Mods you're wasting money on...

[IES99]

EMD F7 is a diesel electric hybrid. Those wheels will not fit on your GTI. Do Not waste your money on those.

 

[swcrow]

Free education is awesome. Got my MBA mostly free.

I got mine for free too...just had to sign my name on some document for the "after education" portion of my life lol

 

[Diggs24]

I just had to stick around 1 year after. I elected not to as my new job salary was significantly more than I was making. I think they thought that was somehow going to be a deterrent but they didn't anticipate that I was a saver. I brought my checkbook to my exit interview anticipating that they would drop it on me (as was their right). I asked how much I owed them, wrote them a check, stood up and left.

 

[imthanick_a]

Money spent on education doesn't make your career, its all about what you learn and how you apply it. I went to public school k-12 and put minimal effort into school until I graduated college. I got a bachelors at one of the cheapest colleges in the state (but had a great engineering school) and now I make more than my sister and my girlfriend combined(who both have their masters from private universities with per semester tuition costing more than my entire scholarship-less education). And my student loans are a sliver of what theirs are. Although walking away with no student loans would be pretty radical

A coworker of mine makes way more than me and he topped out at 6th grade education, but he taught himself how to run machines, then how to build them, and now he makes a shit ton

Very off the rails

 

[bentin]

Money spent on education doesn't make your career, its all about what you learn and how you apply it. I went to public school k-12 and put minimal effort into school until I graduated college. I got a bachelors at one of the cheapest colleges in the state (but had a great engineering school) and now I make more than my sister and my girlfriend combined(who both have their masters from private universities with per semester tuition costing more than my entire scholarship-less education). And my student loans are a sliver of what theirs are. Although walking away with no student loans would be pretty radical

A coworker of mine makes way more than me and he topped out at 6th grade education, but he taught himself how to run machines, then how to build them, and now he makes a shit ton

Very off the rails

But that's simply picking a more lucrative career. I've had a number of jobs, and don't think I've ever worked with a C level person that didn't attend a prestigious university for either/both undergrad and grad school. I've also had a number of employees frozen out of promotions for lack of an advanced degree or certification.
Now you did bring up private schools, and that is an area that I see very little financial return unless you look in a small geographic area around the particular school that will pay a premium for those grads.

 

[imthanick_a]

But that's simply picking a more lucrative career. I've had a number of jobs, and don't think I've ever worked with a C level person that didn't attend a prestigious university for either/both undergrad and grad school. I've also had a number of employees frozen out of promotions for lack of an advanced degree or certification.
Now you did bring up private schools, and that is an area that I see very little financial return unless you look in a small geographic area around the particular school that will pay a premium for those grads.

I was just saying, you don't have to go to a fancy private school with "fuck-you money" tuition rates to make a decent living. Agree wholeheartedly about everything you said, just wanted to make sure my point wasn't coming across wrong haha

Edit: also want to make sure I'm not coming across as saying you need a college education of some sort. I would have gone to trade school if my parents didn't force me out of it. I definitely didn't mean to pick on anyone

 

[mac340]

Well at least you guys seem to be done picking on plumbers

 

[swcrow]

No one is knocking on that technical trade! It's in a lucrative list of jobs that will NEVER go away:
Plumbing
HVAC
Electrician
Mechanic
Doc (all types)
Military
many more I'm sure

 

[victorchen008]

Catch can is useful only if you went onto the track. Our PCV system fails under high G force during braking and dumps oil straight into the engine. So it is not a complete waste of money only depends on the need of your car.

 

[jimlloyd40]

Catch can is useful only if you went onto the track. Our PCV system fails under high G force during braking and dumps oil straight into the engine. So it is not a complete waste of money only depends on the need of your car.

I have the Spulen OCC on mine and I don't track it but I'm glad that the junk that's collected in the can isn't going back to the engine.

 

[Ridebjj]

Money spent on education doesn't make your career, its all about what you learn and how you apply it. I went to public school k-12 and put minimal effort into school until I graduated college. I got a bachelors at one of the cheapest colleges in the state (but had a great engineering school) and now I make more than my sister and my girlfriend combined(who both have their masters from private universities with per semester tuition costing more than my entire scholarship-less education). And my student loans are a sliver of what theirs are. Although walking away with no student loans would be pretty radical

A coworker of mine makes way more than me and he topped out at 6th grade education, but he taught himself how to run machines, then how to build them, and now he makes a shit ton

Very off the rails

I got the education I use for my career for free, which was nice because I was a broke ass who couldn't have paid for anything. Self taught software engineer and I'm currently head of the department at a construction company. By that I mean, it's a department consisting of just me.

I went to a small inexpensive university and got a bachelors a long time ago. Can't really say the education was needed for where I ended up at. I did enjoy all the drugs and the attention from girls after I grew out of my high school nerd phase.

 

[odessa.filez]

Dang!
I stop reading this thread for a week and a half and WUT????

