I'm a typical modaholic when it comes to most of my cars so I decided to try the Auto Sportplus module that allows you to program the default settings for the Sport and DSC buttons. I installed it tonight after I got home from work and thought I'd post a quick review of the install and function.

Quality of materials I rate at B- at best. The board itself is fine but the accessories - the fuse tap and Posi-Tap connectors - are marginal. Granted the fuse and wires you're tapping into are small but the fuse tap is a weak piece of bare copper that bends just by looking at it and the connectors are fussy to get a good connection with. The fuse tap barely held onto the power connector which fell off when I was putting the panel back in place. I have some more robust versions I will go back in with later to replace that. Luckily, the kit comes with three connectors (third is for Auto-Stop for non-US cars) and the bad one I had didn't keep me from completing the install (or delay it looking for a substitute).

Instructions are not great. They are very detailed but the location/designation of the fuse to tap is for an '08 Clubman and it's apparent different MY's have different fuse panels in the footwell (I have an '11 Hatch S). The clarity of which connector to pull (X14272) is muddied by the sideways orientation of the picture of the panel which was lifted from the service manual and rotated. The instructions tell you to hook to the blue and yellow wires for the Sport and DSC functions respectively but there are two yellow wires of two seperate gauges and the instructions don't indicate which size yellow wire to tap into (it's the small .35 wire, fyi). I have the service manual so was able to verify I was looking at the correct connector before pulling it.

Function is as advertised. I programmed the unit with Sport mode on and DSC off when the car is started. That was the gratifying part. I'm not using the Stealth Accessory feature so I can't comment on that functionality.

Overall I like the product but would suggest connector and instuction improvements to the vendor.

 

I know your pain with the copper fuse tap. I didn't even have one when it was mailed to me. I had to go to autozone and buy a stupid box of them since I wasn't going to wait for "x" vendor to send it to me. Autozone's fuses were way bigger than the hole and I had to use my multitool to try and frankenchop it to fix in and that was another 10-15 mins to fenagle it into the whole.

Every odd while it won't activate when i turn on the car but overall im still satisfied with it.

 

The equivalent of the FES product that I put in my Vette, which allows you to program Traction or Stability control or both off, is much more robust and cost about the same. This is how the FES unit should be built.