- Cobb kind of dropped a bombshell.
A lot of people are freaking out about it.
I was scrolling through Facebook all night and I was like,
"Yo, I'd love to make a video explaining what's going on
so we can all just get on the same page a little bit,
breathe a little bit, relax a little bit."
Now I have had a ton of my cars tuned.
I've even ran a Cobb Accessport
and a ton of Cobb products on my Focus ST.
But I'm here to admit,
I'm by no means an expert on tuning
and all this subject matter.
But that's why I reached out to some people
that are in the industry
and are directly affected by this entire situation going on.
My goal here is to give a broad overview of what's happening
so you can better understand
on how to move forward with your are built.
Before we get into it, don't forget, though,
wheels, tires, and suspension over at fitmentindustries.com.
Also, we're given away a set
of Anovia Forged three-piece wheels.
You can get entered just by picking up this shirt
or a hoodie or a poster.
So make sure to check that out
because winning three-piece wheels is awesome.
You get to customize 'em, do whatever you want.
Now that the plugs are out of the way,
let's get into this.
First thing I'm gonna say is take a deep breath in
and let it out. You're good.
You know that time you traded a guy your armor
and he was going to trim it over at Varrock bank
and then he logged out?
That was worse than this. I promise.
Now every platform is affected by this,
but the biggest ones right now are Subaru and Nissan.
If you miss the announcement,
Cobb came out with their Project Green Speed.
Now this is basically
a cool way of saying (blows raspberry).
'Cause basically anything that's emission related,
Cobb is removing from their Accessport and their tunes.
That's your catalyst downpipes, TGV deletes,
EGR deletes, secondary air injection deletes,
basically all that stuff that us, as car people say,
"Aye, yo, I don't (beep) need that."
And then we yeet it out of our cars.
The EPA is cracking down on it.
And a quick disclaimer here
because I saw a ton of people getting mad at Cobb directly.
This is more the EPA cracking down on car enthusiasts
than aftermarket modifications.
This isn't new.
Literally a year ago,
we made a video called So You Want To Make Car Mods Illegal.
- Sometimes the EPA is the equivalent of that dad
that gets up at 5:30 in the morning,
every Saturday morning,
to do chores that you already did during the week
and to make it unnecessarily loud
just so that you know that they're there.
- That covered a lot about this.
But there are reasons some people are upset
and rightfully so with Cobb announcing this.
The announcement was somewhat abruptly made by Cobb.
There's people who were literally in the middle of a tune
and their software was getting locked.
There's people who literally
just bought Flex Fuel kits from Cobb,
and now at the moment, they're paper weights.
People who bought Accessports
and now literally have no use for them
other than to just monitor some of the gauges.
- [Man] Nope. What's you?
No. TGV, EGR, no Turbobricks, no.
- But, overall, Cobb wasn't fully,
like, this is funny,
let's just cancel all of our tunes.
Their hand was being forced
and they needed to consider, not only their business,
but their employees
and what the future of the company look like.
I guarantee this wasn't an easy decision
but one that needed to be made.
And think of your favorite tuning company
because they're probably coming up next.
I talked to Chris, the CEO over at Panda Motorworks,
a local Midwest tuning shop for enthusiasts
that specialize in installing performance parts
and tuning your cars.
And he told me Cobb cut the cord.
Literally people were tuning and the software crash.
Do I think this caused frustration? 100%.
But let's be real.
What would you do if the EPA came knocking
and your entire operation, that thousands depend on,
was just (blows raspberry)?
I'm sure this cutthroat approach
was far from an easy one to swallow.
As a gold dealer with Cobb,
we have watched them try to adapt
to the ever changing EPA guidelines for years.
And this was far from normal for them.
And I think that sums it up perfectly.
I also wanted to give a huge shout-out to SM Media.
I watched his entire livestream,
and it gave me such a better understanding
of what was happening.
And he has all the nitty-gritty details.
So if you wanna give that a watch,
he answers a lot more specific questions.
Also, I think he just uploaded a YouTube video too.
I haven't got a chance to watch that,
but I'm sure that has even more information.
I'll leave a link to those in the description.
The biggest thing I took away from his livestream
and basically the info you want to know
is if your car is already tuned
with a TGV delete, and everything else,
all the emission stuff, there's nothing to stress.
Well, unless you're rebuilding your car
or modifying it further.
If you need a new tune, it's gonna be an issue.
Also, if there's a current issue with your current MAP,
Cobb won't be helping with that.
They're stop in that.
