Cobb vs GIAC
OK Tom, I stand corrected. But are not most of your GIAC Tune customers local to you? I had my GIAC Tune done locally by the only GIAC dealer in my area.
But since we are talking about the GIAC tune in particular, just because a Porsche Service department might deny a Warranty Claim due to a GIAC Tune, this does not automatically mean that Champion will cover it.
In other words, Champion or your authorized installer has to determine that the issue was caused by the Tune just as Porsche did, and the Champion warranty is not a catch all and you cover anything denied by Porsche.
So anyone with a Champion GIAC Tune is subject to the same type of Warranty claim process, and should not expect that Champion will pay to fix their TTS simply because they were denied warranty coverage by Porsche.
And just to be clear, I refer to engine related issues in the above scenario, not a bad PCM, of course, for example!
But since we are talking about the GIAC tune in particular, just because a Porsche Service department might deny a Warranty Claim due to a GIAC Tune, this does not automatically mean that Champion will cover it.
In other words, Champion or your authorized installer has to determine that the issue was caused by the Tune just as Porsche did, and the Champion warranty is not a catch all and you cover anything denied by Porsche.
So anyone with a Champion GIAC Tune is subject to the same type of Warranty claim process, and should not expect that Champion will pay to fix their TTS simply because they were denied warranty coverage by Porsche.
And just to be clear, I refer to engine related issues in the above scenario, not a bad PCM, of course, for example!
It doesn't matter if you're local or not. If your car has a factory or CPO warranty, we cover you. Pretty simple.
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All I can say is we've never had an issue. I've been here with Champion for over 5 years now and I think that in all that time, we've had 2 claims made on our warranty, which we paid without question. The first one we simply paid the dealer working on the car (it was stupid anyway, PCM failed, so we bought the customer a new one). The second case was a car from all the way out in California. Customer had some electrical issues that the dealer blamed on the hardware, dealer refused to pay, so we transported the car here and repaired it ourselves, at our cost.
It doesn't matter if you're local or not. If your car has a factory or CPO warranty, we cover you. Pretty simple.
It doesn't matter if you're local or not. If your car has a factory or CPO warranty, we cover you. Pretty simple.
Thanks Nfall, we appreciate it!
I wanted to add something about our warranty, and our products overall, which I didn't mention above. We have tune, modified, upgraded, built, whatever you want to call it....literally 100's and 1000's of cars in the past 25 or so years. And the one thing we pride ourselves the most on is how rarely those cars have to come back into our shop for anything other then routine maintenance. We specifically engineer, build, and test all of our products to such a high degree that when any customer leaves here with a car we've worked on, they can be comfortable that it will not give them any headaches...it will just always work as advertised.
With all due respect to Cobb and others, that's really why I sometimes don't understand this urge people have to datalog and tweak their cars. Why not just get it done once and know that you're buying a product that's already been tested and works? Why not by the product made by the company who has 25 years of experience behind them? If you have issues, we're here for you. Our job is to get you back into your car and enjoying it as soon as possible, hassle free.
I wanted to add something about our warranty, and our products overall, which I didn't mention above. We have tune, modified, upgraded, built, whatever you want to call it....literally 100's and 1000's of cars in the past 25 or so years. And the one thing we pride ourselves the most on is how rarely those cars have to come back into our shop for anything other then routine maintenance. We specifically engineer, build, and test all of our products to such a high degree that when any customer leaves here with a car we've worked on, they can be comfortable that it will not give them any headaches...it will just always work as advertised.
With all due respect to Cobb and others, that's really why I sometimes don't understand this urge people have to datalog and tweak their cars. Why not just get it done once and know that you're buying a product that's already been tested and works? Why not by the product made by the company who has 25 years of experience behind them? If you have issues, we're here for you. Our job is to get you back into your car and enjoying it as soon as possible, hassle free.
Last edited by Tom@Champion; Aug 11, 2015 at 01:00 PM.
