5181 x206
F: 334 502 5180
vleznik@goapr.com
================================================== =================================
[Me]
Yeah but I was six hours from home, options were have it towed home on my dime and rent a car on my dime, or go to the dealer and have them look. If I were local it still would have been a PITA to be stranded and pay t 50-100 towing fee but at least would have been manageable.
Attaching photo of vin
Thanks
(side note: closest APR service shop was a mom + pop operation 70 miles away, next closest was 135 miles away, I don't see how having a car break down on the side of the road my first instinct would be "it must be because of the bad flash APR knows they gave me but didn't tell me, so I'll pay to have it towed 70 miles, get it fixed, and then invoice APR for it!)
================================================== =================================
[APR]
You were flashed during the last week of October. The ECU’s had a check sum error and needed to be re-flashed by your APR dealer. I understand the circumstance and the fast that you went to your VW dealer. Flashing the new ECU will not cause this error again and you shouldn’t worry about a possible failure.
Thanks
Victor Leznik
Retail Sales/Support Supervisor
T: 334 502 5181 x206
F: 334 502 5180
vleznik@goapr.com
================================================== =================================
[Me]
I'm confused how do you know this won't happen again?
================================================== =================================
[APR]
This was an error on our end and we have double and triple checked the files. Since then we have made sure that the cars flashed in the last week of October were re-flashed.
Thanks
Victor Leznik
Retail Sales/Support Supervisor
T: 334 502 5181 x206
F: 334 502 5180
vleznik@goapr.com
Side note: Obviously they didn't reflash everybody, I'm living proof
================================================== =================================
[Me]
??? Is there any sort of compensation or reimbursement in place for people who went through drama like this? Why didn't I get an email about the issue?
Side note: the older you get, time is money, to put a customer through that much inconvenience over a mistake your company made, that needs to be worth something.
================================================== =================================
[APR]
Most dealers were notified about this issue but some dealers were not. I don’t have a way of reimbursing you since you didn’t go the APR route and went to the VW dealer instead. I can help you out with future APR products for sure. I’m sorry that you went through this and we didn’t know of this error until mid December.
Thanks
Victor Leznik
Retail Sales/Support Supervisor
T: 334 502 5181 x206
F: 334 502 5180
vleznik@goapr.com
Side note: my dealer was not notified still as of mid January, I checked.
================================================== =================================
[Me]
You had my email address and knew when I got the tune why would you not have sent something to me? And when you say a deal on future products what kind of deal? If it's like 10% that's sort of a joke, considering your product and an error you knew about and did not inform me about left me stranded 6 hours from home on Christmas eve, do you have any idea how inconvenient that is? I had to miss work because of this drama, I could still potentially have my warranty voided by VAG because of this, I'm not a complainer but I genuinely expect something more than a "oops" from this. I mean, seriously, I had no car for two weeks?????
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[APR]
I see several issues with this and I sure as heck don’t want to sound rude, but I simply cannot call every single customer or email them myself about this issue. Also why are you emailing us about this issue mid-January and not on the day it happened? I understand that your Warranty can be voided, but any modification to your car can void your warranty.
I’m not your enemy, trust me I’m here to help and if there was something I could have done, I would. I understand it happened during the holidays, but you could have called us the next business day and we would have paid for your vehicle being towed to the APR dealer and would have covered the labor to re-flash your car and you’d be back on the road in no time. What product are you interested in and I’ll make sure it’s better than 10% sir. Again, I’m here to help, but I can’t turn back time and send you an email. We didn’t know how many vehicles were affected by this.
Thanks
Victor Leznik
Retail Sales/Support Supervisor
T: 334 502 5181 x206
F: 334 502 5180
vleznik@goapr.com
Side note: Why is it suspicious that I didn't email them til a couple weeks later? Originally I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and think maybe it was just a bad Bosch part
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[Me]
???? Because I assumed there was a chance initially that Apr was not at fault, and I was glad to finally have a working car back. How was I to know you would have covered a 6 hour tow and a rental? Especially since it's easy to offer after the fact.
