N55 E90 335i. It's a lot better as a Stage 1.5 car. Stage 2.5 (with high flow cats) was utterly terrible. Either way, the throttle response is just gross, though.

What I'm saying is canned tunes typically hurt driveability for some amount of increase in WOT power. I'm speaking of street applications here.

I get what you're saying and I'm saying that neither the APR-low on the GTI nor the MHD Stage 1 on the n55 f10 535i have diminished drivability. If they had, to me or to C., we would have removed them. They may be far from optimal power/reliability, that's a different matter. The GTI came to us at 4k miles with APR-high. We detuned from that to APR-low as it felt over-boosted and the torque curve felt unnatural. Shop said we were their first customer that partially detuned to gain what we think of as drivability.

I realize that with pros like you and Nick, I cannot have the last word. You guys are right and seem to know the "drivability" of my cars better than me I guess.

On a humorous note, the "drivability" of the stock f10 535i is quite bad to begin with. It excels on highway steady state, but throttle transitions are laggy and idle is weak and lumpy at times. It's magically more efficient than the e90 n55 xdrive I owned, but that engine with the same 6MT had better throttle response if I remember correctly.

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm trying to say, which is probably my fault. I'm saying you might find it to be worthwhile getting a custom tune over what you currently have, to improve driveability, power and reliability.

I understand your comment about having a hard price limit, but looking at the vehicles you own, I suspect you could stretch that if you experienced what a quality tune was like. :)

This would all make sense if he weren't going to sell it in a month. :)

I had a custom tune made for my Ducati Multistrada 1100S. It came to me de-catted and was running very hot. I came out of Lincoln Tunnel stop'n'go one winter day, and the headers were glowing under my legs. Oil temps were above 250F. The tune was pretty great, it richened and helped the low end stutter as well. That said, I sold the bike a few months later (ended up riding it without the tune the first year and a half I had it) and that was money gone.

I don't drive the GTI frequently, so it's harder for me to make but I see no downside of the APR-low vs. stock in terms of drivability. I drive the 535i frequently and the stock drivability is worse than MHD off-the-shelf, what you guys call a garbage map. End of story.

Bingo... I do the required servicing, but I keep my mod budget severely limited as I like to experience a variety of vehicles - even though I have a ton of fun when I do customize cars or bikes. I can't commit to the point of customizing. Even though these are high dollar vehicles, if you are careful with your mods, you can save some of your skin.

Now some vehicles I committed to in the past:

06 Cayman S: 5 years
01 M3: 5 years
00 A4: 4.5 years
10 A4: 4 years

I feel fairly strongly committed to my Boxster that's now at 2.5 years. Not sure about the 535i or even the new kid on the block, Macanurbo.