Yep, I agree whatever works for you. I went pretty hardcore with mine so I needed access to a good mechanic. The best one here only fits and sells APR, so the decision was easy for me. If he was selling something else, I would have gone with that.. The tuners you mentioned do not have any local representation here.
The rivalry between tuners and owners of tuned parts is really quite silly (and annoying) IMHO. We're already a small part of the car community so we should stick together, irrespective of what tune or what exhaust we have - we're all dubbers. Just with all things in life, our path to our decisions are different - we don't all live in the same suburb or do the same job, our discovery of our options are different - and therefore so are our decisions.
And what you say about VW dealers is moot. Some people may LOVE their local VW dealer and are not performance orientated like we are on here. I'd never take mine to my local VW dealer in a dying fit, but I think if they saw mine they'd refuse to work on it anyway!
That's the beauty of choice I suppose. I still don't get why people have to rip into each other over what mods they've got, it's silly.
And the reason APR is more expensive in aus is due to a few reasons I suspect. Competition (there is none for APR gear in Australia), overheads and turnover. Most of the other systems out there are sold by a number of direct importers with little overheads and in a competitive market. So yep I agree they are far better value in terms of hardware costs - but the hardware cost is only one part of the project.
Kind of like the old PC vs MAC argument. PC's are cheaper, have better components, and you can source them yourself from wherever you like rather than go through the Apple 'experience'. But which is a better overall package, integrates better together and is better supported? Depends on your goals, right?
I've often been branded an APR fanboy (usually by anti APR people), it's simply not true. I wanted the best overall package. It did upset me what I paid for some of my gear, but the overall package is exemplary - and I'm talking about FAR more than just the APR gear. My mechanic did all the other non APR work as well (and he's a VW master), which was extensive. This is why everything worked so well.
Frankly there was no other option to have mine done as well as it was - but that's obviously different for everybody, and each person needs to weigh up their own options/needs/goals.
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