tuner for 2012 ecoboost
 

I just sold my 2010 f 250 and it had a tuner on it. I would like to get one for my new f150 ecoboost. I there a company that makes a tuner for these trucks? I there a company that I should stay away from.

Before you get a programmer for an Ecoboost, you should discuss this with your dealer. Ford is trying to put a lid on that, and you may void your warranty.

Ford has also heavily encrypted the PCM, and I don't know if there are really any viable programmers for it yet.

You may ask - how are they going to know if you return it to stock before taking it in for service? Their equipment can tell if a programmer has EVER been connected and used.

I will make sure and do that.On my diesel I had a spartan tuner that saved the stock info. When i took it in for service I would load the stock tune and they could not tell.

Mike@ 5 star tuning

Superchips just came out with a new tuner for the ecoboost!

Before you do anything, do your homework first. There are a couple companies now making tuners for the ecoboost. Do a search on this forum and other forums. IMHO I would not buy any canned tuner and would hold off for a custom tune. There are good custom tuners working on this right now.Mike at 5star is one of them and unlike buying a canned tuner there names go along with the tune so its not just a mass produced tuner it comes with a name and reputation!

They CAN tell now.

glc I think you are right that yes, now they are able to know if the pcm as been messed with by programmers/chips, but do you know when (what year/model truck) were they first able to tell?

i have an '07 5.4 custom tuned with a predator and I was told that if I turn back to stock, there is no way to tell on my truck that a tune was ever loaded.

my dad got an '11 5.0 and is interested in tune/programmer; are 2011's same as 2012s as far as being able to know if PCM has been tweaked

If Ford wants to find out (i.e. major warranty claim for an engine), they can tell if you flashed your 2007 PCM. If the most recent flash isn't listed in the Oasis report (performed by the dealer as part of their service, TSB, or other warranty work), then Ford has grounds to deny the claim.

Please remember that if Ford denies the claim, it doesn't matter what your dealer's service manager says. Warranty claims are paid for by Ford and executed by the dealer.

How do you know this?

Everyone said that with my 2008 250 and it wasn't true if you had a good programmer like my spartan or KEM. If you had a regular chip it would show up with their name. With a better programmer, nothing would show up at all.

I am NOT going to make any statements regarding anyone else's tuners, but this is absolutely not the case with our products.

When you say 'most recent flash', are you referring to the strategy or calid?
If so, how would a tune affect that?
If you are using a tuner that changes your calid when you flash your vehicle, you are asking for trouble. The right way to do things is to read the stock tune out of the vehicle, apply the changes to that stock file, and write it back. This way, only calibration data has changed, and there is NOTHING a dealership can see that would prove it had been tuned. If the stock tune was not restored, they'd have to read the PCM out with some tool (that dealers do not have) then send that read off to Dearborn to be compared in HEX to a known stock file, to see if there are any changes present.
If the truck had been previously returned to stock, there is NO way for anyone to tell it had been tuned. Period.

Again, I strongly disagree with what you are saying here. if this were the case, we'd have many customers with warranty issues after using our tuners, and that is simply not the case.

Also, why do you assume that a programmer is failing a log in? It sounds like you guys might be using some hackish tuners. Might be a good idea to look into how our tools work, and not throw the blanket statement out there that tuners will cause warranty issues, especially if you haven't spent any time on this side of the fence dealing with the actual PCMs.

+1....

Where does this info come from?

Mike,
Who said anything about warranty claims? All we're saying is Ford 1) could determine if your vehicle had been flashed and 2) could deny the warranty claim IF it was engine related.

You're assuming that owners with tuners
1) have experienced engine related failures
2) the failures could have been related to tuners
3) Ford investigated the cause of the failure

I'm not assuming anything...

I am saying that the info you are presenting is not correct in regards to our tuning products. There is no way for anyone to prove that you used one of our flash tuners on your PCM once it has been returned to stock.

We have all the same tools a tech has at the dealership, and then some. We would never release anything that left a big red flag saying "I have been tuned".

I didn't mean to attack your tuner of choice, but I'm getting the impression that this info may be coming from that direction? If no, please let me know.

It should be noted that not all tuners work the same way, so blanket statements should not be made regarding how they work. If you have specific info regarding how a specific programmer works, that should be clarified.

Thanks

I have been told that they can tell if a PCM has been accessed. The word was, there is a footprint left and that Ford was going to be aggressive about denying warranty claims if that footprint was there. This came from a service manager at a dealer, not a tuner.

Mike,
Sounds to me like Diablo should 1) market their units as the only one capable of remaining undetected and/or 2) pay for any engine/transmission/drivetrain warranty work denied by Ford as 'a result of improper modifications'.

Ya'll could make millions.

Thank god someone is here with some truth to the matter. No more hersay. Thank you.

Of course ford is going to use a scare tactic to stop people from doing anything to their trucks. Doesn't mean it's true though.

