My 2001 F150 was idling rough. It would bog down and at other times race. When I would put it in park it would jump to 2000 rpms. The engine light came on and I took it to the dealership in plano.

They replaced the throttle position sensor
The second time the throttle body, throttle position sensor again, and throttle cable
The third time the Idle Air Contoller
The fourth time they said it was the PCM

So I am almost broke and asked them to sell me the PCM module and I would put it in. They sold me a new one and last night I put it in. The truck would not start. I put the old one back in and it started right up. So this morning I go back to the delership and they laughed and said it had to be programmed before it would work. Not sure what to do now.

How do I program the PCM or is there somewhere other than the dealership to take it to????

 

first off sorry to hear about your poor treatment from the dealership.

second (I cannot stress this enough) DO NOT EVER LET ANYONE WORK ON YOUR VEHICLE WITHOUT A POSATIVE DIAGNOSIS FIRST!

for some reason dealers are the worst at this. do not let them do this to you!

tell them you an absolute diagnosis and if what they say needs fixed dosent solve the problem tell them you will not pay for the fix.

the new pcm needs to be programmed with your trucks pats codes. this is very hard to do right the first time. do not pay for more than 1/2-1 hour labor for this! when i had my pcm replaced it took the highly trained mechanic 4 hours to get the truck to start! you see ford randomly hides the pats codes at the factory in other parts of the trucks systems so it is hard to find sometimes.

could you imagine a doctor treating you the way this dealer has?

 

PATS codes are in the HEC behind the instrument gauges.

These are not stored in the PCM, the random storage of the code is an old wives tail from what Ford Techs ( Jeff Laws ) have posted here.
Also if the PATS codes were hidden in other places, some people could replace their HEC with one from a newer year and have less millage on thier truck if the PATS codes were in the PCM on theirs.

I don't know what "programming" needs to be done to a PCM, is should have shipped with the correct code for your year and engine size.

Return the PCM if you can, and get a PCM from Mike Troyer at Troyer Performance. He might have one for your year and engine size, as he has some one hand at times.
Check with him, before crapping on the dealer.

 

Thanks sccully I didn't really believe that the pats codes would be randomly placed. I was only going by what 2 different dealers have told me. (2 service writers, a service dept manager, and 1 Sr. tecnician)

It makes sense that they are in the HEC. On a side note aren't there other ways to prevent HEC replacement? Like tamper proof seals and such?

 

I am just going by what Jeff told me. Jeff has forgotten more about Ford products then I ever knew in the first place. It is not like I am the expert on this by a long shot.

I also think of how the code reading would be done at startup. The ign ( or PATS by-pass module for a remote start ) gets the key code, and needs to access the programmed area to know if it is a valid key code to allow the truck to start. Using normal programming methods, the code needs to be stored somewhere and read. if it is in a different place from time to time, then the PCM code would need to be different to know where to read the code at. This would mean that Ford would need to maintain a different version of PCM code for each place the key code is stored at, lots of problems for gen'ing new code from Ford. I only recall one version of PCM code for updates.

The HEC can be changed if the gauges have a failure in them, so it does need to be changed from time to time if a problem comes up. Oddly enough this is also the place the millage is stored. If a new HEC is needed to correct a instrument panel problem, the dealer even needs to send the new HEC out to have the correct millage programed into it, they can't even do it local with something like a WDS of NGS programmer. Guess Ford does not want too many people knowing how to do this, so there are not a rash of new warrenty claims on low millage trucks.

 

Thanks Guys

This has got me real frustrated. I tried to take the PCM back but they would not give me my money back. They would only give me the core charge for it. They told me it had to be programmed to work and I could pay them to do it.

I refuse to give that dealership another dime. They have replaced four parts all of which they say were bad although none of them corrected the problem. I cant get my money back on them either.

So I took it to another dealership this morning and they also said it had to be programmed so I left it with them to install and programm. It will be interesting to see if it does in fact work and if solves the actual problem.

I feel like I have been severely ripped off by the Ford dealership in Plano. If this doesnt correct the problem I dont know what to do next.

 

I hope the new dealer works out better.

What you do if this does not fix your problem is you aske the new dealer for an absolute diaganosis. They should charge between $39.99-79.99 for this. And tell them that you will aprove no work unless they can show you the diagnosis path they took to come to thier conclusion. Be firm.

Good luck.