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Tuning question? Livernois or experts please chime in..


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With the wake of the warranty denial thread am my sadness that went along with it I have a question. How would the dealer be able to tell if I bought and installed the tune from Livernois? Also would I be able to put the stock tune back before I took it in so they wouldn't know? I went into my dealer today because they are doing the front brake TSB, an I asked about modifications and he sternly told me to not touch the car. Why, oh why can't they have a performance guy there!? .. Any help would be great thanks!

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This has always been a widely debated topic, and the general consensus is they can tell if you flash the EEC, even if you flash it back. Flashing it changes some sort of value in the EEC that can't be unchanged, which is the red flag that the car's been changed.

 

All dealers will react differently about mods. It seems like if you're up front with them, they'll likely be more leniant. Last time I had my car in, for the first time at a different dealer, he talked to me for a few minutes about how I liked it, and asked if I had anything done to it yet. My answer was obviously no since I don't...I dunno if he was being friendly, or snooping for info.

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How a individual dealer acts is unknown, honestly they shouldn't care unless its something they know ford will deny or send out a rep to investigate. But as to the warranty being denied in the other thread is ridiculous, it is a known issue and there is a TSB for it there no reason ford to deny the claim.

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You know, I never thought to ask my service manager if there is a way to tell or not. I would believe they can tell, not exactly what the tune was but that the ECU was flashed. I will have to ask him when I get the car serviced. My dealer is aware of that I have my car tuned and they seem OK with it, even will warn me if they have to update the ECU, so I can put it back to stock, so the tune isn't messed up. But I've had the car in a few times for warranty work, and they have never said anything about any of the mods.

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According to my dealership once they plug in to the computer it downloads any codes and history of the ECU and sends it directly to Ford. I'm not sure if they told me that to try and scare me or not. They also told me they didn't care if I tuned it but if anything major were to happen to the motor Ford would likely send a rep or engineer to check it out if they tried to turn it in under warranty.

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According to my dealership once they plug in to the computer it downloads any codes and history of the ECU and sends it directly to Ford. I'm not sure if they told me that to try and scare me or not. They also told me they didn't care if I tuned it but if anything major were to happen to the motor Ford would likely send a rep or engineer to check it out if they tried to turn it in under warranty.

 

The whole send it to ford thing is a scare tactic.. That's not true

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An ECU guy at work told me the returning to stock will set a "start date". So they could tell that the adaptive learning started yesterday. He also said the same thing happens if you remove your negative cable.... NOW we do have an ex Ford ECO strategy guy working at a different facility, I will try to contact him and ask him directly.

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To be honest in the end if you don't want any warranty issues don't mod the car and that's it. I made the mistake of thinking just my cat back exhaust wouldnt' cause any issues and I'm paying for it now. I'm used to my Dodge dealership's being super nice about light mods and not hassling me about any of them. Hopefully I'm not flagged in Ford's system already. :(

As far as the tune...in the TSB we recieved (and was posted in my denial thread) it specifically tells dealers what to inspect to see if a tune has been flashed. So it sounds like if they look hard they can find if it has or hasn't been tuned but not to sure. In any case it's a risk pertaining to your warranty either way.

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To be honest in the end if you don't want any warranty issues don't mod the car and that's it. I made the mistake of thinking just my cat back exhaust wouldnt' cause any issues and I'm paying for it now. I'm used to my Dodge dealership's being super nice about light mods and not hassling me about any of them. Hopefully I'm not flagged in Ford's system already. :(

As far as the tune...in the TSB we recieved (and was posted in my denial thread) it specifically tells dealers what to inspect to see if a tune has been flashed. So it sounds like if they look hard they can find if it has or hasn't been tuned but not to sure. In any case it's a risk pertaining to your warranty either way.

 

Tune can void warranty and drifferent dealer deal with you drifferently about them. IF your crank shaft breaks in half at 6kmi the dealer will say it the tune you have Ford investgated they say fall factory part that sould be repaired by FORD TUNE OR NOT BUT if vale timing cause a pre-denation and takes out your heads that your tuner. FORD WILL NOT AND SOULD NOT HAVE TO FIT THIS. The dealer will say both are the tuner. But some dealer are real butt holes by try to say a tune voids a warrant on the chrone trail light pill. And that is wrong. The more a dealer can turn down as warrant the more work they get at full price, warrant work payes at a drifferent scale than retail scale.

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Posted on my local SVT page because I know the X Ford ECU programmer is on their. He hasnt chimed in but another did stating they can see how many times something changed or re-started. They cant tell what changed but it leaves a tick at every re-flash. I am sure this would lead them to speculate it was all the owners fault, but I dont see how it would prove you broke anything.

 

There doesnt seem to be to many mechanical issues with these as it is. The turbo leak in the early machines is the only common issue I have seen. Still baffles me a dealer would to pin their known problem on exhaust pipe. Whats next? My cone filter broke my sun shade?

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They can both determine the number of times the PCM has been flashed' date=' as well as the number of starts the vehicle has had since the last flash.[/quote']

In the TSB there's specific instructions to check this and that...in a nutshell what those instructions lead them to is just finding out the number of times the PCM has been flashed, as well as the number of starts the vehicle has had since the last flash?

 

That doesn't really prove it has had a tune on it. I mean if they where to ask about you could simply say I disconnected the battery (which would leave the same record as a tune would, correct?) because something was acting funny or I was washing the engine or w/e excuse you want to come up with. I mean if that's all they can see then they're pretty helpless at denying claims due to a tune since they can't see any clear proof there was one on the car.

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