Yeah, that manager may well believe what he is telling you, but I bet you could bring your tuned truck to him and he'd never be able to tell it was tuned ;)

1. We do market them as being undetectable.

2. No way, there is no stopping dealers from bending people over and taking advantage of them in many cases, and we cannot be held responsible for that.

I promise you, our development processes are second to none. Our Ford flash processes are more stable and more easily recoverable than anything Ford has ever developed.

It might interest you to know that the owner of our company, Mike Wesley, was the first person to ever offer flash tuning for any Ford, ever. (Autologic)

In fact, if it weren't for him, and his pioneering efforts, and him getting sued by Ford and winning, this industry would not likely exist in this magnitude today.

We had grown from there in a big way, and consider ourselves among the leaders in the late model tuning industry, and we make sure that anything we develop and put out in the field is as solid as it can be.

I wasn't trying to turn this into an argument, but rather to inform you guys of some things that it seems are often misinterpreted.

Well it seems to me that if your units are truly untraceable Diablo has very little to worry about. After all, even when Ford denies the claim it won't be because the PCM and/or TCM was flashed. If it was then Diablo could step in and call Ford's bluff.

Sure would give prospective (and current) Diablo owners both insurance and piece of mind.

Thats where the law steps in.

The Magnusson-Moss act clearly states that a warranty cannot be denied simply because the vehicle has been modified. If they somehow determine that your truck was flashed, and decide to blindly cancel your warranty as a result, the law is on your side. Congress has more power than us :beers:

The law is good in theory, but is not really very practical in application. My engine blows and the dealer tries to get Ford to cover it. Ford says no as I had a CAI and a tuner on it. That takes 2 weeks. Now I can get a lawyer to try to get Ford to cover it. How many months is this going to be fought in court while I have no truck and how do I pay the legal fees? Not many can afford to go this route.

Actually, I really don't blame Ford as most of the tuned, modded engines have probably been abused. However, not in the case of someone like me. Had they not left so much on the table with the tuning of the 2005, I would never have needed a tuner. I have no desire to tune my 5.0 as it runs strong from the factory.

remember the part where I mentioned Ford sued our Boss years ago?
They didn;t like what he was doing, and he was confident that it was perfectly legal.
They told him to stop and he said no.
They (and their teams of lawyers) sued him. A guy making software in his basement. He not only won, but Ford had to pay his legal fees. I'm not proposing anyone get into a legal fight with an OEM, but if it comes to that, the law is on your side.

So since Diablo's tuners are completey undetectable, how about Diablo sues Ford on behalf of the owner when Ford denies the warranty claim for having a tuner?

Not to go off topic, but I believe that I've read somewhere that superchips were the first to start "messing" with PCM's? As far as brand names go, superchips was the only name I'd heard before I joined this site

Ummm...again, no ;)

If SC is admittedly the only one you ever heard of, it would make sense that you assume they were first, but I promise you I am not making any of this up :)

On the topic of firsts, we were the First company to ever offer a tuner for the new at the time Ford OAK PCMs, which means we have been doing 04+ F150 and 05+ Mustang longer than anyone else in the industry.

We were also the first (and still the only) to offer custom tuning to the HEMI crowd and to offer a tuner for the SRT8 applications.

We were first to tune the new at the time GM E40 PCM and to offer custom tuning software for any GM CAN based applications.

There are more, but you get the point I'm sure :thumbsup:

That's what I figured. It's easy to make claims when you don't have to back them up.

I'm done with this topic.

You have to admit you made a ridiculous request, sorry you dont like our claim or how we fail to back it up I guess.

Bottom line is, there was some misinformation being posted here. I made the mistake of attempting to clarify it, and some how I am the bad guy, its all good, just another day on the internetz for me :)

Not trying to beat a dead dog here, but maybe the reason its the only one I had ever heard of is because it was the most popular? I have never remotely thought about shopping for anything of this nature, until now. I had just overheard/ been told that friends had put a "superchip" in their car. Had someone asked me a month ago which was the oldest programmer, and had given me a list of all that were available, I would've said superchips. But that would just been me, the average ignorant consumer. To each his own I guess...

Wow! Just because you were proven wrong you shouldn't . No company is going to get into a lawsuit for you and spend thousands on your behalf. Gotta pay to play.

I can't believe the utter disregard for someones specialty professional knowledge you guys are showing. I do understand tune writers do have a large amount of stock in putting out a product that we will want to feel warm and fuzzy about installing and still keeping our warranty. Bully Dog was the first to market with a tune for the EB and it was utter crap. I haven't seen them on here trying to correct their junk tune reputation. If he says their tune is non detectable, why would you argue so fiercely that he is lying? Because you spent 5 minutes with the price gouging service manager at your local dealership and he said so? So rather than rushing to be the first, Diablo is taking time to do things the correct way while trying to inform us of what his tune can do. All the while BD produced crap and never once stepped up to defend their junk, yet you go this far to say Diablo is full of . I look forward to a sweet Diablo tune for my EB!

