Lack of power after APR tune to 2015 Octavia Scout

[MurrayKhodd]

Hi

 

I bought a 2015, 132 TSI Scout and got a stage 1 APR tune for it. It immediately lost torque low down, with power kicking abruptly at around 3,000 RPM. There was so little power that it took a while to hot the power band and I became just about the slowest car at the lights, especially if it was uphill. I was told that was typical for the 1.8L engines and that it was impossible for there to be anything wrong with the tune. A throttle controller helped but it still wasn't great to drive. I emailed APR in the states and they suggested reducing the spark plug gap to 0.6mm. Didn't work. Worryingly they insisted my car had a CJSA engine (250Nm) when it very definitely has a CJSB (280Nm). Eventually I got the local agent to put it on the dyno and give me a report. They told me the tune was producing the amount of power it was supposed to. This seemed ridiculous and I told them to put it back to stock. Immediately I drove it had way less power than it should have. With the throttle controller back on it is much better around town but clearly missing a lot of mid-range torque. 

 

When I tried to interpret the dyno report the first thing I noticed was there was no recording under about 2,800 RPM with the tune so i'll never know what was going on there. The second was the weird shape of both torque curves. Even without seeing the figures it seems obvious something's wrong. The APR website has graphs illustrating before and after at-wheel torque and power curves for the EA888 (Probably CJSA) and they look nothing like my actual readings. I took coordinates from their graph, converted ft/lbs to Nm, and overlaid one over the other. See below. So now it's clear that something was seriously wrong with the tune, and APR's agent can't get my car back to how it was. It's been suggested (on an Australian forum) that because the CJSB is an uncommon motor I'd need to get a Skoda dealer to fix it. I've looked into it and got a quote of ~A$3,500 (for a new ECU) plus 3-4 hours labour. Yikes!

 

I really like this car and would love to get it tuned properly or at least back to how it should be, and any insights would be extremely welcome. Some questions include:

• What is the difference between a CJSA and CJSB? Nobody seems to know. If it were just the factory map my car should at least have the power of a CJSA. 
• Does anyone other that APR do a tune that might work? 
• Can anyone suggest how I might get my current ECU flashed back to stock? It seems Skoda don't do flashing and the people who do flashing don't have the right map for my car. 

Cheers

Russell

 

 

  

 

 

 

[nta16]

To me your graph shows a pretty fierce tune, about 250 Nm expected(?) at wheels stock to about 375 Nm expected at wheels APR stage 1(?) at 2,790 revs.

 

You'd want the whole car including engine, turbo, brakes, suspension, tyres, etc. in very good condition and whole car fully and properly serviced, maintained and repaired before starting that tuning,

 

What exactly is in the APR Stage 1 tuning package, parts, tuning, what? 

 

What else on the engine or related to the engine has also been changed?

 

For engine difference information you might be better looking on and/or asking on the ' Skoda Octavia Mk III (2013 - 2020)' forum - https://www.briskoda.net/forums/forum/235-skoda-octavia-mk-iii-2013-2020/ or the 'Octavia Projects' forum. -  https://www.briskoda.net/forums/forum/207-octavia-projects/

 

Modern cars are all about the computer programs in them and VW have complex intertwined computer programs going back a good while, even VW don't seem to always get all of their computer programs right all of the time so errors in scan tool and tuning programs are possible, especially if applied to the wrongly.  (Am I missing something) surely the tuners saved the car's previous programs as back up before putting their program on just in case something fouls up, standard computer stuff?

 

[Ootohere]

@MurrayKhodd  Welcome.

 

Is that there stage 1 map for running on 98 ron & is that what is in the tank? 

 

(Out of interest which gearbox has your car?)

 

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/509723-octavia-3-18-tsi-remap-and-6m-gearbox-limitations

 

Edited 8 May by Ootohere

[MurrayKhodd]

nta16:

 

The car had always been dealer serviced and was up to date when tuned. It was in excellent condition throughout and there were no error codes. 

 

Stage 1 tuning is just an ECU flash or remap or whatever. Parts like intakes, exhausts, turbos come in at stage 2 or 3, which then usually requires DSG tuning.  

