DON'T BUY YOUR TUNER FROM ANYONE BUT T R O Y E R !

I posted a while back in excitement, that I had bought a tuner from a shop here in Vegas. It's an XCAL, with I'm assuming a generic tune for 5.4L engines.

I loaded the tune to my truck (87 octane) and was amazed at the power difference, not just in the Low End range, where I needed it, but also the whiplash shifting that would squeel the rear tires going into 2nd. (33 inch muds)

Well in the 8 months the tune was on the truck I hadn't had any problems, until last saturday 12/3. I was driving home normaly from a friends house doing about 60 on the freeway when I went to pass someone and the tranny had another idea. The engine revved to about 1 million RPM and I started going slower and slower. I coasted to the next exit at about 35mph around 3k RPM because the tranny wouldn't shift into 3rd. I pulled into 7-11 around 8 o clock at night, called the dealer, and I don't know if your like me, but I keep the Tuner in the side pocket of one of the rear doors, I flashed the computer back to stock form and 30 minutes later and a bag of Doritos the tow truck shows up, which was free because of the warranty and that was my saturday night... didn't even get to watch COPS. DA$%it!

The truck sat all day Sunday at the dealer because they're closed, but Monday I got the call about what was wrong. First they asked me if I had modified the engine or tranny in any way shape or form, I played dumb and responded with a "not yet!". He told me that an Interior clutch had disentigrated and a tension spring had broken and that it would need an overhaul . he told me a technician was already on it, and that it should be done on wednesday, then he asked if I would need a rental car. Which means warranty is going to pick up everything! I think I got lucky this time around, so I decided to keep my truck in the stock form, until I order an XCAL2 from Mike.


The only good outcome in this whole thing, was that I got to test drive a new Ford Fusion from Enterprise. Other than that, I think the anticipation for the big brown trucks arrival with your Tuner From Mike is far less intense than the wait from your service advisor letting you know if your repair is going to be under warranty or not.

sorry for not getting right to the point and for the long post.

DONT GO GENERIC! ONLY THE BEST FOR YOUR TRUCK! IT PAYS!

 

What did the tuner have to do with the tranny problem? Could it be that it was just time for it to go.

 

on an 04.. it shouldnt have been "just time for it to go"

 

sorry about that, I didn't notice the year. sorry

only dodges need tranny rebuilds that fast.

 

Although I can't say for sure whether or not it would be the tuners fault, I find it highly unlikely that a generic 5.4 tune made the tranny fail. Sometimes, stuff just breaks. The only way I could see to blame the tuner for that would be if the shift points were way to hard and fast. I have seen trannys on all kinds of cars die in as little as 20000 miles.

Your tune isn't going to cause your tranny to fail any faster than it would normall otherwise. And, just for curiousities sake (not trying to start a fight here) why would you say that Troyers tuns is so great or so much better if you haven't even used it? Thats like saying ferrari is the best car because a bunch of other people say it is, cause it isn't.

 

Might have some thing to do with it????


No offense vegas.......

Seriously, You enjoyed that?

 

Wow. I have a blown 5.4 with a Troyer Tune on an XCal2 and a FTVB. My shifts are hard, but I don't bark my tiny 31.5 inch Nittos. Granted I have a 4x4x4 S'Crew, but I have gobs of power. Dayum I think something was set wrong...like shift pressure.

 

The truck has just over 18k

It's not literally whiplash shifting, sorry I didn't exactly specify what I meant by whiplash. By Whiplash, I mean, not Town Car shifts.

And no I didn't enjoy the Ford Fusion it was a 4 cylinder, my girlfriends Mazda 6 whooped my ***. (also 4 cylinder)

The only reason I said to buy from Troyer is because I've only read positive things about his products.

The reason I think the tuner caused the tranny problems is because the service advisor told me the technician said the truck was shifting at higher RPM, I don't know exactly how they know that, maybe there were burnt crisp parts in there. I just put 2 and 2 together...

