Success and Some failure modding the S4 today.

First off, I started my saturday by waking up at 7:30 so I could make an 8:30 appointment at Ingolstadt West, an independent Audi tuner that does APR brand ECU tunes. You see, APR is having this ludicrous sale, $100 off any tune, and that means you get a an ECU tune for $499 for my car, which is darn cheap. Now there are some reasons I picked the APR tune over say GIAC, Revo, Neuspeed, etc. Now arguably the APR is one of the more civilized i.e. conservative tunes out there, but considering you can't really get much from a naturally aspirated V8 anyway, it kind of doesnt matter, there are some features of the APR software I realy like, and the clencher was this guys great posting about his independant chicp comparison. "Justincredibles great comparison test".

Now some of the features I really like about APR are this;

• $500 gets your 4 tunes (for instance, STOCK, 91 OCTAINE, 93 OCTAINE, VALET MODE).
• FREE - Fault Code Erase :: Erases Fault ECU Fault Codes
• FREE - Anti-Theft :: Disables Throttle to Render Vehicle Inoperable
• Linear throttle mapping (i.e. no cheating by having 20% pedal equal 35% throttle which is lame IMO).
• You can change the tunes using the CRUISE CONTROL STALK!

So, on with my story. I get to Ingle West and Ian the owner comes out to help me program my car. Well, he plugs in his trusty computer, and the APR software is supposed to identify my ECU and then give me the option of which of the 4 tunes I want. Well it can identify my ECU at all. Hmmm, strainge. So he/I spend the next hour looking through every single tune they offer and low and behold they dont have the North America B7 S4 in there at all!?!?! WTF?!? They list it on their website as having a tune available. They DO have 1 2007 S4, but its the euro S4 with tiptronic. So me thinks something must have gotten screwed up with their database and somehow the B7 S4 is no longer in it. There are LOTS of guys with these cars, and many of them have the APR tune (at least I think they do), so that's quite weird. So Ian is cool though, he is going to call APR Monday morning, and find out if they can do a custom tune (considering my car is essentially identical to the B6 S4 which they DO have a tune for) or if they have a B7 S4 tune to put it back online, and he will make sure I get the discount pricing which expires next Friday.

So that started my day with a (non)epic fail. There were some neat cars there as well. A TTS with some huge turbo kit putting out like 440HP out of a 2.0 Turbo! Then Ian has the Red S5. I like this car, but damn the wheels have got to go, just totally not my style at all!

Then it was on to the tinting place. As it turns out both of these places were in the valley, so it wasnt that far between one and the other. Also, the tinting place is this little whole in the wall that came very highly recommended by Audizine / Audiworld members, so I thought I would give it a try. Well it happens to be right across from the street from StickerCity, which is the place I had some vinyl film put on the Elise, and is also the place I bought my headlight clear kit from for the S4. So it just felt right.

Anyway this tint was place was PACKED at 11am on a Saturday. They totally have their act together, they have a beautiful waiting room, with knowledgeable girls checking people in quick style, they walk you through your tint options and tell you 90 minutes to have it done. I chatted with thema bit, they do between 25-40 jobs EVERY SINGLE DAY THEY ARE OPEN! This is unheard of for a tint place. They are clearly raking in the dough. There were ALL SORTS of beautiful cars there, the local Audi and Aston Martin dealerships send cars there all the time. I saw a brand new Q5, a DB9, about 3 S550/S63AMG/S500 Mercedes, an Audi S5, M3, etc. etc. etc. So 4 dudes worked on my car and the owner would pop his head in to make sure it was all going smoothly. Bottom line, these dues are so crazy skilled its ridiculous. I could put tint on, but it woudl turn out just OK, and would take me 6 hours. These guys know all the tricks, and are really fun to watch work.

It was $165 for 7 windows, and I chose 35% for the rear 5, and 50% for the driver/passenger doors. I didn't want to go too dark, because I hate it when you cant see out of your back window at night, but I think I might have gone a bit too light. I will have to see how it gorws on me. Its a beautiful job, and if I think I shoudl go darker I might do just the back 3 windows with 20% film. We will see. Here is a pic of the dudes working on it in their itsy bitsy work bay;

Here is what it looks like with the windows tinted. You be the judge if this is enough tint.

Then, since I was next door I decided to bring the car into the guys at Sticker City and have my door edge guards and headlight film I have previously bought from them installed. These are all things I can do myself, easilly. But who knows when I will get around to it, and I figured crap, i might as well just pay and have it done. Its a rip off to have someone do this for you, but if I got a rock chip and had to replace my headlight before I got around to it I woudl be so pissed I didnt do just that (pay for the install that is).