GeorgeL

Thanks Jonny, as coincidence would have it another member from Hinckley fitted my last kit. Am I right in thinking the coding can be done first without any adverse effects?

Hi, and thanks for the offer. I've been using google to search the forum and its thrown up quite a lot of debate. It looks to me that like the shutter option should be available. I've saved the eBay link in my eBay for future reference. I used these guys before and I went for 4300k, I found these to look a bit yellow over time and so have decided to take your advice and go for the 5000k. If I can find someone closer, even just to check the car can be coded, then I'll get them ordered. Can you send me a pm with a rough idea of what you would like for doing the work? Cheers

Hi, I've just bought a 2010 CR vRS, but unfortunately it hasn't come with xenons. My last 57 vRS had them retrofitted and the difference between those and these standard bulbs is painful. I'm a million miles away from being mechanically minded, so I'm on the beg for a bit of member community spirit. Are there any forum members out there that are willing to fit and code HIDs for beer tokens? If I have to I would have a go at installing the kit, but it would need to be a last resort. Other options are a specialist or tuner. Anyway, any help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers George

I can see how the title could be misleading.

Haha, it's definitely an Octavia, there was nothing rapid about it before.. I was horrified when I saw the first rolling road run. I'm enjoying the car more right away. :-)

I’ve been looking for a replacement for PD vRS for a few weeks now and finally bought myself a nice low mileage FL Octavia vRS CR last week. I broke the golden rule and bought the first car I viewed. Although I had never driven a CR before I had carried out some research and I hoped this along with my time in the PD would give me some confidence when making an informed decision to buy. Long story short, I could tell instantly the car had been remapped when I drove it. The low end surge was stronger than my old PD was in standard trim, not something I expected at all. Excluding the suspect remap the car was otherwise a nice clear standard example, so I decided to take a punt on it. After further driving it was clear the remap wasn’t doing a very good job. Although the initial surge of the engine was strong, the power would drop off almost as soon as the turbo had finished spooling. This would happen throughout the rev range and was further accentuated in the bigger gears. Under sustained full throttle the engine would actually stop reving, it felt like a soft cut limiter, quite odd. I assumed the car was either over boosting or the remap was not agreeing with the DPF? I am convinced many drivers may have felt the extra low end torque and initial extra go and seen this remap as a good thing. However, for me it was clear this engine had been poorly tuned and now offered a very narrow power window, something that could easily go unnoticed to a serial short shifter. I got in touch with Ben at Shark Performance and asked him if he could take a look and possibly flash the ECU with one of Sharks own maps. I know the time and effort Shark have put into developing their software, having ran many incarnations and stages of their software on my previous car. I had first hand experience of the evolution of their software, from the days of overcoming the PD stutter (My P-Torque map) right up to the DPF removal and corresponding software – Where I ended up. When I arrived I managed to twist Ben’s arm into sticking it on the rollers. He removed a stricken BMW in the dyno room, which I duly offered to help push so my car could be run up and assessed. I’m really pleased Ben went for this, the results from the dyno don’t lie, unfortunately for Rapid Remap’s sake. I want to add that, I am not one for pointing fingers or casting dispersions, there is every possibility that this company are blissfully unaware of the results of their tuning and quite possibly believe they are offering a good service. You can see from the dyno graph below the engine performed very badly, it would spool, overboost, stall and respool 3 or 4 times throughout the rev range when ran in 4th on the rollers. Ben offered to load a standard map run that and then load the Shark Performance map as a comparison. All he had to do first was remove the ECU and take a back up, just in case. Note: My car had a set of temporary wheels fitted when it was on the rollers which were heavily out of balance. The wheel shake can be seen on the dyno plot at higher revs. The differing results were an eye opener. Although not on the graph, it was clear to see the standard map is very smooth and progressive, as you would expect from VAG, they will have spent millions developing the engine. The Rapid Remap clearly shows what can happen if you buy an editing tool/software increase all the values by 10 or 15 % without any basic understanding of engine tuning, fuel injection, forced induction and ECU behaviour. Ben was kind enough to show me the maps in their most basic form, the rapid remap had values altered outside the ranges of the map. I’m not technical so I can’t and don’t want to comment too much on what was wrong, maybe someone from Shark could expand on that?.. Moving on; to me the Shark map looks very good and drives even better. On the road the car has definite performance advantage, the engine feels very strong and pulls all the way to the red line. What impresses me most about this car is the way the power is delivered and the car drives. The engine pulls very strong and power builds and builds. There are no surges of power coming in and out, the power doesn’t tail off either. You would be hard pushed to know this engine has been tweaked if you hadn’t previously driven a standard variant. It’s clear to me there has been plenty of development gone into this map and it certainly warrants the extra one or two hundred quid. After owning many remapped VAG cars from Superchips, P-Torque, Revo, Rapid Remap and Shark Performance I can confidently say this is by far the best remapped diesel I have ever driven. The moral of my story? The price you pay for tuning in most cases has a direct coloration to the product you end up with. I have no worries whatsoever in recommending Shark Performance when it comes to VAG tuning, it’s worth every penny. CR170_SHARK_VS_RAPID_LEAKE.pdf

Ok, thanks for the info, always top notch. I've been out to check the light situation with my car, and its changed?... The DRLs now stay on regardless? I don't have any side lights at though? There has been one process that could have caused this. The car was remapped by Shark yesterday (more on that later), the ecu was removed. Could this have caused the light settings to change? Could it be the system is now in a default setting? Please excuse my ignorance towards this subject.

