I had recently changed my car's tune back to the stock one. When I take it to a dealership for service can they determine if it had been once changed?
If so, is there any type of procedure to get around it?

Thanks.

 

I heard that you need to drive 50 miles after you tune it back to stock, or disconnect the battery for 10 mins.

 

A friend of mine used to work as a service advisor at a Ford Dealer and I asked him this exact question. He told me that even if the computer has been returned to stock the dealer can still tell that it's been changed.
With that said I've had warranty work done to my car and they didn't say a word.

 

I've heard they can and they cant. So best thing is to find a dealer you can work with and a little sucking up never hurt, ie - some breakfast biscuits for the service dept./advisor/mechanic or find out if the service advisor/mechanic would like some music dvd's or movies.

 

I thought only a ford engineer, not dealer techs, could tell the number of times the computer had been flashed?

The final word, I thought, was that they can tell it's been flashed, but unless you're getting into a serious warranty dispute they won't be sending a ford engineer out, and that the guys at the dealer who change your oil and do basic warranty work can't tell.

 

This is what I was told too, by a friend of mine who was a Ford mechanic. He told me the mechanics don't generally mess around with the ECU anyway.

 

Bottom line, YES...they can. The tune leaves a "footprint" in the ECU. Disconnecting the battery won't change that. A good friend of mine is a Ford Driveability Master Tech...so my information is from him. You CAN erase that footprint but it's going to take a Ford tech to do it using Ford equipment.

Now most of the time I imagine they would never look for that but if you have a claim that is suspicious to them then you might get found out

 

Thanks everyone. Thats some serious info there. So basically, it's similar to a laptop or desktop computer in that there are still "traces" left behind regardless.