You admitted fault, I cannot understand why it is you're now blaming me.
Also, determining affected customers and sending out emails is not difficult. I do IT for a living, I would be happy to help you contact the remaining affected customers.
In the meantime it sounds like this is going nowhere and I will pursue other avenues.
Thanks
================================================== =================================
[APR]
I’m not in charge of the flashes and what customer information we have on file or not. You’d be surprised how many emails we don’t have and we legally can’t start emailing customer without their consent. How much was your towing bill to the VW dealer? Can you email me a copy of it?
Thanks
Victor Leznik
Retail Sales/Support Supervisor
T: 334 502 5181 x206
F: 334 502 5180
vleznik@goapr.com
Side note: Do you really think if you warned a customer "hey your car got a bad flash it's a ticking time bomb, get it reflashed on us ASAP!" they'd respond with legal action for sending them an unsolicited email? Really? That's the reason for not contacting owners? Also, having the car driven to me itself was paid for by VW but I gave the dude a $50 tip because he had to drive 11 hours because of APR's mistake.
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So, after this I reached out to Arin from the forums, who was very polite, but referred me back to the same customer service rep, who then offered only a refund (even saying if I had it re-flashed, I would need to go to the dealer to have the software removed!). I also reached out to a contact at APR from the dealer that provided the flash, same thing, he redirected me to the original customer service rep with an offer of a refund. Each of the involved parties I asked to call me to discuss the issue, no luck. Left voice mails for the second because I was amazingly able to get his # from the local dealer, no response.
About a month went by since then as I've been busy with work and a recent move. No word from anyone at APR even though I asked multiple times to be called by someone or to schedule a time to speak on the phone.
Last week I tried calling APR (again) asking to speak with anyone other than the same person I’d been dealing with + briefly explained the situation. The gal who answered the phone laughed when I asked this, apparently it was pretty funny, but eventually took my info and forwarded me on to a sales manager. Left him a voice mail, didn't hear anything back as of today, and I’m tired of dealing with this and want it behind me.
Long story short, this has been the worst customer service experience I’ve ever had with a company. I'm getting my refund, and I’m done with APR. How could you knowingly give a bad flash to someone, not bother to contact them, leave them stranded, have them without their car for weeks, then when being confronted about it, admit fault, get an attitude, and then come back with an offer for a discount on future purchases before eventually stepping up to the plate (sarcasm) and offering a refund. At first I thought this was a fluke but after repeated attempts to get through to someone at the company I've come to accept this is just the way they do business. If anyone else out there has a tune and it was performed in October you might want to look into getting it redone, at least before you go on any road trips.
TL;DR:
Got stage 1 APR Tune in October
Car died Christmas Eve
Dealer determined it was bad ECU
Took two weeks to get new ECU / car fixed / car shipped back
Contact APR about refund, APR says not to worry if I flash again it won’t have issues because they knowingly gave it a bad flash. They say not to worry because they’ve made sure to re-flash everyone (obviously they missed at least one person…)
I ask what they were planning to do to make it right, and why they didn’t email me if they knew my car was one of the ones affected and they already had my email address from the tune itself (APR emails you the personalized manual)
APR offers me discount future purchases and tells me it would be too much effort to contact people who were affected. They also question my honesty for not emailing them sooner about an issue that I didn’t know existed because they never told me they knowingly gave me a bad flash. They also wonder why when my car was broken down on Christmas Eve I didn’t immediately assume it was because of a bad flash and then have it towed to the nearest APR shop 70 miles away.
I spend 2 months going back and forth with 3 separate people from APR, all refer me to the original person I emailed with, when the smoke clears I’m offered in return for my trouble, a refund minus any dealer fees.
To date anyone else who received a flash during the last week or two of October, at least in a Golf R, may be driving a ticking time bomb.