Poor casting quality extends beyond just looks. It impacts all of the following:

  • Performance – Airflow through end tanks
  • Fitment – Poor tolerances
  • Weight – Extra unnecessary casting attributes
  • Leaks – Casting voids are prone to leaking
  • Engine Safety – Casting flack can easily break free and enter your engine


Competitors have attempted to hide these defects from customers through painting, power coating, sanding and polishing end tanks, but this only superficially mask the issues.





Fitment:

The APR Intercooler fits perfectly. The competition’s is not even close. The following areas are known issues with the competition’s intercooler:

  • Every mounting point
  • Every screw hole


The competition's intercooler will loosely fit into each mounting point while other factory components must be bent to line up with the screw holes. In some cases, the screw holes are so far off or filled with excess casting material, they have to be retapped before they can be installed increasing labor costs and reducing the shop's profitability which will have to be made up in other areas.



All mounting points and screw holes on the APR intercooler are in the correct location. They are machined in house to ensure proper sizing and proper thread pitch.

With very little communication or factual exchange of information between our competitor's and their overseas suppliers, fitment issues will pop up all the time. There's no fixing the issue either as the competitors don't own the tooling used to cast each piece. They are simply purchasing parts from random vendors, many of whom have actually copied bad design, further pushing tolerances out of spec. Depending on the factory pumping out the parts, it will either fit one way or another way.





Support:

Included with every APR Intercooler System is a printed and spiral-bound instruction manual covering each step of the detailed install. Most competitors include no directions at all. If you ever run into a problem, you can simply call APR for support as we currently staff more employees who have installed an APR Intercooler than many companies employ in their entire company.



The APR Intercooler also comes with a lifetime warranty which is an important aspect often not discussed. Many companies have the ability to offer "lifetime warranties" but many of these companies do not stay in business for long periods of time. Once they're out of business, you'll have no way to get a replacement part should you ever need one. It's not uncommon to hear of a customer getting into an accident and in the process ripping a hose or damaging some other component. In those cases, we can quickly and easily ship the customer a new hose to aid in the repair but for the companies out of business or the ones purchased through cheap EBay outlets, there are no replacement parts when the need arises.

Finally, if the install is not for you, no worries! APR's vast dealer network makes installation at a local shop easy. For those who don't have an APR shop in town, our included instruction manual makes the process a walk in the park, saving you money spent on unnecessary labor.

Power:

A performance intercooler system needs to dramatically lower intake air temperature to a level that’s acceptable for creating safe and reliable power. It needs to continue doing over a long period of time without “heat soaking.” Heat soak is when an intercooler becomes so hot it’s unable to cool the intake air effectively.

There will be many who will look past casting quality, fitment flaws, lack of support and so on simply to save a few dollars and many may be under the impression the data we've shared above does not translate to any real world differences in power.

During our testing on the dyno, we were able to prove without a shadow of a doubt that the performance differences are massive. As mentioned above in the testing notes, each intercooler was tested back to back without a cool down period to measure temperature changes, vehicle operating variables and most importantly, power loss. Analyzing the average power losses after the turbocharger spooled showed an incredibly small 6.8 WHP loss across the power band with the APR intercooler system. However the other core lost an average of 30.1 WHP across the power band.



On average, the APR intercooler was able to retain 23.3 WHP over the cheaper alternative which throws it into the same league as a major upgrade even though it's being compared to what many would already consider an "upgrade."



This industry is filled with many trick and gimmicks but you will not find this when you purchase APR products. This is why you often hear the bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of a low price is forgotten.