Chris K

This past Saturday, I went to Air & Water Enterprises to go and get my chip reprogrammed. I'm sure that many of you have read Jenner's post about his Garrett experience. I was running a TAP Stage II setup, when I decided to change chips for various reasons (which I will not state here because I am not interested in starting a war or riot ) I know that some were skeptical about Jenner's comparison of the Garrett chip to the APR chip due to the fact that he did not spend enough time in the APR chip. For all of you that are interested, I ran my car with the TAP setup for 15,000 miles. Therefore, I knew pretty much every aspect of the chip's capabilities. Also, I have a full custom catback exhaust, with a high flow downpipe on my 1.8t tiptronic.

When I arrived at AWE, I was greeted by Jenner, Garrett, and Todd. Garrett was finishing up with Jenner's car. When Jenner went to go take his car for a test drive (he must have been gone for a total of 10 minutes) he came back with the biggest smile on his face. I was immediately able to see that he fell in love with the chip.. This should put to rest the fact that he only had the APR chip for a 30 minute drive. He actually spent less time with the Garrett chip and he was ecstatic when he came back.

Garrett and I started talking about chips, and safe boost levels for cars. I never considered myself to be very knowledgable about all this technical jargon.. but Garrett is a pure genius. He definitely knew what he was talking about, and I was very impressed with his knowledge. He's tuned tons of different cars, has 8+ yrs of experience of chip tuning, and also he's the only one that is able to modify the tip's ecu! That tells me that he DOES know something that other tuners do not.. chip tuning is not a simple process that some tuners may lead you to believe. I was watching him configure my chip on his laptop and I was baffled.. You guys have to realize something.. not all tuners do their own tuning.. meaning that they hire programmers to do their chips.. And companies sometimes do change programmers when it comes to chip tuning.

Let me be quick to point something out.. Garrett never bashed any chip tuners and never really criticized other companies. He just belives in his product.. and rightfully so. He even told me that if he wasn't into chip tuning, he would chip with a xyz company (name purposefully not mentioned here).

For those of you with tiptronic cars, Garrett designed his tip chip to become compatible with his 1 bar. Meaning that the car runs much smoother and will shift quicker with the 1bar chip if you do have the tip tranny. This in turn makes the car feel much more aggressive, and the car will NOT seem to float in gears. Whenever I used to use the tip mode, I used to hate having to shift at like 5000 rpm in order to shift the car at 6000 rpm.

My driving experience:
When I left AWE, I took it easy on the neighborhood streets. When the roads opened up, all I could say was "holy ****!" I felt like my *** was pushed back to my seat.. and let me tell you something.. this car pulls and pulls.. it's very weird because the car seems just as strong in the lower rpm, as it does at the high end. Tiptronic owners-- I know you guys experience the lag in initial acceleration due to our tranny.. that lag is still there.. there is nothing you can do about that. HOWEVER, the car has much more low end and high end power than my TAP chip. I feel like the initial lag in acceleration has greatly decreased. When I picked up my gf that night, even she noticed the difference in how the car felt. To quote, she stated "baby the car feels so much quicker. what did you do to it?" Let me point out that she was not aware that I was changing my chip. She knew I was at AWE but she is absolutely clueless when it comes to cars.
Now comes the part with the tip chip. Garrett was 100% on the money when he said that this tip chip was designed specifically to go with his 1 bar chip. I was hesitant at first about getting this chip because I do not use the tiptronic mode all that much, but he reassured me that it would be worth the money.. and besides it came with a money back guarantee. An important fact- this chip works in both the tip and the auto mode. Meaning that the car will shift in .2 seconds in automatic mode as well. The car will now downshift as soon as I put my foot down on the gas pedal, and no delays in shifting whatsoever. The difference between 1-2 seconds and .2 seconds is night and day. Even the digital display that shows the gears move so fast that you could barely see it going from 1 to 2 to 3, etc.. It is truly unbelievable how fast this car shifts now. This chip alone totally transforms the car. Garrett is truly a genius.

To sum up, I am 100% satisfied that I decided to go with Garrett. The tip chip and his 1bar have totally transformed my car. Garrett and Todd (owner of AWE) are two of the nicest and most pleasant guys to deal with. I felt right at home when I was able to watch everything take place in front of my eyes. The day before my chip install, Todd changed my brakepads to Mintex pads, and I am totally satisfied with the lack of brake dust pads He even cleaned my wheels after he installed my pads.. talk about great customer service. He even reprogrammed my alarm so that I get all those cool window up and auto locking features. If you are in the pennsylvania area, I wholeheartedly recommend Air & Water Enterprises for any service you may need. Not to mention Todd also owns an A4!! If you are considering chipping, consider Garrett chips. I know that Andy, Jenner, and I have realized something. We realized that Garrett makes one heck of a chip.. this guy really knows how to tune cars. Between the three of us, we have experienced driving with Wett, APR, and TAP. I don't think any of us regret changing over to Garrett. But like Jenner stated, try out all of these chips if you can. We are only speaking from our experiences. And based on my experience, I just wish I went with Garrett from the beginning. Garrett has made a believer out of me.

Chris K
98.5 Garrett 1bar

RSF

nt

Chris K

I discussed that with Garrett also. Chips degrading over time is called maladaptation. He specifically stated that if a chip is programmed correctly, this should not be an issue. Maybe Garrett can provide an insight into this.

Chris K
98.5 1.8TQTS Garrett 1bar

Vic O

Does the quicker shifting make light throttle shifts (city driving) feel sharp/harsh? I would consider a tip chip, if the LIGHT THROTTLE shifting felt as smooth as the factory chip. This is important to me since 90% of my driving is light to medium throttle, and a harsh shift would start to bother me as time passed.

Vic
1.8T tip w/sport steering wheel

Chris K

Vic-

No the shifting does not feel harsh at all. Feels very much like stock (depending on the amount of throttle) expect it all happens lightning fast. Hope this helps.

Chris K
98.5 1.8TQTS Garrett 1bar

Jenner

Excellent Chris, you reinforced many areas that I mentioned and covered those that I forgot. I am sure you had that same smile on your face as I did, I wish I could have stayed to see it.

Glad everythings runing well on your end and I'm glad our paths happen to cross at AWE.

Wasn't it awesome to watch Garrett in action and soak up his knowledge?

About 4 days with the chip now. Still love the newly found power. I know you have a Tiptonic and probably don't notice this, but in my manual esp neing a new car my 1st to 2nd gear shifting has become so SMOOTHED OUT because of this chip, when driving in a non-aggressive/spirited fashion
passengers can't tell when I shift gears unless I want them too, and everything between all shifts is silky smooth. Not sure what in the chip changes this, or if all chips do this, but under normal conditions or in bumper to bumper traffic my experience with this chip is SMOOTHER than stock and when you go full throttle there is no holding you back =)

BTW Chris where did you get your turbo timer from
and how much?

Enjoy the new chipS, glad you finally got around to posting about our newfound joy!

-Jenner
'99.5 1.8T QMS Spoiler/Garrett

Kevan

Newbie question, but chip maladaptation is a Tip problem, or do manual chips experience the same? If so stock chip would maladapt too, no?

Jenner

Tiptronic shifter chip problem, because the tip "learns" your style to shift more like you drive.

Garrett Lim

maladaptation- comes from one thing. a chip that is not optimal for its conditions..

I do not want to start a huge debate.. Get a good chip and you will not have problems.. There are lots of good chips out there..

Garrett
99.5 A4 1.8TQM...