Just be difficult and don't tell em! lol And if you do have to take it in just take it off! And then they won't know!

 

There's a few tell tale signs that the PCM's memory was altered by removing an aftermarket tuner on almost anything. The specific DTC thing probably won't happen for another year or two, and it'll probably make it's first appearance on diesels since Ford and International are big about no tuners on diesels. Don't expect them to publicly announce that there's a specific method for determining whether or not something was running an aftermarket tune.

 

Thats what I was thinking, if the computer tune was correct from the factory, we wouldnt have to worry about spending $500+ on a tuner and then worry about voiding the warranty. I mean a company like Ford has been in business long enough to know how to control trans shifting, throttle response, and overall power. I just dont know why they wont take the time to R&D the problem, guess its easier to let your consumers do it lol.

 

Thanks for that information Quintin. Very interesting to hear what you're reporting. Keep us in the loop if you hear something... if you can.

RP

 

It isnt a problem, you think its a problem. And the vehicle is "tuned" right from the factory. Most of you dont realize when you raise the pressures of the tranny how small the holes are that the fluid is actually going through. The vehicle was built to be "smooth" not "raw".

 

good point, add emissions and fuel economy to that as well

and even if they put a 400HP engine in the F150 that met all the above longevity and government restrictions, you know we would all still have tuners just to push it to 425HP.....at least I would anyways

 

Despite what the power train is capable of, it's always easier to err on the side of mild. Keeps warranty claims down.

 

I am going to have to call BS on this unless you explain exactly how a "sharp tech" could make that determination.

 

Well, since you insist. I'll go ahead and admit that these aren't hard, fast, written-in-stone ways. But if the guy working on your truck is on his A-game, he knows what to look for.

Most tuners perform a hard reset of the PCM's memory when the stock calibration is uploaded, to the best of my knowledge. This functions the same as resetting the keep alive memory with a scan tool. This wipes out everything, powertrain continous DTCs, fuel and trans tables, and mode 6 data. Now, if I were to check your truck and see that the mode 6 data was gone...you could drive it long enough for all the OBD monitors to enable and get new mode 6 data, but most guys don't think about doing that before bringing in because their check engine light is on. All you might think is "Ack, CEL, time to go to the stealership!" No mode 6 or freeze frame data for whatever DTC was in the PCM only comes from resetting the KAM.

Often times, since everything's on the SCP/CAN/UBP whatever network nowadays, when the KAM is reset in one module it can affect others. Not in a functional fashion, but usually it'll set network communication continous codes in modules like the instrument cluster mostly. There may be module configuration error codes in modules that share communication on the SCP or CAN networks. Will the average guy at the dealer notice this? Honestly, probably not. But you might get someone once in a while that's seen this and knows what to expect. This matters more to the diesel owner, since you're a lot more likely to blow something up with a tuner on a 6.0 liter Powerstroke than you are in an F150.

Personally, in my experience, I'd rather you just leave the damn tuner in there instead of trying to hide it from me. But that's just me.

 

I'm glad you responded.

I had a feeling that you would say the things that you wrote in your first paragraph.

The problem, and I am sure that you know this, is that disconnecting and reconnecting the battery will produce the same results. So the tech may believe that the truck had been reprogrammed and then returned to stock but there is no way for him to prove it to the point that the warranty is denied.

As for that last sentence of your post, no one with a tuned truck is going to trust the tech not to "snitch" on him. Sorry, that's just how the game has to be played.

 

Disconnecting and reconnecting the battery to reset KAM sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. Sometimes resetting it with a scan tool or programmer works, sometimes it doesn't. As I said, what I mentioned aren't methods written in stone. The average joe schmoe ain't gonna be looking for what I mentioned above, and if they did see this, as you said you could make a hard case in that, "Oh, I disconnected the battery for a while just to see what would happen." I guess if you were having a bad day and being a butthead like me, you'd be looking real hard for things to point out tampering with the PCM...

But this whole thread goes back to largely your dealer's policies. I've seen things slip through the cracks under warranty that shouldn't have been, but were taken care of in the name of customer satisfaction. If your dealer has a high number of repairs in a certain area, they may be harder on you to try to make excuses about how that repair isn't covered under warranty, it's normal, etc, because they don't want to risk driving their 126 report up high enough to warrant an audit from Ford. Sometimes, your dealer just may suck and they don't want to see your face after you buy the truck. Sometimes, your dealer may suck and they'll snitch you out to Ford. There's a lot of variables nowadays to determine what is and isn't covered under warranty. The law says that a warranty claim can't be denied unless there's some pretty solid proof that the modifications caused the failure in question. So for the most part, unless you get to the point where you have to start mentioning Magnusson-Moss, it's a 50/50 crap shoot.

 

OK then. Whats the best tuner to get for the laymen owner? Is troyer a good one. I don't want to have to fiddle with it all the time. Just "plug and play". Is there a tuner out there that you just plug in, set, and leave it alone until god forbid you have to take it to the stealership?

 

This is exactly what I am talking about at the dealership level...why would they want to look and push so hard to denigh the claim? Why not fix it, bill Ford, keep me (the customer) happy and sell me another new truck in couple years rather than **** the customer off so bad they buy another brand when time comes? Thats what Dodge did to me and why I have a Ford now. It makes no sense to me...

 

Pretty much all of them, except with the Edge you will be playing with the performance tests all the time and changing which "gauges" are on the screen. The other tuners don't offer those so you can just put them in the glovebox and forget about them.

 

I guess that this is just the way it is, and thanks for the round table, guys. Good stuff Quintin, as always.