freyke

Agreed!

FordService

+1
Hello all,

Just to clarify, your New Vehicle Limited Warranty is 3 years or 36,000 miles bumper-to-bumper and 5 years or 60,000 on your Powertrain. This info can also be found in your warranty guide.

Deysha

2011Mustang5.0

Ford does benefit from the aftermarket! When you decide to mod your car straight out of the dealer, you chose to start paying for ALL the parts ( if broken from normal wear ) that Ford would have been paying for, obviously within your warranty period.

FastRedPonyCar

Yeah a friend of mine with a bone stock evox had some engine issues and they denied him warranty work when they found out he had run the car at an auto x event.

Also lest we forget, GM explicitly states in their owners manuals pretty much what this TSB states. that said however, a coworker has a new camaro SS with a tune and had some random issue with his engine that he took it in for (with the tune still loaded) and they fixed the problem without any questions because it was totally unrelated to the tune.

spike

The tuners are listening and responding. My dad got a Bama 93 octane race tune for his 5.0 at the beginning of the spring. At high RPM and WOT there was a nasty ping (more like a screech). He back off immediately. Coincidently a week later, Bama sent out an update file directly referencing the forums discussing no. 8 piston failure. With the new tune, the high rpm ping is gone, power is slightly down but still improved over stock, and the throttle response is still just as good as the original tune. So it seems that there was a problem that could be related directly to the tune that Ford isn't interested in paying for (although some would and have argued that the engine should not be this sensitive) but the tuners are adjusting and correcting issues.

MRGTX

Thanks for the clarification, Deysha.

Can you offer any advice to those of us who have installed tunes in our cars?

Specifically, would Ford automatically reject any engine warranty claim on the very basis of a tune having been installed, no matter how many miles nor how long ago?

My car had a tune in it for fewer than 1000 miles...but it has been back stock for a while. A couple days ago, I thought that I might have heard a "tick" from my motor and I had a moment of panic that if a problem did crop up, that I did myself in by running the Bama tune at one time.

Fortunately, I'm 99.99% sure the motor is just fine (I listened very closely for quite a while)...but the question lingers.

Any insight on this would be appreciated.

FordService

Hey MRGTX,

All I can recommend is that, any aftermarket part you’d like to add to your vehicle, have it installed by your Ford dealer. This avoids most mishaps with your warranty. However, if a specific aftermarket part causes a concern, that specific repair will not be covered by your Ford warranty, but by that aftermarket part’s warranty if it came with one. You can refer to your Warranty Guide on page 13 for further info.

Deysha

lidserra

Three reasons.. intellectual property rights, competitive advantage and EPA compliance.

- intellectual property: Ford and all manufacturers have a great deal of time and money invested into the development of an engine. By publishing the limitations of the engine management systems, you start exposing your intellectual property for what benifit?

- competitive advantage: GM, Chrysler, Toyota would just love to know the performance limitations of their competitor's products for free!

-EPA compliance: How do you think the conversation would go between the EPA and Ford if they published how to defeat the engine management system safe guards and control parameters? Mr. Ford... please write a check for xxx Million dollars as a penalty, payable to the US Treasury.

Re: Intel and Overclocking.... you can be a little more liberal on physical limitations when it does not reveal your internal design. What you propose on specific system tolerances is far beyond what Intel published.

Tuners have a niche, but they will have to learn their limitations as all hot rodders have over the years. Just ask Jack Roush how many engines he had toasted or blown up in the 70's during his Gapp n Roush days?

Buyers of tunes need to take the same ownership that the old school tuners did in the day.. trust me.. I have changed my share of metering rods, jets, power valves, advance springs, cams, pistons, etc. (If you have a puzzled look on your face what these are.. relax.. the analog method of tuning.. it was fun.. made you really think about what you were going to do) some combinations worked good.. others not so good.... Pissed off a few friends along the way too when we had to pick up the pieces.

Boomer

Really easy in todays world to point and click somethings/change settings and not realize what potential consequences could be had in the short term or in the future.
Even if things look good now.

Another issue is the effect on parts as time goes on.
Not that Ford can predict how things turn out, but the aftermarket has only a small limited ammount of time or resources to spend on R&D and testing by comparison.

It's not that the engine (or in any case) parts can't take it, but why should Ford have to fit the bill for something another manufacturer/tuner fudges up?
There's a bunch of different roads to achieve HP and performance...how you get there MAY compromise the hardware.

assasinator

im betting ford will encrypt these PCM's and end the discussion. they already have for the SHO.

hawkeye18

I hadn't heard that over at the SHOForum. Details? Last I knew Torrie McPhail was still tuning them.

Anyway, it seems like Ford's slipping back into their old habit of treating their fans and customers as potential thieves and criminals, respectively. Wasn't it one of these forums that got sued by Ford for putting out a Mustang calendar a decade or so ago? It's rather a shame, they seemed like they were starting to genuinely care for us.

And I've earned my right to an opinion; I've bought one of their cars. And it cost very nearly $40k. Sticker was higher than that. I love the car, just starting to like the company less.

rhumb

I recall when they loosed their lawyers upon Blue Oval News a few years back over I forget what mortal transgression -- might have sounded good in the Ford legal department but was a terrible PR failure extraordinaire overall going legal goon over a FAN site (not like it was some evil competitor or something). The lasting impression was something like, "If that's how Ford treats its friends... "

Anyways, I would have hoped they would have learned from that but I guess there are tone-deaf pockets still within Dearborn, MI.

Perhaps rather than being recalcitrant, pissy and legalistic, Ford should get ahead of the tuner game rather than turning on such a huge and influential part of the Mustang customer base. Offer a range "offroad" tunes available through Ford Motorsports that they can at least have some control over all while earning hard cash and customer good will at the same time.

lidserra

And you say you can't fight city hall.. and you think no one reads these posts?

Bama Tunes Warranty Post Info
Great news, see post: http://www.allfordmustangs.com/forum...-warranty.html

Bama now covers cyl #8 failures on 2011-2012 5.0l

OK, not don't get to hard on them.. they have disclaimers and limits, just like Ford.

Congrads to Bama for listening to the concerns of the market.

Just goes to show.. if you do not ask, you will not get anything.

Lid Serra
2012 3.7L Lava Red Coupe