All this Stage 1, 2, 3 whatever makes no difference mate.
A stage 1 from company may be stronger than a stage 2 from another - these are stages specific to each tuning outfit. Our Stage 1 is stronger than that of a number of other companies, but our Stage 2 is normally only another 10% over our Stage 1 - that's just our approach to tuning..
Stage 1 can be done with little/no mods
stage 2 with bolt on mods and top end bolt on turbo
stage 3 mainly big turbo, custom manifold, water/meth, nitrous, stronger internals etc
yes but thats just your opinion. what a tuner sells may be quite different - thats what irmscher is saying. One stage 1, on it sown, may be much better than another persons stage 2 incl bolt on mods.
to the OP - if customer service is important it seems R-Tech is the way to go. Or you could try R-Tek, east of liverpool if thats closer to you. JJ is really good and has just started doing remaps (via a German company ruedel motorsport).
In awesomes defense, they did offer free swap over to revo for a couple months after the split from APR.
I would agree its odd though that you are getting such different prices from APR dealers. I wonder if mobile chap just doesn't want to take the loss as he didn't do the first job? I think I only paid £100 for my upgrade to stage 2 from APR but that was years ago (and at Awesome) but APR did have to write a new map for my car!
whatever you do, check out the companies quoted figures and see if you can find reviews of real figures to make sure the new 'stage 2' is actually better than the current stage 1. For what its worth, I did not find massive speed changes going ftom APR stage 1 to 2. It just had more mid range pull so was better on motorways/ 40-60mph pulls. actual bph increase was minimal but aim was for increased torque.
hope some of that helps.
Aaron