Looks like Ford is making the tuning of the new 2021 F150 harder to do.

Something to think about before hopping into that new 2021.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/articles...mpaign=content
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19 F150 max tow

 

Makes sense... mine has plenty of power.

 

i love my 5 star tune and it makes a whole world of a difference in improving the Overall drivability... I will eventually get into a next gen, and when they mentioned OTA diagnostics/updates i thought, this will be a challenge for Tuners and for the Consumer... Ford can easily determine if you are tuned just by scanning OTA... I guess for me next, instead of tune... its Powerboost all the way 😁

 

These sorts or articles pop up every few years...manufacturers think that their coding cannot be cracked or modded...someone will sort it out & have it handled in no time. Just a fluff piece...

 

Guess I will have to pull the trigger on a Motec for my DD.

 

My 2019 BMW already does this. It updates the software OTA 3 times a year and every time it does it, it wipes out all coding and locks the ECU with new encryption. The ECU has to be sent to a tuner to be bench unlocked if you want your tune back. I've turned the feature off. Welcome to 1984.

 

Some makers have made tuning their vehicles exceptionally difficult/burdensome. Ford could easily be going that route too

 

To much demand/support with Ford vehicles vs others, shops will easily spend the time and $ to crack even with OTA updates. BMW tried doing that and said you won't be able to tune etc, shops laughed and figured it out and could stop updates giving BMW the finger lol. Sure it's messier than before like pointed out above, and you have to disable OTA (one of my neighbors is a BMW rep, his new 440 is tuned).

Ford though, waaaaay to many vehicles in volume and one of the highest amount of shop manufacturers as a whole getting tuned (F150s, Explorers, Stangs etc). Imagine if they tried that with the Stang market alone, wouldn't last more than a month before shops cracked it.

One of my buddies friends owns a Porsche/Audi tuner here (USPmotors), Audi etc have tried making it very hard, nope, cracked lol. And those RS3s tuned are f'n monsters that are waaaay faster than their #s would make you think, little buggers with a few mods are trapping 140+ while daily drivable lol. And with their traction absolutely insane rockets on the street, keep thinking about grabbing one to play with, tempting lol

 

GM has done it on the C8. Supposedly military grade encryption, with all interconnected modules requiring a handshake to function properly. So far it hasn't been cracked, but it's been less than a year. All performance mods like turbos so far have all needed a piggyback module to function. My guess is it will take quite some time for the programming to be broken. OEMs are likely to develop partnerships/license the encryption; for C8 it will likely be with long time partners like Callaway and Lingenfelter.

 

What was stated above about BMW sounds like a time consuming, ongoing, constantly undone and needs to be redone, pain in the ***. And they aren't event he worst so far.

It sounds like tuning the newer trucks could be a significantly larger investment in time and effort, best case...