I was curious if anyone has any problems with using the Superchips programmer or if anyone has had any problems with their truck after using it?
I was talking to a dealership about it because I am getting ready to lift my truck and need to re-calibrate my speedometer (and was hoping to increase my gas mileage and hp and torque) and they said don't ever use one (not necessarily just superchips but any programmer for that matter) because it will fry my computer. They said that it may not happen in a month or a year but eventually it will damage my computer, cause serious engine problems and cost me more money in the long run. Has anyone heard of this or has anyone had these issues?

 

First mistake-telling a dealer, second mistake-actually believing those idiots. The dealer does not want you or anyone to use a tuner to adjust your tire size or gear ratio because it basically cuts them out of the loop and they can't charge you a c-note to hook up thier machine to change your tire size. They (dealer) will tell you anything to justify thier own existance. Also there have been chips or tuners in one form or another on the market for almost 20 years, and I have never heard of a damaged or destroyed computer because of thier proper use.

 

when i bought my truck itook it to the dealer because my trans would shift into overdrive at 35mph.the service manager said sorry to here about you luck! and that was the way my truck was going to shift .no fix for it,then one of the mechanics stop me in the shop and told me to buy a tuner that this would fix it and not hurt my truck! hope this helps .btw my excal2 is on order wright now and will be here very soon cant wait!

 

The service manager told me to get a tuner because I was complaining about no power or passing gear and they couldnt do anything. But he told me to return the tune to stock before bringing the truck for service.

 

Hi Wayne,

It sounds like someone's giving you BS scare stories, as much as I hate to stamp a label on people I don't know, that just doesn't hold water, and would not be said by anyone with any real experience in this area.

First - it's nonsense that a tuner would cause your PCM to fail "not in a month or a year, but eventually" - as is evidenced by the fact that they claimed to not ever used them. If that were true, then how could they *possibly* know?!? Utter BS.

Funny how the stock factory program doesn't damage your vehicle's PCM. The existence of a program in the PCM does not damage it, that's what the PCM is made to do - take a software control program made for it and use it to take input from sensors and control output devices. Just like your PC on your desktop runs whatever software you have installed on it. That doesn't seem to have damaged your PC any - you're able to get here with it.

Changing the PCM's program does not shorten it's lifespan - if it did, you would see these boards packed full of outraged owners by the tens of thousands - and you don't see any such posts here.

I've heard a lot of things over the years, but I think this is the first time I have ever heard this nonsense - a dealer claiming that a tuner was going to cause your PCM to fail eventually?!? None of our many personal vehicles we have flashed with a tuner has ever suffered such a fate over all these years, despite having been flashed many times by our tuners.

All it takes is reading a little bit here, and you will quickly see that there is no such pattern of what they claimed - and the posts here go back for the better part of a decade. So I don't know where those individuals got their info, but it obviously couldn't be from actual hands-on experience.

As you can probably tell from what others have been told by their dealerships and have posted here in response to your post, their story just doesn't hold water.

I hope that helps you, & please feel free to call us if you'd like to order a tuner, as we provide a special discount to members of F-150 Online and will be happy to go over any details & answer any questions you like.

 

Nuff Said.

 

Hold on I 'm having that problem Right now, I put a 75mm MAc Throttle body Plus i have a K&N Cold air intake, Under drive pullyes, Throttle Body spacer, And I'm Having a hell of problems And i have the micro tunner from superchips For Ford gas Trucks and i don't know what to do? I've Done so much **** to it to fix the problems and now they are comming back i'm getting the same DTC ZCodes that i replaced all the things it said was wrong with the truck!!!! What to do?????????????/ Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

 

If I were you, I would start stepping back, remove throttle body (put back on the stock one), remove throttle body spacer, cold air intake etc.. Return the pcm back to factory. Is it still having problems after all that? If not, slowly put each mod back on and test, when you hit the problem again, you'll know what's causing it.

 

WOW! I feel dawged now for writing that in - but had to know as I don't have much experience in this area so just wanted to get the facts straight. Thanks for the input all!

Mike,
I called Troyer Performance per your advice and I am sold on the XCal2 - thanks to Marc (Mark??). He was very helpful in answering all my questions and giving me some advice. The only bad news that he gave me was that I missed out on the "Group Sale" but I can't get it right now anyway because I don't even have my lift or new tires on right now - everything is all on order. Everything should be installed and finished on the truck by the 29th of this month! Then I will be calling Troyer Performance back around that time and placing my order. Any chance on you running that special again around that time?

Also, Marc did say that I needed to change out my 02 sensors - upstream and he did mention Bosch 02 sensors from Autozone. Well I did a search on Autozone and found that there was a Bosch O.E. Type (13117) and a Bosch Universal (15733) - I wanted to make sure that the Bosch O.E. Type (13117) is the correct one to get? If not should I be looking for something different that the XCal2 will be expecting?

Thanks,
Wayne