 

[daconchslop]

Wasting money on education mods...

 

[JerseyDrew77]

Catch can is useful only if you went onto the track. Our PCV system fails under high G force during braking and dumps oil straight into the engine. So it is not a complete waste of money only depends on the need of your car.

Not just for the track but also for BT setups. I currently don't go to any auto-x events but needed a catch can to help relieve the increase of pressure in my crank case from my BT.

 

[FooDogg]

I realize everyone has their own opinions on mods, so don't take this as an attack or personal. I just feel like misleading marketing tactics are tricking several mk7 owners into believing certain products are required to see performance gains. While dyno charts can show before and after gains, they should also be taken lightly, since conditions and dyno calibration can drastically effect the results. They are simply used as a go/no go tool to test back to back set ups to make sure results net a gain in HP & TQ vs stock. With that said, any "performance" product sold without proof via dyno graph is not very likely to improve performance...otherwise they'd show off the results? Right? Right. So with that said, here's my non brand specific list of mods to avoid, or at least save for last on your mod list and considered "bling or dress up/cosmetics" even tho they're advertised as "performance". I know this will piss a lot of people off, so to them I ask this. Prove me wrong. Prove these products are worth the investment.

1. Turbo Muffler delete- So the outlet of our turbo is the same size as the turbo outlet pipe, which leads to the intercooler, throttle pipe, throttle body, intake manifold, then finally into the head. What little turbulence may or may not happen way back at the turbo muffler (or delete) has no measurable effect on the HP and TQ you feel from the drivers seat. It's purely deleting an acoustic device designed to tame the turbo noise for the masses...that's it.

2. Turbo inlet pipe- That little 90* bend at the inlet of the turbo connecting it to your intake, is it a restriction? Well, no. It's not. The inside diameter of the turbo compressor housing isn't getting any bigger just because you slightly increased the piping just before it. You could do dyno pulls with an open turbo, no inlet pipe or intake at all and the results would be nearly identical. The turbo is not restricted by the stock inlet pipe.

3. Turbo outlet pipe & throttle pipe- Yes, the stock units are plastic and not perfectly round tubing. So is our intake manifold. Guess what? Several cars are making over 400-500whp with all of that ugly plastic in place, because for our turbocharged 2.0 they flow just fine.

4. Cold air intake- The stock intake is well designed, and can very cost effectively be improved with a drop in filter. Dyno results prove that no intake no matter what brand or price point has ever improved power by more than roughly 10whp. Now consider that many intakes cost the same or more than a piggy back power module or real tune (which can add 30-80whp) where is your money better spent? 10<80...there no shame in going the drop in route or even a hated open intake. Both with get you that minimal hp gain, but without the $500 price tag the extravagant carbon fiber units carry (with the same gains)

5. Cat back exhaust- Dual tips, quad tips, ten tips! It doesn't matter, the stock catback is not a restriction even at 450+whp. Proven by the current 1/4 world record holders both gti & R are running stock cat backs. If you've met your power goals and want more aggressive tone go for it, but stock or not you're paying $500-2000 for sound, not HP & TQ. Our cars benefit greatly from a 3" down pipe (esp when tuned to match) and added bonus this also wakes up the exhaust note with most down pipes (excluding those with cat & res options to keep noise to a minimum). Look again at hp gained per dollar spent. How much is 20-30whp worth?

6. Catch cans- Direct injection allows boost and timing otherwise impossible to run safely on pump gas. It also has one drawback that comes to mind, carbon build up on valves. While any modern direct injected turbo charged engine will circulate some oil film/foam thru it's recirculated PCV system ours does a pretty good job of minimizing it. Regardless of installing a catch can tho, between the inevitable oil blow by (damn turbo) and carbon deposits left from direct injection, you WILL need to clean the intake valves. If emptying a can of soupy oil broth helps you sleep at night spend the money on a can, but either way you or your mechanic will be cleaning those valves someday. Nature of the beast.

7. Aftermarket DV, BOV & spacers- The stock DV or diverter valve cuts boost pressure then dumps it back into the inlet of the turbo. This being completely controlled by the ecu and working with our electronically controlled waste gate can adjust boost in fractions of a second to match the engines demands virtually instantaneously. After market DV use old school methods such as dumping boost atmospherically and or by vacuum actuation (simple spring and piston held open or closed depending on boost/vacuum in the charge pipes). Some even modified the stock valve to "ensure reliability" but at the end of the day there's no fault with your stock DV! No point in spending money on a part proven to support 500+ hp reliably.

8. RS7 coil packs- not proven to improve anything, and there’s nothing wrong with the standard coil packs on our cars unless they’re worn due to high mileage

Fire away, bring on the arguments. But if this helps a few members spend their mod money more wisely in the name of performance I've done my job. Bling mod advocates don't forget to bring your dyno graphs to back up you're explanation of why I'm wrong! Go!

Thanks Jake, this is a keeper!