Golf R Observations and Questions

[Corey_R]

Aaah, thanks for the information PeDiES. Remus is a brand which does appeal to me because they're known for making exhausts which are quiet and good quality, but the main purpose for changing the exhaust for me is still the performance benefits, which means I'd still need a downpipe.

Do you know of any Golf R downpipes which are available other than the APR?

[stephen8512]

There are prob no golf R downpipes AS YET, excluding the APR one of course.

And dave-, regarding the mods for a "euro", have a look higher up on the scale. Ferrari and Lambo's all charge ridiculous amounts for their upgrades and im guessing itd be the same for the aftermarket products too. Sure, you can get a custom job for them but it just goes with the territory. They charge that much because THEY CAN. The target market for people looking to upgrade a Golf R are all a bit more mature than, say, honda drivers with their Civics, integras, etc in that the age group is probably around the 28-45 bracket. By this time, one would assume that you have a job, earn a decent enough salary/income and If you have money to buy a Golf R, which is a 50-60K car, of course the parts will cost more than, say, a Honda Civic.

I can guarantee you that a custom exhaust made for the Golf R compared to a custom exhaust made for a ferrari,the ferrari owner will pay more. Even if they are, as you have said, both made from stainless steel and do the same job. Even with maintenance costs....is there much difference compared to a VW mech and a Ferrari mech apart from the mechanics having to do specific checks on their respective vehicles? Not really i'm assuming. It still takes oil, it still requires proper care, but why does it cost more for ferrari owners to get their cars serviced than a Golf R?

Its expensive, yes and there are better avenues to go with custom jobs if thats what you're looking for. I guess you can think of the extra money you may save from a custom job can be considered the cost of having the peace of mind should something were to go wrong.

[Corey_R]

There are prob no golf R downpipes AS YET, excluding the APR one of course.

Well, keep in mind that the Golf R and S3 and TT-S downpipes and ECUs and such are identical, and the S3 at least has been out for 4 years...
The only "new bits" which we've been waiting for with the Golf R is the Cat back exhaust, as this differs for obvious reasons.

[Guy_H]

GUY, that sounds like a date, I'll be getting my car in December at the earliest. So then Christmas/new years time. I'll drive it around for a month or two, then I'll do it for sure. Like I said if I had my car in June when I went to the dealer, I would have already done it by now.

But yeah sorry GUY, $4k is too much for a golf exhaust. I think what Dave said about tuner taking advantage of people not in the know, and who are a bit easily led just cause they think there car is a mad euro.. When it's a golf hatch that's getting 12kw.. And it's not just your place.. I guess it's just noticeable when you can get quality elsewhere for cheaper.. So the comparo is on if I don't go one of yours

Sounds like a plan! - I would love to see a side by side comparison. I have seen some of Lambro's (Hi Tech's) work & certainly the lower end Millteks too - love to photograph them side by side

[Jasonpb]

The APR products always look nice and I am sure it cost a fair bit to produce but I really can't see too many people locally paying $4k for an exhaust system, maybe if it included the tune that would be a little different. We aren't driving expensive cars here it's a golf hatch, in fact I don't think a civic type R is far off the Golf R price mark when you add in a few options yet components are still much cheaper than what we seem to be paying.

I imported a car from Japan that originally sold for well over the 100k mark there and then imported a Titanium exhaust system that weighed next to nothing so probably provided more benifit to the car than this system and cost me a little over $1500USD delivered from the US.

[ravun]

Do you know of any Golf R downpipes which are available other than the APR?

I have been searching around looking at all options available. Most of these are not really any cheaper than the locally available APR products.

BN-Pipes Edelstahl-Auspuffanlagen - VW - Golf VI-R20 - Stainless Steel Downpipe - for VW Golf VI R20
exhaust system VW GOLF VI R 2.0i TFSI (270 Hp) 2010


I had more but lost my bookmarks. Will edit the post as I find them.

