Forgive me for telling it like it is, I have experience with every shop I mentioned, sorry if I'm not politically correct enough. With LS engines I've been to CHE, Spiro/Daniel at Autotech, Jim/Tony at Tunehouse, Sonny at Autowerks (my "beloved" as you put it, okay...) and others of course. Google reviews? Sorry I'd rather sit back and stick needles through my **** than get advice on tuners from google reviews written by mostly mechanically clueless plebs who don't know any better, but maybe that works for some. I personally know a bloke who ordered a generic tune from intune motorsport (ping king anyone?) and thought it was the greatest thing ever. Probably gave them 5 stars on google.
And let's not get it twisted, I haven't called castle hill particularly BAD in any way, they're a better option than a lot of shops and they have a good rep for exhausts (even though they f***ed mine up) but if you're making a special trip to Sydney there are simply better options FOR TUNING. CHE are simply not a renowned tuner in the context of what's available in Sydney, deal with that how you need to.
Also a sidenote, the recent (not 10 years ago) story I referred to is of particular relevance to the threadstarter as the bloke travelled 5 hours to castle hill and received no support when things weren't right. Spiro for example (autotech) will literally fly out to another state to rectify niggles that arise post-tune. It's all relevant to the thread. Again, not saying CHE are bad, just that they aren't the cadillac of tuners in Sydney. Don't mind if anyone disagrees, that's the point of a discussion right? Just trying to give the threadstarter the best advice I CAN give.
I’ve been in and around the game since I was born and that’s a long time ago.
I grew up in a workshop and I’ve made a few friends around Sydney due the number of cars I have and through my love of giving everyone a go and I’ll agree with few things, White Swan is right, you’ll find many people who’ll say good things about a tuner and you’ll find those that won’t and Davison is correct, there are many good tuners around Sydney and many people wouldn’t know whether they had a good tune or not unless there was something going amiss that it stood out like dogs balls.
My reason for recommending Castle Hill is I’ve had good work done there and not just tunes and they are a Forum sponsor and I’m a believer in encouraging members to supports sponsors if they are good enough to recommend as they help keep the Forum viable.
Davison you are wrong on one point, there is nothing wrong with using a search engine to look up reviews on Forums otherwise why did you bother to give an opinion yourself?
You’re on a Forum now and none of us can tell if you know diddly swat or what any more than we can tell if other people offering opinions know what they are talking about.
Really what you should be looking for is names that come up regularly with good reviews then spend a day doing the rounds at two or three and if you are car illiterate then sadly it’s like many products, buyer beware.
On another note is it is known that Dale and Sonny don’t jell too well and it is known they have their supporters that carry on with that bad blood and for that reason I never take much notice of any negative reviews of either when I read the negative reviewer mentioning the good worth of the other.
It’s an issue that I believe could be tainting their opinion.
I’ll stick by my recommendation that Castle Hill Performance is worth a mention and I’ll also stand up and say what they offer is as good as just about any other in Sydney.
I know Sonny from his tuning of Mercs and I have nothing bad to say about him and still to this day if I wanted a SBC built, its Sam’s Performance or no one.
Now I’ve said that I’d be more interested in someone being able to give a good recommendation for a tuner on the Central Coast.
In the 4 years I’ve lived here I have not yet met one car guy or workshop of any type that will actually recommend any one but I’ve heard of a few that I’m informed you really should steer clear of.
I tune all my old school cars myself but seriously there must be someone on the Central Coast who knows how to tune a modern vehicle so an old dog like me doesn’t have to run to Sydney or bite the bullet and learn a whole new trick.