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"With all due respect to Cobb and others, that's really why I sometimes don't understand this urge people have to datalog and tweak their cars. Why not just get it done once and know that you're buying a product that's already been tested and works? Why not by the product made by the company who has 25 years of experience behind them? If you have issues, we're here for you. Our job is to get you back into your car and enjoying it as soon as possible, hassle free"
With all due respect, I, like several others here, reached out to SEVERAL GIAC vendors and inquired about custom tunes and they all said no or had no clue. Shoot, my local GIAC tuner is about as bright as a bag or rocks and hardly answers his phone. That leaves me with pulling the ecu, sending to someone, getting one tune that is the same for every other 991 and then reinstalling every time a change is needed or desired. Now how would you go about logging and tuning to my specifics? Not that I wouldn't mind visiting Pompano Beach, but that might be a bit of a roady each time I need a retune. Sorry sir, but I feel that the COBB just offers much more flexibility for my individual needs.
With all due respect, I, like several others here, reached out to SEVERAL GIAC vendors and inquired about custom tunes and they all said no or had no clue. Shoot, my local GIAC tuner is about as bright as a bag or rocks and hardly answers his phone. That leaves me with pulling the ecu, sending to someone, getting one tune that is the same for every other 991 and then reinstalling every time a change is needed or desired. Now how would you go about logging and tuning to my specifics? Not that I wouldn't mind visiting Pompano Beach, but that might be a bit of a roady each time I need a retune. Sorry sir, but I feel that the COBB just offers much more flexibility for my individual needs.
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What bothers me about the GIAC tune over the Cobb, is that it can only be flashed by the dealer. We have one dealer here where I live and that guy is a dick. I'm not sending my ECU for a flash all the way to the USA to get it done.
Cobb makes it easy; I buy the AP and flash the ECU in my driveway/ garage and it's done! I could care less about tuning it myself, but the convenience option for installing can't be beat! I have done my diesel tuning the same way for years and never looked back. It's just so much easier.
I'm sure GIAC makes an excellent product, but the install for me is just a nightmare and I'm limited to a local dealer who's a complete ****head.
Just my .02 FWIW
Cobb makes it easy; I buy the AP and flash the ECU in my driveway/ garage and it's done! I could care less about tuning it myself, but the convenience option for installing can't be beat! I have done my diesel tuning the same way for years and never looked back. It's just so much easier.
I'm sure GIAC makes an excellent product, but the install for me is just a nightmare and I'm limited to a local dealer who's a complete ****head.
Just my .02 FWIW
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I'm probably missing something here so please educate me. I would think that this thread is talking about three topics:
1.) Performance Discussion (the actual tune) - COBB's vs GIAC's vs a third party custom via AP
2.) Ease of Use Discussion (the delivery mechanism) - self-flashed vs dealer-flashed vs ship your ECU
3.) Warranty Discussion - Factory warranty won't help so this is about supplemental vendor warranty
Outside of on-paper / on-track / on-street performance tests for #1, the differentiators seem to be #2 (ease of use goes to COBB AP) and #3 (warranty goes to Champion). My question is why GIAC doesn't move to a self-flash delivery mechanism? In the BMW world, most (if not all) tuners have moved to self/remote flash so is there something about the GIAC method that precludes this?
1.) Performance Discussion (the actual tune) - COBB's vs GIAC's vs a third party custom via AP
2.) Ease of Use Discussion (the delivery mechanism) - self-flashed vs dealer-flashed vs ship your ECU
3.) Warranty Discussion - Factory warranty won't help so this is about supplemental vendor warranty
Outside of on-paper / on-track / on-street performance tests for #1, the differentiators seem to be #2 (ease of use goes to COBB AP) and #3 (warranty goes to Champion). My question is why GIAC doesn't move to a self-flash delivery mechanism? In the BMW world, most (if not all) tuners have moved to self/remote flash so is there something about the GIAC method that precludes this?
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I would bet that within some short period of time, GIAC will move to an AP style product, or they will lose a lot of business to Cobb and others who come up with tuning with an on-site flash tuner.
