newsnose

I put mine back to stock anytime it goes to the dealer for any reason. Only takes a few minutes and it's better to be safe, imho. You might tell the your service rep not to touch anything and just do the oil change, but there are no guarantees the word will get to the tech.

funmoneypit150

iTrader: (4)

^x2


Anytime you take the truck to the dealer you should return it to stock imo. The dealer might pull up your truck on their system and see that there is a software flash update that they can do. Why wouldn't they do it. Then you have issues with your tuner.

vozaday

I agree with those above about going to stock. Unless you buy a OBD2 cover that says do not flash like diablosport has. Also 5 Star/Stage 3 offers warranty to purchase so that you don't have to worry about Fords warranty.

Tothemax

I talked to 2 different dealerships about tunes. Both said tunes leave a footprint that can be detected.

Ex. If you blow your transmission and they scan your ecm, they will see the truck was making higher than normal hp/torque ratings. Then will deny the warranty work because of that.

Now that being said I run a 5 star tune on 91 tow/performance. I wanted it just for the mileage increase, Im a pretty conservative driver. I remove it anytime the truck goes in for service.

dcrabby

Years ago a friend installed a tuner program on my F-150 to show me how it worked. A few days later while driving to work, the engine shut down repeatedly. It would restart normally. I took it to the dealer svc ctr. After about 30 min, the svc mgr came to me and told me that their diagnostics system was throwing codes that were inconsistent with the problem. He then says (paraphrase)"It looks like someone has reflashed the computer in your truck and it is failing. We have updated your truck and it is ready to go. There will be no charge today, but if it happens again we MAY have to charge you for svc and reflash. " I know he was serious because a couple of weeks later my F350 quit and nothing worked, I had it towed to the dealer. The svc teck found the problem quickly. I had a power lift gate installed and a ground had come loose and shorted a a fuse block. They presented me with a big chg for the tow and work. The ford svc mgr was good enough to call the shop that installed my lift and then sent the bill to them. Good cust / svc relations!!

vozaday

Yes good customer / service relations really does help. I have a level installed and the dealership knows this. Everytime I go in I bring a box of donuts and coffee. Well I finally had an issue with a noise I thought was in the front end (turned out to be a hitch in the back contacting my 5th wheel hitch sending a vibration to the front of the truck), I brought the truck in and they checked every nut and bolt. They didn't charge me for the visit, when they really could have.

spence08

I had my engine replaced under warranty almost a year ago. I put the stock tune back in before it was towed. I left the catless downpipes on though. Ford never asked a question. I had my truck back in less than 2 weeks. I'm friends with the tech and he said they don't have anything at the dealership that can tell if I was or wasn't tuned but he did say if ford chooses to send someone to further investigate my warranty then they can tell. He said it's totally random but some times they will send someone to investigate and they will have your pcm sent to the company who makes them for ford and they can figure out pretty much anything they want. As already stated though it's really up to the dealer. It also helps to get to know someone in the service department. They knew I had a programmer but didn't really care.

bluefox_gt

there is something we can use as techs to tell if a vehicle has had a flash. Its called Mode 9 data in the PCM. It tells us and FoMoCo if a vehicle has been flashed. It holds all the startup cycles and calibrations that can not be cleared with anything other than a reflash

vozaday

Ok, so my vehicle has had 2 Ford reflashes. Can they tell how many flashes? Or just how many starts since the last reflash? I also thought the only way they could tell is if the was a p1000 code, which would happen if the battery was disconnected.

RLXXI

Ex Ford tech here, I have IDS and took a screen shot of mode 9 data, can you tell me what in there shows a vehicle has been tuned or not?





I don't see any red flags but we were using NGS and WDS when I left the dealer so maybe I'm over looking what would give away a vehicle being tuned at dealer level.

Appreciate it.