 

Apart from the tune my car is stock apart from a throttle controller which was added after the tune to make my car driveable again. Will post on the Octavia forum re engine variants later today. 

 

Ootohere:

 

It's a 98 ron tune and that's all I've ever used. 

 

The transmission is a 6 speed DSG, code QMH. I'm pretty sure that's a DQ250 with a torque limit of 400Nm. 

 

[nta16]

Good to hear the car is in excellent condition, in the UK a Dealer service record can be little more than annual engine oil and filter changes.

 

Stage one tuning used to be go-faster stripes on the side of the car and fancy wheel caps, on the figures I quoted before yours was for a 50% increase which sounds a lot to me so some serious stuff of amendments.

 

If they replace one set of programs with another surely they save the original set to reload if required.  Was there a precheck of the vehicle to see if everything was OK before to do the tuning and a contract you and them signed for the work that you can return to.

 

Good luck, let the site know how you get on.

 

Edited 9 May by nta16
typos

[MurrayKhodd]

They told me the car would be checked out to make sure everything was okay before doing the tune. When I asked for the car to be taken back to stock I asked what map they would use and they said it was supplied by APR. I asked why that wouldn't be inccompatible if APR thought I had a different engine and got into a argument along the lines of "If the ECU accepts it then it must be right". But the branch of the company I got to restore a "stock" tune wasn't the one where they did the tune  in the first place -- that one didn't have a dyno. Will contact the original branch tomorrow to check if they'd backed up and kept the stock file. Not sure why I hadn't thought of that earlier.  

[PetrolDave]

Looking at the graphs in the first post, it looks to me like your original stock tune was deliberately reducing torque below around 3500rpm (maybe to limit gearbox torque?) and the APR tune is just 'inheriting" that reductions.

 

So I agree the thing to do is go back to the stock tune and then investigate why that torque reduction is happening.

[nta16]

I'm not sure the "stock" setting here is the original VWSkoda stock - but I have no idea what a stock, or any other, graph would really look like.  Do a lot of places still tweak the dials for ego/marketing/sales figures, I look for the shape and position of lines rather than the numbers.  My view is if the car is fully and properly serviced, maintained, repaired (not just Dealer level  service) and set up then without other changes big gains may come from too much cutting in of manufacturers parameters and margins but of course that depends on many factors and how tight the original parameters and large the original margins.

 

[MurrayKhodd]

The dealer didn't check the torque and power before tuning (they didn't have a dyno, something I hadn't realised). The blue line on the graph shows the expected power at stock and is from APR's website, but is probably conservative as I think it is for the CJSA which has 30Nm less torque than my CJSB. I have already had it returned to stock and I now have the anaemic yellow line. I still think the most likely thing is that they have used the wrong maps. 

 

The transmission is a 6 speed DSG, code QMH. I'm pretty sure that's a DQ250 with a torque limit of 400Nm. For people that exceed the torque limit it seems the problem is clutch slipping, not torque limiting. 

[nta16]

I've only just noticed whilst we've been referring to engine Nm your graph has "kW at wheel".

 

If the following is correct  and I assume it's not at wheel measurement claims but at flywheel or have things changed(?) - "The Skoda Octavia is an all wheel drive 4 door with 5 seats, powered by a 1.8L Turbo 4 Cylinder engine that has 132 kW of power (at 4500 rpm) and 280 Nm of torque (at 1350 rpm) via a 6 Speed Auto Direct Shift."

 

I'm with you that possibly it's wrong maps, whether there are other elements to the issue too is difficult to speculate, a scan tool report might show issues or error codes for the engine, turbo, gearbox or other(s).  Without a dyno I'd have thought pre-installation and post-installation scan tool reports would be even more important.  If the installers claim not to have those (or didn't do them) then a scan tool report now might be useful.

 

You should have a label or two on the car or other info to show which engine your vehicle has (subject to the engine being the same as when the car left the factory) that you can show to APR and/or their agents.

 

[EnterName]

10 hours ago, MurrayKhodd said:

I still think the most likely thing is that they have used the wrong maps. 

Certainly sounds like it.

I'm bemused at why they are playing silly buggers with you.

"Opps! Our bad. Here you go, sorry for any inconvenience caused." would be a better approach IMO, assuming that is the problem.