Yes quite sure, hence the reason I asked. I put my sides on in the rain the other day and noticed further down the road that my DRLs weren't on (posing in shop windows). I'm guessing the legalities surrounding the DRLs are still a little wooly for MOT testers, my car had its first MOT on Friday and past without advisories. I'm hoping this is something that can be coded fairly easily then?

Interesting, mine on the overhand turn off completely as soon as the side lights or dipped beam are switched on. I'll look into getting this changed, ire I can find a member with vagcom locally.

Nice thread. I'm taking the plunge with 5000k then, my last 4300k looked yellow after 12 months anyway. Are there any members in the east mids that offer a fit and code service?

So can mine be set to stay on when dipped beam is om? it's a VRS FL.

This is as much an observation as a question, but I have noticed some VAG cars still have DRLs running when the dipped beam is on, yet others don't. Is this something that can be set? Can the DRLs be set to dim when the head lights are on? Cheers

I understand these must vary, but realistically what should this conversion cost, including fitting and coding?

Fantastic info chaps, thank you very much.

I hadn't even thought to be that cheeky, but its worth a shot. I assume the fl has the same bulb type as the original mkll? I could chance my arm until he asks for the old kit back. I'll give it a go. Cheers

Ha, and there was me trying to avoid the standard, use the search function response.. I happened to use the eBay kit the majority of the users on here were recommending 3 years ago. I'll probably just go for the same for my FL. Cheers

That's interesting to know. I used to have a set of 4300's on my 07 octavia Vrs, but they appeared to turn quite yellow after a couple of years. For this reason I had planned to fit a 5000k kit to my facelift Vrs. Are you suggesting this is a bad idea? Is there much to choose in way of appearance?

There is a lot of talk about the reliability of the DPF on the CR, but very little in the way of economy. My main reason for for removing the DPF over a standard remap would be the economy. I've had a DPF removal on the PD engine in the past and the performance gain wasn't as noticeable as the smoke increase compared to the standard remap. Does anyone have any feedback on this?

Thanks for the great responses. When people think of power, they think of thrash. Obviously the DPF removal does offer greater power, but the extra torque is the biggest gain from the the conversion. The car is far more drivable in this guise, I found the standard car tight and unresponsive at lower rpms and required driving harder, not what I was expecting after owning several 1.9 tdi Vag motors. I'm not sure what everyone else's pd averages but mine has averaged 50mpg over the last 3k according to the computer. It's I'd easily 6 or 7 mpg better than when standard. I'm going to bite the bullet, I'm having the wheels refurbed and then I'll try listing it on here first. Thanks again

Yes I thought this might be the issue. Mine never failed, but I wanted added performance and economy from the car after a very short time of ownership. Like you say, this will still be a turn off for a lot of people I'm sure, even though the modifications have been carrid out by a reputable tuner like Shark Performance. I guess I've just got to bite the bullet and see how it goes. The car will be worth around the 6k mark, so I've got to weigh up spending lots of money getting it back to standard. However, without a viewing I'm never going to get a sale. Food for thought..

Hi, I'm just about to start listing my Vrs on the various auto seller sites out there. Do you think the fact my car has a DPF removal will narrow my potential market? I've considered returning the car too standard or even not listing the modification. I'm not overly happy about the second idea as its not my style to mislead the buyer, but getting people to view is always the hardest part. I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts. I must admit I can't find a Vrs on the net that is advised as modified or with DPF removal at the time of posting this.. Cheers.

Ok, adaption means nothing to me!? Also, I don't have a DPF. Does that matter. Thanks for the heads up btw.

Thanks pal, I'll get a price from all of the above.

Sounds perfect. I'm in the same boat as you. Miles away from a main dealer and the drive is awful as is the knowledge when you get there. I'm waiting for a response regarding my suspected part from Shark before I order, so hopefully that doesn't take too long.

I'm in the same situation with my car, which happens to be the same year and model. I planned to uprate the standard bushes, but I've now decided to replace them with standard units. My car is my daily drive and my work vehicle. The vibrating door cards and knocking suspension are already too much for me to handle so I'm not sure how a vibrating dashboard would fit my needs.