If you're using an OTS tune,
OTS stands for Off The Shelf tune. You're fine.
This is more for custom tunes
and people going for that big power.
Another thing is, I believe there's a two week grace period
for tunes at the time I'm writing the script.
By the time this video goes up,
there probably won't be a lot of time.
But I guess this was Cobb's two week notice, so to speak.
So yes, this is a crappy situation,
but it's not the end of the world.
And there's plenty of workarounds
that may not be as convenient, but can do the same job.
I also ask Chris from Panda,
what does this mean for people with Accessports and tunes
that went through Cobb, and he assured me,
if your car is tuned and good to go, nothing.
If you are waiting on mods to be installed for your tune,
if they are defeat mods,
then no one can tune them for you anymore.
And you either have to live
with a check engine light on
or adapt and put non-defeat devices on your car
and see that tuners like us can still give you
what you're looking for.
If you have a Flex Fuel kit, all is not lost,
just a little pain currently
that is having two separate MAPs versus just one.
Yes, it's not ideal, but it can still make the same power
and a few extra minutes to switch the MAPs
is all that takes.
Cobb has confirmed, like mentioned above,
compliant fixes for these struggles,
but R&D is not an overnight process,
and it will take some time.
So what I'm getting from that is a lot of us
are truly fine for now.
This is mostly affecting the people
that are going for the bigger power, like I said before,
and doing deletes opposed to us
just doing bolt on modifications.
One thing I'd recommend is maybe considering
just doing a high flow cat for your next downpipe.
Depending on what your build is going for,
and if you care about check engine lights,
you can maybe get away with a catalyst.
But for people running OTS or Off The Shelf tunes,
the changes you'll see are very minimal.
Just a little bit in horsepower slightly.
Now my buddy, Matt Wirtz,
who's made an appearance here on the Fitment channel
and is a friend of the channel.
I knew he would be a bit more affected about this
since he's in the middle of doing
some wild stuff with his STI.
I reached out to him, and for a little context,
he pulled the motor on his STI
and is planning bigger turbo along
with running Cobb's Flex Fuel kit and Accessport.
He said, "It hits me hard
because of the delays in choosing to go up in power.
Sounds like I'll bite the bullet with a standalone,
and wait for Cobb's update to fix the Flex Fuel stuff
so I can tune it right.
Until then I'll cry over my AP and Flex Fuel kit
that are worth nothing and swallow the $1,500
for the ECU and just keep working at it."
See, so these are the people
that are upset and rightfully so.
Two weeks isn't much time,
especially for a build like Matt's.
And he's not going to be able to make the deadline
and is being forced to pivot to a new tuning option.
A lot of people are upset right now
because a lot of the stuff that was available
right up until this announcement
was available right up until this announcement
and screwed some people out of it.
Subaru, isn't the only one though.
Nissan with the big horsepower builds
are going to take a hit now that speed density tuning
will no longer be a thing through Cobb.
What this is in a broad term is moving the main ECU input
for on the MAP sensor
and replaces it with pressure in the intake manifold.
Cobb says, "Because the speed density tuning system
once implemented cannot be reverted to stock
or removed from the ROM,
and the system indirectly alters
certain OBD diagnostic tests,
we have removed this feature
from our updated software systems."
Again, I think the main message here
is high horsepower builds will be taking the grunt of it.
If you currently have a tune from Cobb or an Accessport,
you're currently 100% fine.
It's just, if you need a revision to your tune
or you were going to continue to mod your build,
you might now be affected.
You can still go by Accessports.
You can still get tunes.
This is not end of tuning as we know it,
like some people are acting on Facebook.
It's just a couple backwards steps in the process.
I want to end this video with something Chris
from Panda said that I don't think could be said any better.
"Change is coming, and with force.
This has been something I've watched the last nine years
in the business and we have done our best
to adapt where others have not.
If you truly can care about this,
do not attack the companies doing everything
they can to keep this alive
and be able to modify cars.
With that said, it will cost more to modify your car,
but you still will be able to.
And the more help we get from our customers and fans,
the more we can push positive change."
So support your local tuner
and don't take EPA changes out on them.
Let's keep making dope cars.
Big shout-out to Chris from Panda Motorworks,
Matt Wirtz, and SM Media for helping me make this video
and get the information squared away.
If you have more questions,
make sure to check out SM Media's content
or drop a comment down below
and we'll make sure to answer the best we can.
But the big message here is we can still tune our cars.
There's just some backward steps in this,
and the EPA is cracking down on it.
We'll talk to you later.
(upbeat music)