Cobb AccessPort for MK7 GTI

A few weeks ago Cobb Tuning announced its AccessPort is now available for the MK7 GTI. For those of you who dont know this is a very prominent tuner in the Subaru/Ford Eco/Mazda community as well as others.

The device itself is pretty slick, for $650 you get the AccessPort device with their OTS tunes pre-loaded. This includes stages 1,2,3 in both 91 and 93 flavors. When updates are available or new type of profile is released you can download them on your computer to the AccessPort and flash them to your car.

AccessPort has other awesome features like selectable gauges, custom shift lights, profile switching, CEL read/clear and data logging.

The OTS profiles themselves are pretty reserve in performance compared to other flashes, the performance is more closer to piggy back systems. So far this is the only negative I have come up with, which isn’t too much of one.

Just this stuff alone made me think hard between AccessPort and APR but there is one more feature that’s making it almost a sure thing. You can data log your car and then for about $150 email the logs out to a shop, have them make you custom profiles based for your actual car not just a generic off the shelf tune. Typically you go back and forth a few times with logs and tune updates until its solid. The benefit of this is a tune that is customized for your car and its mods in the environment you run in. See with OTS tunes they are designed to work with a variety of car setups and environments from sunny Florida to the great white north. Because of this they cant quite squeak out all the performance the car can handle. Using the logs a protuner can get profiles that are even better or more to your specification than an OTS flash.

The other option is to get dyno tuned where you go to a shop, get some dyno time and they tune your car on the spot. Typically this is done in a day but is a bit more expensive at $400-$600.

This sure beats APR which is $700 for a single OTS profile that you have to go to a shop and get flashed. They also still have yet to release switchable profiles like I had on the last few VAG cars. APR is still a great product and I recommend them but I love the customization and features of AccessPort better.

For more info about AccessPort here is their website: http://www.cobbtuning.com/products/accessport/volkswagen-accessport-v3-gti-mk7-2015-2016-usdm

I plan on getting the Cobb AccessPort sometime after the holidays are over and my bills have been paid off.