I have been using on-site flash tuners in my other cars / trucks for years. Even if the GIAC tune is somewhat better, I would never buy it. It's just much easier to use the AP - and should I ever feel like using my local tuner/ Dyno shop to update or change the tuning, I can do so at will.
Even my current tuner - who sells the EVOM product agreed that my best choice as of today is the Cobb and they don't even sell the Cobb.
I am sure the GIAC tune is fantastic, but the customer experience is not, in that I have to send them the ECU. That's a pain.
I have been using on-site flash tuners in my other cars / trucks for years. Even if the GIAC tune is somewhat better, I would never buy it. It's just much easier to use the AP - and should I ever feel like using my local tuner/ Dyno shop to update or change the tuning, I can do so at will.
Even my current tuner - who sells the EVOM product agreed that my best choice as of today is the Cobb and they don't even sell the Cobb.
I am sure the GIAC tune is fantastic, but the customer experience is not, in that I have to send them the ECU. That's a pain.
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Cobb vs GIAC
Originally Posted by BLOWN SRT
I would bet that within some short period of time, GIAC will move to an AP style product, or they will lose a lot of business to Cobb and others who come up with tuning with an on-site flash tuner.
I have been using on-site flash tuners in my other cars / trucks for years. Even if the GIAC tune is somewhat better, I would never buy it. It's just much easier to use the AP - and should I ever feel like using my local tuner/ Dyno shop to update or change the tuning, I can do so at will.
Even my current tuner - who sells the EVOM product agreed that my best choice as of today is the Cobb and they don't even sell the Cobb.
I am sure the GIAC tune is fantastic, but the customer experience is not, in that I have to send them the ECU. That's a pain.
I have been using on-site flash tuners in my other cars / trucks for years. Even if the GIAC tune is somewhat better, I would never buy it. It's just much easier to use the AP - and should I ever feel like using my local tuner/ Dyno shop to update or change the tuning, I can do so at will.
Even my current tuner - who sells the EVOM product agreed that my best choice as of today is the Cobb and they don't even sell the Cobb.
I am sure the GIAC tune is fantastic, but the customer experience is not, in that I have to send them the ECU. That's a pain.
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I know that, but if you read my post a few above the last one, you'll see what I meant. As well, I don't understand why I need to pay a dealer to do plug in their programmer to flash my ECU, something that I can actually do on my own - using a flash loader.
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Cobb vs GIAC
Originally Posted by BLOWN SRT
I know that, but if you read my post a few above the last one, you'll see what I meant. As well, I don't understand why I need to pay a dealer to do plug in their programmer to flash my ECU, something that I can actually do on my own - using a flash loader.
I'm looking forward to seeing some battles at events between Cobb tuned and GIAC tuned 991 Turbo S's with otherwise identical mods
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That is the problem. My local dealer (70 miles away) is a tard not very easy to get ahold of. Much rather spend 20 minutes in my garage flashing to my hearts desire than wasting a day pulling the ecu, wait, another half day to reinstall ANY time I want to change something.
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Well, I called Cobb today. They DON'T support the 2016 platform yet and aren't even working on it. Talk about lunchbag letdown...
A dealer I had spoken to and who assured me that it would work, or that they would get it to work within a few days of purchase, was dead wrong, according to the people I spoke to at Cobb moments ago.
A dealer I had spoken to and who assured me that it would work, or that they would get it to work within a few days of purchase, was dead wrong, according to the people I spoke to at Cobb moments ago.
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Well, I called Cobb today. They DON'T support the 2016 platform yet and aren't even working on it. Talk about lunchbag letdown...
A dealer I had spoken to and who assured me that it would work, or that they would get it to work within a few days of purchase, was dead wrong, according to the people I spoke to at Cobb moments ago.
A dealer I had spoken to and who assured me that it would work, or that they would get it to work within a few days of purchase, was dead wrong, according to the people I spoke to at Cobb moments ago.
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Could be, but they flat out don't support it. I don't know if that means they can't unlock it, can't gain access to the mapping...etc, but if they don't support it, I'm not sure how I can use it at this point.