Programmers and Warranty
 

How many people really worry about programmers/chips/downloaders voiding their warranty?

I have an 08 duramax and am trying to decide whether or not to install the PPE programmer. I just don't want the hassle of the warranty problems, which supposedly chevy is starting to crack down on alot harder now.

Read my thread under Blown Engine!!!! I am currently in a law suit with General Motors and I didn't even have a programmer and they still denied the warranty.
The 07' and later LMM Duramax will show it has been altered in the computer. Your warranty will be void!
Look at : www.duramaxforum.com
www.dieselplace.com

The saying among Dodge owners after you install a programmer is " You are your own warranty". Alot of it depends on the dealership and your relationship with the service writer/service manager unless STAR becomes involved. Then your prettty much on your own. IMO
Jay

Yep.

Sam

Use a plug in box, Quadzilla, instead of a programer. It can be removed with no eveidence of it ever being there :party-smiley-004:

ooooooo.....not sure thats true. Only people making the claim of no footprints left on the truck are smarty....and thats for a cummins. I cannot find anything on quadzilla that says they leave no trace. That being said...the quadzillas are very nice boxs.

The BEST thing you can do for a duramax is to find somebody good with EFIlive. You can turn off the DPF, and the idle whistle with that bad boy.

This is why people who have legit problems are having trouble getting warranty coverage. Why do people do this sh!t? If you do install a programer and have a problem and then pull one over the dealers head and get them to cover it it is called theft. The whole programmer thing has gotten out of hand on these diesels and it had cost the manufacturers ALOT of money in the last few years. This sh!t should follow under the same laws as insurance fraud if you ask me, it is the same thing. The whole "it's OK to hoodwink the big boys" thing is a steaming pile of sh!t. If you want to run a programmer and make more power you need to just accept that you have invalidated your warranty and you now need to step up and pay for any damages that occur.

yep I see it every day with fords

Somebody tries to rip off stealerships? They should be so ashamed trying to get over on the dealer. The dealer would never screw anyone over! :rolleyes:

racerngrl1: It depends on the service department. The dealer that I use would say that if the programmer caused the problem, you're S.O.L., but if it's in there and the problem wasn't directly related then they didn't see it installed.

I think my 06 D-max is powerful enough without a programmer. Not worth the voided warranty.

I think alot has to do with the dealer some around here have been known to put them on. I run them all the time once you get a feel for it it sucks to drive them stock.

Dealer has nothing to do with it. It's the manufacturer. And the last time I looked, someone else doing something wrong is no excuse for you to do the same. I hope you're not passing this sort of thinking along to kids...

Dealers are pretty much out of the loop on toasted engine claims. Nothing gets covered without a factory tech rep looking at it. And, in light of many millions in claims on damaged engines, they've gotten really good at it.

Lastly, I own 6 different Ford 6.0 trucks. Two personal vehicles and 4 shop trucks. All of them are absolutely stock. With a maximum towing load on them, I've never once felt the need to have more power. I've towed my boats at interstate speeds through the Appalachian mountains and never once had the pedal down on the floor. In fact, on the really looong hills, I felt myself backing out a bit- over concern for the transmission. On level ground I'm sure I could go way faster than would be even remotely safe.

So why do you need a tuner?

When your empty/unladen and want to blow someones doors off! :ernaehrung004:

I had one on my 04 duramax and surprised a few people.. even an m3..
Never had any warranty issues though.

Warranty law is written such that the manufacturer cannot deny a warranty claim unless the issue is caused by the addition of the aftermarket part. The burden of proof is on them. You may have to sue them to get to that point, but ultimately the burden of proof is on them. If they can then show conclusively that the programmer caused whatever failure occurred, they can legally deny the warranty claim, not void the warranty.

Most dealership service personnel, and upper management will probably say screw you and you'll have to fight for some time, but in the end you may win.

Amen. I see this lack of personal accountability all the time and I wonder where the hell our values have gone in the last few decades. Everyone pays for this type of behavior in the end through increased prices for services and goods.

Just remember, If you use a programmer or any type of power adder. You are on your own when it comes to a factory warranty. Superchips Flashpaq does have a 2 year powertrain warranty with it. Is it worth it? No! I have been without my truck for 6 months now and like I said before, I didn't have any power adder. The manufactures are just grouping everyone together now and fighting any engine claims. It's not up to the stealership anymore. Yes, they do have to prove it caused the failure and it will take up alot of time and you will be without your truck but when you spend 50-60K for a truck, it's not worth it!
The new trucks DO show in the computer that they have been altered. I know for a fact that the GM trucks do. Good luck!

:cool-smiley-027:

the edge i have on my 6.0 psd never showed a footprint when it was at the dealer for updates and reflash

The burden of proof???? The customer will have to prove that the "enhancement " did no damage. This takes time and money. You are correct in regards to the Magnuson
Moss Act. The only problem is any "enhancement" that increases the factory level of performance can be seen as a direct cause of failure. Sure, a power window motor is not going to fall under this rule, but you can sure bet that any drivetrain related part will.


Sam

Just b/c they werent looking for one doesnt mean its not there. I would be cautious if you are counting on the warranty for anything above and beyond the little stuff that most people experience.......these vehicles operate under very strick tolerances and anything above and beyond those are usually logged.

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

you are not correct about the law. the law describes broad parameters for warrantee claims but does not address, nor could it legally address the specific published limitations ( and agreed to at time of purchase )to any warrantee as long as they don't violate ICC code.

ford says " these actions void your warrantee" you do them and they discover it one way or another and the law is no longer on your side.

and the other posters are correct. if you want to screw with your hardware at least be man enough and have enough integrity to not have to try to swindle someone when you or your aftermarket supplier screw up.

I wouldn't do it if you expect the warranty to be upheld. Sure, you may get lucky with a liberal service dept but why risk it. Just for the record, I had a DP Tuner installed in my F250 at 105K miles with gauges and exhaust. I now have 125K with about 3.5K miles towing a 11,500lb boat/trailer without a problem. I love the way the truck responds with the chip. Very quick on acceleration, similar to a gasoline engine. Of course I'm not burning rubber... except those rare occasions when I'm feeling froggy.