Agreed ^^^ thanks for the info Mike, people can take it however they want it. Maybe not all programmers/chips are untraceable, but good to know Diablo sport can stand behind their products

As someone running a custom predator tune, this was good to hear.

To the op .....wait for these guys to introduce their tuning products..... https://www.facebook.com/pages/Liver...43274389058264

First, didn't say anything negative about the guy. Just had a discussion of what I had been told compared to what he was telling me. Secondly, you made false assumptions about my service manager. He has always given me great prices for the dealerships service, plus, he has always been totally honest. Now, having said that, I would have to agree that he is an exception, but I trust him completely. If he says Ford is aggressivly checking for PCM invasion, then I believe that is what he believes. Is it possible he has been misled as to their capability? Sure, but I am not going to chance it until my warranty is out.

I have nothing against Diablo and in fact, would love to try their product some time.

Are you saying you can prove a PCM was flashed with one of our products, or some other brand of tuner?

Again, you are generalizing things.

"It is detectable"...what is 'it'

I never said you said anything negative about him. But the fact that you fail to acknowledge he might be correct and your service manager might be wrong is exactly what I said....disregard for his professional knowledge. I am glad you were able to find a good service manager, they are scarce now days.

With that said anything at all you do to your truck has potential to void part of the warranty. If your warranty is that valuable to any of you I suggest you error on the side of caution and not install a tune like Bluejay. If you would like to keep your warranty but are willing to take the gamble for a tune, I say go for it, you might be ok with the right company. We can discuss this all day long but there isn't going to be a determinative yes or no that any tuner is detectable or not without someone that has actually been approved or denied warranty work with a specific tuner. I really hope on the next thread I see about a tuner everyone can keep their mouths shut about the warranty and just discuss the product at hand.

I respectfully disagree with your desire to keep the warranty issue out of the discussion. It is a major part of any mod decision. We have had members that found out the hard way that their tranmission warranty was void due to a tuner. It is part of sharing info and that is what these discussion forums are all about. If a person decides to mod after understanding it may void the warranty, that is great, but he should do it with eyes open and full knowledge, not discover the hard way because someone failed to point out the risk.

You are correct. I retract my statement about people keeping their mouth shut about the warranty. I believe people should be informed that there may be warranty issues with any modification and kindly directed to one of the numerous other threads with discussions about warranties. This would help keep the threads about any mod that could impact a warranty from getting so convoluted with warranty talk no one really knows any more information about the original thread topic.

^^^^^^This is dead on.

But impossible to achieve. It's a good wish but given all the member personalities and the freedom to express thoughts, just won't work.

I would like to add that though some of you feel threads like this get confrontational I really did not see that so much in this one. I saw people with different experience and knowledge expressing their views, which I personally learned from. We have a vendor that says his product is undetectable and that may very well be true. We have people working with tunes that say they can detect when a PCM is accessed. I stated that my service manager, a guy that mods his own truck and has been very helpful to me for years, says Ford can tell and will deny claims when they see that. Is it not possible that all these things are true? Is it not possible that a tuner has discovered a way to not leave a footprint? People, this is what learning is all about. We share info and some of it may be conflicting. I wish that there was a way for Diablo to send a tuner to someone that is in the tuning business, using other products and let them see if it is in fact not detectable. Would that not be a great piece of knowledge to gain?

We have 1000's and thousands of tools out there, anyone is welcome to test the heck out of them with any tools they have access to :)

In my 6+ years here, we have never, ever, had a report from a single customer that their warranty was voided or even a warranty issue related to any of our tools, short of the cases where people roll into the dealership with the Predator sitting on their seat (or in one case, the guy plugged it in to read codes right in front of the service manager, lol).

When they say "I can prove you have a tuner', they are expecting you to say, "ok, but I didnt think it was a problem", or something like that, basically admitting it. The right answer is, "huh?".

This is also something that will vary from dealership to dealership.
We have a local Ford dealership that has our CMR software, and they use it to custom tune vehicles all the time, because it makes their customers happy. They also sell Predators to all of their Diesel customers, because they know their customers want better mileage. Obviously there are never any warranty concerns in this case. Heck, this same dealership loaned us a few 09-11 F150s and 11 Mustangs during our development process, brand new vehicles off the lot. If there was any chance that us flashing them could cause a warranty issue down the road, it would make little to no sense for that dealership to loan us the vehicles ;)
The local Caddy dealership was ALL OVER us to get support for the 09+ CTS-V so they could offer pulley/CAI/tuner packages for brand new cars off the lot. (and that PCM actually has a flash counter in it, not that we show up on it)

I get calls daily from GM, Ford and Dodge dealerships who carry and install our products for their customers all the time, so it really depends on where you go more than anything else...

So Mike, do you have a tuner for the EB? I looked at your site and didn't see one. If you do what numbers are you making?