Article: APR drops 034Motorsport and Harding Performance as APR dealers

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034Motorsport is fairly well known through the VAG (Volkswagen Auto Group) tuning world. APR obviously is the most well known and 034Motorsport sold APR parts and was an APR dealer. It seems a situation arose when 034Motorsport started offering their own tunes and parts that overlapped with APR's.

Here is what Lazlo at 034Motorsport had to say about the matter:

Short Version: Yes, our contract was terminated by APR a few hours after we released Stage 1/2/2+ Performance Software for the Audi TT RS. This came a few weeks after releasing our RS500 Audi TT RS Hybrid Turbo Kit. As a result of this MED9 Performance Software release, APR decided 034Motorsport is too much of a competitor to sell and represent their products. Up until this point, our working relationship with APR’s staff was excellent. The termination decision was made by upper management put in place by the new owners (Mangrove), who deemed it better to cut ties with 034Motorsport rather than continue to work collaboratively.

Long Version: Since 034Motorsport opened its doors in 2005, it has been a company that provides tuning solutions for Audi & Volkswagen vehicles. Before founding 034Motorsport, Javad was involved in tuning early Audi 5-cylinder engines and founded 034EFI to provide standalone engine management solutions for fellow I5 enthusiasts. His own project, 80tq, was powered by this new ECU, and went on to be one of the most followed builds of its kind.

As 034Motorsport grew from its humble beginnings building and tuning early Audi I5 cars, it started to provide local service and performance upgrades for newer vehicles. This shift meant that 034Motorsport needed to find a partner for newer vehicles that made up a growing portion of our customer base. Staying true to its mission of providing the best tuning solutions available to our customers, 034 partnered with APR in 2009 to give our local customers what we felt was the best, most complete line of tuning available for their Audi and Volkswagen cars. As a result, there has always been overlap between some 034Motorsport and APR tunes/products, and over the years, we refrained from making any direct comparisons between the two.

Since then, we have supported hundreds of customers with APR software, helped grow APR’s Dealer Network, and represented APR parts and tuning in magazine shootouts. In that time, we developed good working relationships with many of APR’s staff, and were pleased with the majority of APR’s tunes. With 034Motorsport’s Audi I5 roots, we were excited to hear of the TT RS coming to North America, and picked one up in October of 2011. We worked with APR through the development of their Stage 1/2 ECU Upgrades, promoting their tuning on the car, and eventually installing an APR Stage 3 Turbo Kit that we took to the 2013 European Car Magazine Tuner GP.

Through our investment in the 034Motorsport Audi TT RS, endurance racing with the Audi Sport Customer Racing TT RS SP4T VLN Race Car, and years of involvement in Audi Club North America’s Golden Gate Chapter, we garnered a large (given the limited production numbers) TT RS customer base. We sold and installed multiple TT RS Stage 3 Turbo Kits, and flashed more TT RS ECU Upgrades than most, if not all, North American APR Dealers. We stuck with APR through numerous revisions of and complaints about their tuning, some of which was documented in this 11 page thread.

Through our own experience and after talking to multiple Audi TT RS owners, we realized that there was a step between the stock turbo and large GTX3576R APR Turbo Kit - one that many enthusiasts were looking to take.

We used an existing, tested hybrid turbo in the 034Motorsport RS500 Audi TT RS Turbo Kit to provide a powerband that retains the low-end torque and transient response of the stock turbo, while building power toward redline, where the stock turbo started to run out of breath. While developing our MED9 Tuning Program for the RS500 Kit, we also created our own Stage1/2 Audi TT RS Performance Software from the ground-up, and found that there was significant room for improvement through calibrations alone. In addition, we identified the need for a HPFP upgrade to maximize midrange power on the stock turbo, and created Stage 2+ HPFP software. What we ended up with was a line of performance software that not only made more power with lower boost levels, but also offered superior throttle modulation and improved driveability when compared to other options on the market.

We had discussed the RS500 Turbo Kit and Stage1/2/2+ Performance Software with APR’s new management, and were under the impression that they were fine with the release(s) so long as we did not directly compare them to or position them against APR’s offerings. Again, it is important to keep in mind that this is a limited line of software and hardware that applies to a total of ~1,200 cars in North America.

We released the RS500 Turbo Kit without any comparisons to APR’s Stage 3 Turbo Kit or Stage 1/2 ECU Upgrade. We released 034Motorsport Stage1/2/2+ Audi TT RS Performance Software a few weeks later without any comparisons to APR Stage 1/2. A few hours after the release of our Stage 1/2/2+ Performance Software last Tuesday, APR’s new management had decided to disconnect our APR DPP, and terminate our APR account without warning.

We regret being unable to support our existing customers with future APR software updates, and will look for a different tuning solution to provide for newer vehicles that 034Motorsport does not currently have software for. The decision for APR to terminate 034’s contract came as a surprise, and is not something that we feel APR’s original management team (nor remaining core group of employees) would have supported. It’s an unfortunate situation for both parties.

Ultimately, this decision by APR gives us the freedom to push boundaries and develop innovative new products without worrying about potential conflicts with APR’s offerings as we had in the past. We feel energized for the future and wish APR the best with their new dealer strategy.

Now, 034Motorsport is saying basically that APR doesn't want the competition. APR might be thinking that 034Motorsport is using APR's work to go out onto their own and increase their profit circumventing APR.

This 034Motorsport issue took place a little while ago but recently Harding Performance was dropped as well:

So that makes two dealers dropped. Harding Performance says they are pursuing legal action:

This kind of thing happens all the time. You have a dealer selling a product and then they create their own product which overlaps because they want more money. What is really going on behind the scenes here we will try to find out.