jsvnyc

I'm an owner of a fairly low mileage (56k) and very well kept (extensive dealer service history) S4 with a Tiptronic tranny. Bone stock this car is plenty fast for me but I couldn't resist the urge for a little more hp. As you might be able to see from my avatar, the car has had a front facelift but other than that there have been no mods that I knew of - initially any way. Clues about a not-so-stock past have trickled in: an installed turbo timer and a hissing sound that led to the discovery of ineffectively capped off AWE boost gauge plumbing - (boost gauge removed).

I'm a first time B5 S4 owner so it took a few days of clicking and reading until I finally decided that Stage 1 was the right fit for my personal taste and driving style and what I've read is a limitation of the Tiptronic transmission. More surfing and clicking, and I decided to head out the door to visit some shops local to me. The list of shops I visited was short and based on "dealer" links from APR, AWE, Milltek, etc. I don't mind stepping over boxes, literature, and general shop crap when I'm picking up $10 worth of bait for a day of fishing but if I'm shelling out the type of money repair shops command for 4 wheeled German machinery I want the place looking like an operating room. I know that the cleanliness and organization of a shop is not perfectly correlated with the skill of the people working there but I'll choose organized and kept over Sanford and Son pretty much every time and after visiting the others, my last stop on the shop circuit was EPL in Stratford.

Many of you know the shop and my experience will be familiar to you but I think a good business providing exceptional service is worth an E-attaboy. The shop was as neat and organized as one could reasonably expect for a mechanic/repair facility and the staff about as amicable as I've ever encountered in any business. I immediately identified myself an a Noob and was patiently indulged as much guidance as I was willing ask for. I informed the techs that I wanted to do a chip and and exhaust and was advised that despite the low miles and physical condition of the car they wanted to hook it up to a computer to check for codes before adding any more stress to a system that may be running sub-par to begin with. I was surprised to learn that despite there being no CEL, their diagnostic tool determined that I had two bad EGT sensors and that the issue should be addressed prior to flashing the ECU. I was also advised to replace the diverters with 710n's.

Next day I drop of my car in the morning, then later in the day I arrived to pick it up just prior to the owner of the shop and a tech with laptop in hand returned following a post flash test run, their smiles as they exited my car suggested that the work went well. When I dropped off the car I didn't know whether it had been chipped or not but a short test drive by a tech and the diagnosis was: stock boost. At that point I didn't know how he could tell- after all the car seemed plenty fast. After paying what I felt was a very reasonable bill I was on my way. A few hundred feet from the shop and with some open road in front of me I jumped on it and suffice it to say I'll be able to tell a chipped one from stock from now on. The performance difference was so dramatic that I had to stop and think for a moment whether a mistake had been made and the boost was increased too much because frankly the torque and speed difference was flat out scary (I'm older and admittedly more cautious as I've aged). I've never met the people at EPL before Monday, they were not recommended by a friend, I have to connection to them and have nothing to gain from giving them an endorsement. If this type of thing is allowed on this forum I give EPL a solid 10 out of 10 in every important measure of the customer experience. Next up and likely to be it for a while: Milltek Exhaust. Sometime in the future: intercoolers, TBB, timing belt and related maintenance stuff.

jsvnyc

This should read: "I have NO connection to them..."

bingS4

Nice to hear! Before you know it, you'll be getting their TiAL 605 kit.

nooB5

Haha! I went in for a leaky rear main seal on a stock car, and ended up a few weeks later with stage 3!!! Beware the addictive power of the S4. lol.