As told to me by a retired powertrain controls engineer at Ford. After spending millions of dollars on blown up engines and transmissions on the powerstroke equipped vehicles, Ford became very suspicious of aftermarket "tuning devices". They instructed the engineers to create a bullet proof way to determine if the controllers software had been modified in any way and this is what they came up with.

I am prerry sure GM uses a similiar idea.

The powertrain controllers have a cute little sub routine in their software. When a factory program is uploaded to the controller, this subroutine generates a random PAIR of numbers. It attaches one number to the contoler monitor software and the other to the uploaded program. IF an aftermarket program is dumped into the controller, the sub routine generates a new number to attach to the uploaded program but NOT the monitor software. The two numbers now do not match and the controller notes this. When a dealer scans the controller, they can identify that the numbers do not match and can without fail tell you the program was modified from original. Blow up a motor, tranny or fuel system and you can bet the manufacturer will want to see the data from the controller monitor. Then, its very easy to state that you, the consumer modified the vehicle and caused any damages to components that were designed and built to operate ONLY with factory programming. Very easy for them to prove and very hard for you to disprove. That and they can probably afford WAY better lawyers than most people can.

It has nothing to do with what you can get away with, it has to do with what is right. When you payed for your vehicle a warranty was included in the purchase price and you may have even opted to purchase an extended warranty at an additional cost to you. Either way that addition cost or built in cost in the price of the vehicle was calculated based on failure rates and trends that were observed in stock vehicles. When you get them to cover something once you have installed a tuner you are STEALING, it is not right and it is illegal. This entire debate is basically over "what can I get away with" and that in itself is wrong.

it was in for a egr valve and while it was in they updated the computer with the new flash which instantly made the truck run god awful and no power and alot of smoke when they could not get the program to run correctly they called ford and had a 6.0 tech from Detroit come down to look at it, they got it better but not right and is about to go in again for hopefully the final time, the tech had 2 days with the computer and truck and nothing was ever said, so all i am saying is I'm not trying get one over the dealer or Ford as i am not attempting to run the hell out of the truck, but when a new update for the computer causes such a f'n mess with a vehicle that was running great, I WILL take it in under warranty

Your EGR problem could very well have been caused by the tuner, the excess soot that is produced by over fueling the engine, which is what is going on when they blows a huge cloud of black smoke, is a very common cause of plugged EGR valves. This is just one of the MANY issues caused by these things that people don't seem to understand. It isn't just a popped motor that these things can lead to. It strains the hell out of the rest of the drive train too. The Allison behind the Duramax is only rated for a little more power then the engine makes in factory form, as soon as you add virtually any of the tuners to them you are exceeding the transmission's rating. It is a great trans and all but over time this will take it's toll on it. You don't have to be pushing the truck to it's limits with a tuner to damage things that would not have been damaged without it. As far as the reflash issue, they should cover that and it sounds like they are. I obviously don't know the details of your EGR problem but they can be and are commonly caused by power programmers.

Actually, the factory has the burden of proof and has to prove that the aftermarket product caused the failure. I am involved in a law suit as we speak with G.M.

They don't have that ability with the 6.0L. Only on the newest ones, along with GM's newest Duramax.

I'd be more worried about the head gasket and head studs on that 6.0 if it's got a programmer on it.

3rd egr, 2 without a tuner added, not worried about the tranny, not even going to have ford deal with it as all they do is put a reman tranny back in and i have seen those pos's, got a good friend that has a tranny shop and we have already planned in case it pukes, might as well do it right.

My post directed the burden of proof on the customer due to an "enhancement" causing failure. The customer, that "chips" the vehicle, will still have to prove the enhancement did no damage.

Sam

EGR on a 6.0 is a no brainer. Unplug it. No CEL, no more sticking. If it's a late '03 or an '04, pull the butterfly valve from the intake too. Check on dieselstop.com if you need detailed instructions.

I'll say this, we have quite a few Powerstrokes in the fam, from the 6.0 to newer 6.4, all modded/tuned, and not a single problem. I know my uncles Harley 6.0 has over 100K miles with SCT tune, exhaust etc and still runs better then stock and that truck sees a ton of use with towing. The 6.4s stock sucked, surging, major lag, Ford flashes making it worse.

As long as its a good tune/tuned correctly I would not be worried....heck the trucks run better with tune, exhaust, dpf delete etc (more power, smoother, lower egts, better mpg). When it comes to the other makes I'm not sure as I only have one good friend that had a modded 5.9 Cummins and now the new 6.7 Cummins, when he first got the 6.7 it already had to go back in for an engine replacement after like 2-3 weeks (stock). And some other stuff was wrong so they were able to swap for new truck of which has been fine since then except for the mileage is **** compared to the 5.9