International shipping would be a killer due to size I am guessing. Also remember if ordering from overseas, you need to pay duty if the price is over $1000 which raises the price again.

[Corey_R]

Thanks for posting those links ravun.
I don't proclaim to begin to understand why, but the downpipes from all three places thus far (APR + the two you provided) are all significantly more expensive than the cat back sections.

The first company (BN Pipes) does not list Australia in their list of countries they can ship to. Assuming they did though, and that the shipping was only 100 Euro (probably underestimating considering the costs to other countries listed), it would be AUD$2,189.87. After you add GST etc, that'd be minimum of $2408.85 assuming there was no other duties (processing fees at customs or quarantine, or credit card currency conversion/bank transfer fees).

The 2nd company (Super Sprint) SPECIFICALLY excludes Australia from their sales. Their downpipe is also 159 euro dearer than BN Pipes, although it is currently on special atm for 90 euro less than the BN Pipe.

Neither exhaust mentions the inclusion or requirement for a ECU tune. Which means they're either not enough of an improvement in performance to cause fault codes which cause the engine to enter "limp mode", or they assume the customer will figure that out and separately arrange an ECU tune. Neither exhaust system is a divorced pipe either, BN appearing to be a standard bellmouth downpipe and Supersprint not even showing you the downpipe opening :/

Keep pasting links to the options guys. Cheers

[ravun]

Another one:

Downpipe mit Sportkat laute Version - FTS-Tuning Onlineshop

[dave_r]

Leave the Ferrari/Lambo analogys out of it. If I spent $400k on a car, I wouldn't let just anyone touch it. This type of justification is crazy.

The target market for people looking to upgrade a Golf R are all a bit more mature than, say, honda drivers with their Civics, integras, etc in that the age group is probably around the 28-45 bracket. By this time, one would assume that you have a job, earn a decent enough salary/income and If you have money to buy a Golf R, which is a 50-60K car, of course the parts will cost more than, say, a Honda Civic.

So you're saying that as we get older, we get stupider and just hand over cash because its the done thing?

Anyway, APR has done the hard yards and come up with a product. I'm sure there is a lot of effot put in. But (IMO) either there is a sweet margin in it, or too much effort put in and many costs to recover. If it was $3k for a full system or the current price inclusive of Stage I/II ECU tune, I think half the R owners on the forum would sign up. I know I would without hesitation. I'd also prefer to support the local market because we all know they can't produce a car worth buying.

I'm keen to see the miltek development as a mate has put their gear on his TT-RS recently and been happy with the product.

International shipping would be a killer due to size I am guessing. Also remember if ordering from overseas, you need to pay duty if the price is over $1000 which raises the price again.

Might be an excuse to fly over for a few laps of the ring and come home with a suitcase of bits! One of the race car rental places has prep'd Rocco R's for hire

[ravun]

Another:

f-town Streetmachines


Thank god for google translate

[Corey_R]

Another one:

Downpipe mit Sportkat laute Version - FTS-Tuning Onlineshop

Ok, so that one is finally significantly cheaper. At 799 Euro, generously assuming only 100 Euro shipping, it'd come to ~AUD$1400 (again, assuming no other fees incurred). They also don't mention anything about an ECU update... but that's not a surprise since there is literally NO information AT ALL.
HOWEVER. And let me say that again because this is a BIG HOWEVER! This companies site is so bad that not only do they not have ANY information on that downpipe, even their "Shipping & Returns" page says:

Put here your Shipping & Returns information.

So not sure I'd risk using this company to maybe possibly save $1000 (if it even received the product...)

Another:

f-town Streetmachines


Thank god for google translate

Wow - that's one ugly-arsed exhaust. It's more exxy than the APR one too though.

[stephen8512]

Leave the Ferrari/Lambo analogys out of it. If I spent $400k on a car, I wouldn't let just anyone touch it. This type of justification is crazy.

So you're saying that as we get older, we get stupider and just hand over cash because its the done thing?

