Thread: Thank you VAG-Check - you guys are awesome!

Just wanted to thank you guys for your work on my car on Saturday and wish to share my experience with the rest of the forum members.

First of all, I had a long weekend this week and had some time to spare, so out of boredom I started to look around for a tuner to sort out a map for my recently purchased S3 8L. I needed someone local (London) and someone, who could hopefully sort my car out at short notice. Wak and Morgan were able to do this with just 2 day's notice, which was just amazing.

Anyway, after a short e-mail conversation with Wak, we agreed on their stage 2 at 10:30am on Saturday at his house near Staines. I have to admit that I had reservations about the place at first as this was being done at Wak's house. This quickly changed though as after a short conversation with both Wak and Morgan and looking at how they go about doing things, I quickly found that they both love what they do and this is pretty much a hobby for them. I know from personal experience that to do something properly, you need to have a strong interest in the subject.

As part of the stage 2 remap service, Morgan did an amazing job of spotting even the slightest problems and made sure to double check everything before telling me that I'm a numpty for not checking my oil level enough

He and Wak also sorted out an issue with a temp sender and thermostat in no time, together with a tiny (read: hard to locate) boost leak. A cynic might say that this is all done to get extra money, but I think that this is being thorough and not rushing the job to take my money and get me out of the door as soon as possible.

Some of the things you will probably not get in a big tuning outfit is Wak's wife feeding everyone with hot dogs, which was very nice of her as the sandwiches from the nearby Texaco (or was it Total?) are barely edible You will also probably be most likely locked up in a waiting room somewhere away from your car, while someone works on it. With Vag-check guys, I was always nosing about and although I must've got on Morgan's nerves by constantly getting in the way, he didn't show it and was more than happy to show me every step of the process, from initial diagnostics check to the remapping itself and walking me through the before and after diagnostics log, which was very enlightening. The extra insight into the logging done on my car gave me every confidence that the map itself was done properly and in no way would endanger the engine by relying on the built-in fail-safe's in the ECU to protect the engine internals as some big-name tuners do.

The car is now a completely different beast, with extra drive at the bottom of the rev range and, what feels like warp speed, strong mid to top end once the turbo is up to speed.

In the end, I can't recommend these guys enough and in a country where we take crap service as the norm, these guys are way up there with the best of them in terms of service and that extra personal touch. Please don't go changing guys, you are superb and I will definitely be back again if I ever need retuning (sport exhaust maybe? )

One negative thing with Vag-check is the lack of a rolling road to get a print-out of the power curve to brag to friends, so if anyone know of a good 4 wheel rolling road place, let me know as I want to know what my car is capable of

Again, thanks to the guys at Vag-check for a great Saturday and super service!

Leshkin

Hi Leshkin,

Wow what a fantastically detailed review

Pleasure to meet you at the weekend, & we are very pleased you are so happy with our services.. we do try our best !

The only thing I would correct, whilst yes it can be said we are enthusiasts to the core, Vagcheck has far out grown being a hobby. But yes we do 100% enjoy & take pride in what we do.

In regards to rollers its not so hard to find 4WD dynos with decent cooling, its another again finding ones that can cope with the Gen1 haldex & be able to get good runs with it enabled.

Kind regards
Morgan

Hi Morgan,

I didn't mean to imply that you are amateurs by saying that you are hobbyists... Far from it, I haven't had a professional service like yours from anyone I dealt with in the past

While we are on the subject of suitable rolling roads, do you know of a good one in the London area? I'd love to get some figures, so I can wave them at a couple of guys at work We're also thinking of doing a rolling road day out with a number of people from work, so would be cool if you could recommend any?

Cheers!

Hi Leshkin,

No problem & thank you for your kind words

I cant personally recommend of the top of my head any London area rollers for 4WD pulls, although Power engineering I believe are ok with Gen1 haldex enabled 4WD runs but I am told the cooling could be better. There may be others I dont know of.

The old AmD when based in Bicester had no problems at all running with the Gen1 haldex enabled & they also had very good cooling with chillers for the fans.

If you had asked me a few weeks ago I would have suggested you could try Interpro in Bristol which is a bit of a drive, but in the past we have run Mk1 TT's there in AWD without issue.

However a customer of ours recently went there & whilst the peak figures were realistic the graph was all over the place & the rollers clearly struggling with the front/rear torque shifts.. perhaps they have a new road I dont know.

I have heard from others Owen developments dont have issues with the Gen1 haldex, but I dont have any personal experience of them so cannot confirm this.

Kind regards
Morgan