All I know now, is that I have my truck back, and I'm hesitant to stick the tuner to it again. I don't know if it was my heavy foot, or now just shift pressure like desparado said.

 

Im not trying to insinuate any thing, so dont take this the wrong way...


How often were you flooring it???

Was it just once in a blue moon or repeatedly every day??


Im just kind of curious as to how much abuse it takes to kill a new tranny.

 

Mine will SOMETIMES bark the tires... It really depends on the blacktop characteristics. I have floored it sometimes froma dead stop and it just caught grip and went.. little or no spin. SOmetimes though, I can floor it froma dead sotp it it burns rubber for 50 ft... So, I have deemed it to blacktop variances. I also have roughly 31" tires and 4.10's

 

I have 31.5 Nitto 404's, 410's, FTVB........ probably just 200 hp, and you better be steering straight when it shifts to 2ND at more than 3/4 throttle or it will hop.........I have to think this depends on the individual truck, and lots of other variables.......custom tuning is the answer.
I have a new s/c tune coming from Troyer, and I have requested the softest less than WOT shifts possible....LOL

 

Podunk, I hate to say, but I constantly floor the truck and kinda knew the abuse was going to take its toll, just not this early. It's like a bad habit, lol. I knew the power was there when I needed it, So I abused the hell out of it I guess.

 

While I would tend to agree that constant abuse will tend to shorten a components service life, we HAVE in fact over the course of many years seen numerous "generic" or "off the shelf tuners that do things that can indeed contribute to the shortening of automatic transmission service life. Normally, most major name brand units are OK, but your best bet is a proper custom tune done for each individual vehicle.

We do not use any pre-supplied "value files" as most "tuners" do, we build everything we use from scratch and test - we have specialized in F-150 performance tuning for 14 years, and not once have we destroyed a customer's transmission thru our tuning changes - trying to approach things thru pressure alone, or by removing all torque mgmt, or even just a tad too much in certain areas, will indeed smoke even the newer 4R75-E's, which can take quite a bit of abuse.

If it's tuned right, the 4R75-E can take quite a bit of abuse, included superchargers with no shortening of service life - Roush proved that quite clearly by going thru all of Ford's own internal durability testing, for example - IF it is calibrated correctly. Our 2004 is packing 500 Hp at the flywheel, about 400 at the rear wheels, is a daily driver, gets 1-2 WOT chirps frequently, and we have been into the tranny 3 times so far just to check everything out - and each time, it all looks like the day it was delivered. Of course, we flush it very frequently as well - if you want to play hard, you maintain it at higher levels, too.

Of course, we don't drive it like a race car every time we get behind the wheel, either - that too, can be a factor, even in a bone stock truck.

I really hate to see *anyone* have a problem with *any* tuning, but I also tend to agree that this most likely was not caused by tuning - more likely, it was caused by a combination of a tranny that was maybe a bit weak to begin with, perhaps on the outside of tolerances etc., and got subjected to a good deal of "abuse," so to speak, as the owner freely admits - he seems to be a very nice & candid fellow - and one to whom we wish the very best of luck.

If you'd like to have us do so, we can retune your existing SCT hardware with *our* custom tuning, and you will get more power and performance, as well as a perfectly safe transmission calibration - should you decide to go that route.

I wouldn't get carried away with people starting to claim that all tuning is somehow going to damage all transmission, as we can see from many years of posts here that this obviously isn't even close to the truth.

I with you well Vegas04FX4, and feel free to call us if you would like to have us provide *our* Troyer Performance custom tuning for that F-150, so you can get maximum safe & sustainable performance from that vehicle, along with a lot of valuable info about what you can and cannot do to make that tranny last - and best of luck whatever you decide!

 

Thanks for your reply Mike, and for the good luck!

I spoke to Anita on the phone, who was indeed very helpful and certainly knew her stuff! I will indeed be doing business with you guys shortly!

 

can troyer performance load a custome tune in to a 1715?