2018--Present Buick Regal GS - 3.6L - Advantage

First of all, I'm greatful that Trifecta has made this calibration at all for a vehicle that is, admittedly, rare on the road. 

I first got to know about Trifecta in Buick Forums, and after some considerations I decided to try it out. To be honest this is risky because the warranty will be invalidated as soon as the car goes through ECM calibration, but since the calibration for a naturally aspirated engine is reasonably conservative compared to a turbocharged, I considered the risk to be low. Each to their own, please consider the risk before purchasing anything like this. 

After some hundreds of dollars and a moderate wait, I'm happy to report that the vehicle now has a much more responsive driving feel. To be frank, the 20hp increase is something you'll never feel, but the overall change to the vehicle's behavior makes it feel much more nimble than stock. In normal mode, the transmission logic is similar to previous Sport mode, but the still maintains 9th gear on highways. In GS mode, the car is happy to work in the second half of the RPM range. In any mode, the throttle feeling is much better and you can almost control the gearbox using the throttle pedal. They also have a clever way to maintain the fuel economy of the car on long travels, by tying the aggressiveness with the status of cruise control. Once you arm the cruise control, the car will return to its original state (or somewhat, in my case it still feels more aggressive than original). This enables fuel consumption of around 8L/100km or lower on the highway, same level compared to stock. 

Beside the calibration product itself, the support team is top notch. They actually agreed to modify my calibration a little bit to include the engine stop/start functionality, which is something I personally preferred to keep. 

Unless anything bad happens in the long run, my review here will stand final. 

This tune does what you would expect a tune to do.....improve drivability, response and overall vehicle feel.  For that reason I am very pleased and woudl recommend this tune for sure if you own the GS.  Have realistic expectations, no your car will not be faster per say but it will have the capability to drive faster and handle better overall especially the shift points making it feel faster at times or more responsive.  Pickup acceleration does feel more linear now on freeway on ramps.  I was mainly going to purchase the auto start/stop delete initially until I noticed Trifecta had posted a full ecu tune. I really am not a fan overall of any cars auto start/stop function as I feel it defeats off the line take offs a bit but that is where things are going unfortunately in the industry.  I would prefer a car keeps idle and know it is ready to go at all times instead of risking a thousand re-starts on an engine personally. So I figured I would go all in as I usually have tuned my past vehicles.  As the other review poster below stated yes this does remove what feels like the "training wheels" of the car and allows it to be 100% fully what it is capable of.  Car manufacturers have a bad habit of playing it safe and keeping things well below threshold to minimize warranties or stupidity liabilities in mass production vehicles.  So as well all know there is always some left over overhead for improvement and responsiveness once you dumb down some of the factory restrictions.  Having owned 3 prior Audi's and a Mustang GT I purchased this Regal GS for something slightly different, looked just as good as the Audi's, you see very few of them if any on the road, soo exclusivity, also made in Germany and the fact it was about $10k less than an outgoing Audi A4 or similar with the "extras" added (not base model).  I'm 42 now and have become tired of receiving too much attention at times on my prior vehicles and my fair share of speeding tickets so I wanted something a little more adult, less noticeable but still sporty enough to enjoy.  I am a big Audi fan but I always keep an open mind and do not mind trying something different from time to time. I have referred to my car since day one as my little "Audi on a budget car" as I felt the value for what we got comparatively was a no brainer for me at the time and the car looks sharp for what it is.  The upcoming redesigned Audi A4's now look like our car now in the front too practically.

Back to the tune....so if you own the GS and you would like it to feel more responsive or receive better vehicle feedback than this tune helps.  Also you do not have to be a genius to get this installed yourself.  Just need a current good laptop and some basic software know how.  Can be done in as little as 10 minutes and calibration comes automatically with a stock calibration file to revert back to if you do not like the tune or wish to put back to factory before selling your vehicle later.

If my Buick were a bicycle, this tune would be like removing the training wheels.

Trifecta's calibration has set out what hoped to achieved and turned my GS into a much more visceral experience. From the improved throttle response, to the higher shift points I have to say that I'm impressed just how much more awake this car feels at times. I was skeptical at first and fully prepared to eat the cost for a minor performance increase, but I definitely feel like I got bang for my buck.

The setup and installation of the provided software made this so easy. I got the USB-to-OBD2 adapter in the mail after just two days and once I provided Trifecta with the necessary ECM module information, I received my personalized calibration in a few hours. All I had to do was launch the EZFlash utility, specify the calibration file, and then in a matter of only a few minutes was ready to go. And if I feel like going back to the factory settings, I can do that with much the same ease.

The GS is my daily, so there's plenty of more long-term testing to do. If everything holds up, I'll be back to upgrade this review to 5 stars!