Well my truck died earlier this week and I had it towed to a dealership.

They come up with the verdict that the PCM is dead. This can be covered under a 80,000 mile/8 year emissions warranty, but I have an xcall3 with troyer tunes. I only mentioned this to them because I had the 3.5" AF1 intake on and I did not want them going for a long test drive on stock tunes if they happened to fix it. Well they are saying the tuner must have caused the PCM to die somehow. The service manager even read right out of a book that says no warranty claims should be given if chips and tuners have been used. I guess this is all perfectly reasonable, just sucks for me. It seems like ford is catching on and cracking down on modifications to deny warranty claims.

I asked the service manager to give me some documentation saying that the programmer caused the issue, so maybe, just maybe I can get something out of SCT. I know its probably a long shot but worth a try.

Total bill is going to be about $1100

$300 Diagnosis
$150 Fuel control module replacement - They say to have found a bad splice/corrosion/whatever. I gave to ok for replacement
$650 PCM replacement

Pleas let me know if you guys have any ideas/advice on where I can get someone to help me foot the bill a bit on this one here.

 

Look up the Magnusson-Moss warranty act. To paraphrase it states that the dealer must conclusively point to the tuner as being the culprit for the dead PCM.

Since it is dead there really isn't a way to do this...IMHO. Also, Ford PCMs, specifically the EECV used on Ranger, was prone to have some contamination in the EPIC module resulting in dead PCMs. Don't know about the current PPC for the F-150.

Good luck.

 

I don't see a way in the world that they can prove the tuner did it. There are thousands and thousands of tuners out there and PCMs are not dying.

 

Good to know. Thanks. This is part of why I asked him to document specifically that/how the tuner caused the issue. Because if they can not do that, then I may have a case.

 

I posted in your other thread. I think it was the alternator that started this mess. When it failed the regulator might not have been working and caused a voltage spike taking out your PCM.

 

Tuners are always scapegoats when problems arise.

 

hire an attourney

 

Yep.

Brakes failed, it was the tuner
A/C failed, it was the tuner
Paint corrosion, it was the tuner
Window regulators fail, it was the tuner.


Make them prove it.

 

Contact Xcal and troyer and ask if they have had any incidents such as yours.

 

I figured this... that is why I pulled my Edge out before I had it towed to Ford when my injectors stuck. Glad I didn't have to foot that bill.

 

How could the tunes possibly do this? The PCM holds the tune files. The tune files run the truck, but in no way affect the physical condition of the computer.

How long have you been running Troyer's tunes? How long before the truck died did you re-load a tune?

 

Dealers dont like modification of their OEM settings, so it will always be the tuners fault.

 

dude you should have never told them you never had a tuner on it. the intake wouldnt have done any harm with out a tune well at least for a short period of time. my best freind had a cummins and we put injectors propane and some bully dog stuff on it, after it blew up multiple times, we would take all the stuff off. and they cant prove you had a tuner, dodge wanted to drop the warrenty, he ended up fighting it and dodge gave him opitions to fix what he had pick a new one off the lot or a check for 30k. but the truck was in the shop for 3 out of 6 montrhs he had it. of course he took the check and now has a stroker! good luck.

 

The PCM and the truck is operating outside of factory parameters with the use of a programmer. Did it cause the failure? Probably not, but it goes both ways; it's hard to prove that it caused the failure, but also it's hard to prove that it didn't cause the failure.

That said, I'm always worried when I hear someone is replacing a PCM. PCMs don't fail very often, and when they do, typically there's something that caused them to die. I can count the number of legitimately bad PCMs I've replaced in about 12 years on one hand.

Dealers don't go saying "It's the tuner" for everything. If they did replace the PCM under warranty, Ford calls for it to test and see why it failed and determined (by their crazy ways, legitimately or not) that some outside influence killed the PCM. Well, now the dealer is charged back for the processor and all the labor for testing/diagnosis, and no dealer wants to go through that.

 

Diesels are a different ball of wax. Programmers on diesels can (and often do) cause severe damage to the engine and/or transmission.

IMO, you're a POS and a thief if you blow your diesel up with a programmer and/or other modifications then return everything to stock before dragging it in trying to get it fixed under warranty. Why should the dealer/manufacturer have to eat a repair that wasn't their fault?

Gotta pay to play.