Hi Mr. Troyer! I read on an older post that a supercrew '04 is being used for coming up with a new micro tuner. Can you tell us what the progress is?? I had the micro tuner in my '01 and loved it. I can't wait for the next micro tuner to come out!!!

 

I've only got a regular cab STX with a 4.6 in it. I would like to find out what all I could expect to accomplish with a performance upgrade with one of these SuperChip or what ever is the state of the art system.

Is there much to be expected with a larger throttle body and or MAF sensor on a stock unit?

 

Hopefully Mike can give us an update when he gets back in town....

 

I bought a 50,000 mile extended warranty with my new '04 truck and I'm finding out from my local service department manager that there are absolutely no modifications can be made to the drivability factors of the new trucks that will not void the warranty. It will mostly have to do with how well you know the local service manager and how drastic a change you make.

Ford is getting real picky about what you can do because of the restriction in the emission standards put out by our folks in high places. We all knew it was coming years ago.

I guess most of the people with newer vehicle that are making all of these modifications to their trucks and cars either don't care if they void or effect their warranty or all of the modification that they do are easily changed back to stock just in case.

I guess that's what makes these programmable system so nice being able to revert to the stock settings if need be.

Sound like Mike is really up to date on all of this stuff so, I'll wait to read his feedback.

 

Hi fellas,

I would take some time to actually read on your *legal* rights rather than take some Service Manager's word for it, or anyone's word for it for that matter - and a service manager is the very *last* person to ask, as they have a highly vested interest in telling you that garbage.

Most automakers (not just Ford) have always been paying the poor dealership service departments and their mechanics far less labor $$ to do work under warranty than what their very own labor rate books say to charge the customer when the customer has to pay out of pocket. Remember that fact, always.

Thus the end result is that some dealerships will do and say darn near anything to either scare you out of doing what you want with *your* property, or to try to get out of doing any kind of warranty work then can - and the kicker is, it's not illegal for them to *say* these things - they can *say* anything they want when being asked a hypothetical question - only when the vehicle is actually in for a repair do they have to abide by the laws in this regard.

It's a sad fact that most people just capitulate and give in to whatever any dealership tells them, no matter what. Lambs being led to slaughter, in other words. Those dealers should be avoided like the plague - don't buy vehicles from them, buy your vehicle from the dealership that treats people as they should be treated. That means talk to the service manager of the dealership you are thinking about doing business with *before* you buy your vehicle. It's the relative few "bad apples" that are jerking people around on these things, many dealerships are good honest people that care about the customer coming back.

Sometimes it's just as simple as they see a person buying a new truck talking or asking about mods (especially if it's a "younger" person), and they automatically assume you don't have a clue about what you're doing and that you are automatically going to do something stupid to your $30K-$45K new vehicle - an insulting assumption, but it's made all too often nonetheless - Take your business elsewhere.

You can use aftermarket parts on your vehicle and have your warranty remain intact **as long as what you modify or the aftermarket part you've installed does not actually *damage* the vehicle.** That's the law. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act is your primary protection in this regard, so study up on it - drop by the SEMA web site (www.sema.org) and read up on your actual rights under the law - never let somebody's hired help dictate what you do to *your* vehicle.

You can use the search feature here to retrieve all the posts I've already made with regard to where we are on the 2004's, and the issue of mods & warranty, etc. - we've covered all of that many times already, so the info is already here, just look it up via the search feature if you'd like to read more about it - and don't forget to drop by the SEMA web site as well.

The bottom line is, you can't expect to do things like slap a 6 PSI pulley on a Lightning engine to take boost from 8 PSI to 12-14 PSI and expect to have the warranty remain intact, and you wouldn't believe how many Lightning owners think they should be able to do just that and stick it to Ford if something goes wrong - that's not even close to fair to the automaker, and the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act is a very good set of what I call "fair play rules," as it protects both the consumer and the automaker from each other - just as it should be. Unfortunately, there are some people who think they should be able to take a non-Lightning F-150, slap on a blower and nitrous and still have their engine & transmission warranty remain intact - wrong answer! But you *can* do most of the minor bolt-on mods and still keep your warranty.

It all gets down to just what kind of mod you want to do - things like a blower (supercharger), ported heads, camshaft changes, nitrous, etc. are basically warranty voiders - but things like a Micro Tuner (and the nice thing about the Micro Tuner is that once you return the vehicle's programming back to stock, there is no tell-tale left behind and nobody knows except you) in these gas-engined vehicles, a good intake kit, a cat-back exhaust, electric fans, underdrive pulleys, a bigger throttle body, etc. are not going to *damage* the vehicle, thus they aren't legally viable reasons for denying a warranty claim.

As another poster very correctly mentioned, it's also very important to maintain a good working relationship with your service department - most shops, once they realize you aren't doing stupid things and trying to defraud them, will work with you and treat you right.

Anyone interested in tuning (Micro Tuner, etc.) for the 2004's can drop us an email to sales@troyerperformance.com and we'll be happy to put you on our email list to let you know when those applications are actually ready. Also, to see what we've already posted on that, just use the search feature to retrieve all my previous posts on this, as we've covered that thoroughly so that info is here for anyone to read - just use the search feature to pull it up for easy access.

Have fun,

 

Thanks for the "update"
I was just looking for a simple "we are on track" not a do a search discussion. I have read countless discussions about the M/M act but little about progress on '04 development.
The search that I did was about an supercrew that was being used for development. Perhaps I did not use the search correctly. Regardless, I am already on your mailing list so I guess I'll just wait and see.