My point with the fez/lambo was that even if you didnt let JUST ANYONE touch it, the parts and labour will still COST more RELATIVE to the Golf R, no matter what it is (mods, servicing, etc).

And no, im not saying the older u get the dumber you are. You could, however, generalise by saying that those buying the Golf R is in the age bracket as I mentioned. And as such, because the Golf R isn't really considered a cheap car (it costs the good part of 50K!), you could hypothesise that people who buy it have stable jobs with a steady income stream and have the capacity to purchase such a car. Thus, parts etc might be set at a price where they MAY NOT WANT to pay for it, BUT HAVE THE CAPACITY to pay for it. Aftermarket places all know this and set prices accordingly.

Therefore, aftermarket suppliers and mechanics KNOW this and can charge whatever they want and SET THE PRICE. As for paying for it, thats entirely up to you like I mentioned before. Its just like comparing servicing with a Honda and a VW. A Honda Accord's 60,000km service is NO WHERE CLOSE to, say, what a MK5 R32 costs, which from memory costs almost a grand! So why are they charging this amount if they are, going by your analogy, doing the same thing (changing oil, checking for problems etc etc). Apart from specific things like checking mechatronic units on the VW and so on, theyre basically doing exactly the same thing. You said that you couldn't believe the downpipe cost 2.5K, when its just the same metal used in a custom job? Then why charge more for the APR unit? It's because they can.

And you'd have to expect to a certain degree that mods or anything were gonna cost a little bit more than it's cheaper JDM counterparts surely? I mean, its common knowledge that the more expensive the car is to buy, the more it will cost for servicing, and to a lesser extent, mods

[Corey_R]

Here's a thought.
If you own a GTI, and you want to upgrade your brakes, a "low cost" option is to spend around $1,500 on upgrading to the Golf R32 brakes. But if you own a Golf R, and you want to upgrade your brakes, you've already got those better brakes, so to get something better you need to go to the next step up, which is a Brembo or Alcon brake kit for around $4500.

This isn't a case of companies thinking you're dumb, or you've spent more on a better car so you can "afford to pay more". Maybe it's just a case of your more expensive/better car already comes with better components and therefore to improve on what you already have you need to spend more than what it costs to improve on lesser parts/cars.

I mean, as someone else has already pointed out, the APR exhaust "only" gives you an increase of 12kw (at the wheels, in combination with the Stage II software), so this means that the stock exhaust is already performing pretty well. Maybe it just takes more "whatever" (sorry, I'm not mechnical enough) to get additional performance out of the R's exhaust systems, and this is why APR, and Remus, and Milltek, and BN Pipes, and Super Sprint and so far all other companies Golf R exhausts cost $4k or more for a complete system, except for that one which is so dodgy they can't even fill in their contact and shipping information properly on their website.

[dave_r]

And as such, because the Golf R isn't really considered a cheap car (it costs the good part of 50K!), you could hypothesise that people who buy it have stable jobs with a steady income stream and have the capacity to purchase such a car. Thus, parts etc might be set at a price where they MAY NOT WANT to pay for it, BUT HAVE THE CAPACITY to pay for it.

An STI or Evo costs more. Just because we all choose not to buy them doesn't make them a cheap jap ****box. They're targeting a similar age buyer if you ask me, they're not going for people earning $30k pa. Some of us prefer subtle and some prefer to be a neon hammer.

Aftermarket places all know this and set prices accordingly.

So after all this, you agree with me that people are being gouged and the prices have nothing to do with the make or model, rather the perception of being prestigious?

Maybe it's just a case of your more expensive/better car already comes with better components and therefore to improve on what you already have you need to spend more than what it costs to improve on lesser parts/cars.

That analogy works fine with brakes or the turbo or the suspension or a whole lot of things. But when you are replacing a part entirely, such as the exhaust, it doesn't matter if the original item was made out of gold. Essentially it is being thrown in the bin.

[G-rig]

The more expensive the car, the more you can afford to spend on mods ..