devildog1679

Curious about something. They say Ford can tell if you flashed the PCM with aftermarket tune and the tuner TSB is unsettling. What if you had a second PCM and flash that one. Then when you go in for any major service swap the original PCM back in as well as stock air intake. Would this work? How much is a new PCM?

Norse1974

If you are that worried about loosing your warranty then don't mod the car....

Napoleon85

Lol I said almost the exact same thing on the sister thread at mustang evolution.

devildog1679

Yep, the wife said no to engin mods

Rob72

From what I has gathered the pcms are not plug and play. They are not programmed from Ford and the dealer must flash them before install. This is something that you need to confirm from a reliable source.

ShaneM

my understanding is that they can only tell that the ECM was reset not that it was custom tuned. basically if you have a tune and return to stock it looks to them the same as if you left the lights on and the batt was dead. i know a guy that is a mechanic at the local chevy dealer and they can tell that the ecm has been flashed though so its possible ford looks for that too.

Rob72

I have heard as well that Ford cannot tell between a dead battery and a flash. But if you bring in the car with low compression on #8(P0308) and the ECM shows 2 resets what do you think Ford is going to do?

cbaty08

I don't think they will say anything; play stupid and they won't have any clue that you did something to actually void the warranty.

They can tell if you have flashed, but like others above said it looks just as if the battery died. After you flash stock, it is suggested to drive 100 miles to build up some logging in the computer.

Mishri

No, what happens now if you have a warranty repair for a 5.0 engine ford wants the dealership to send in the ECU/PCM before warranty work is approved. they have the tools to tell if any parameters were ever changed. flashing the programming back to stock doesn't fix that. They'll see it and say warranty work denied, you have to pay the $4,000 for the repair. They can also tell if you flashed it because of the number of engine starts will be reset, and draining/disconnecting the battery doesn't reset those values. I figure if i blow up the engine because of mods I'll have to pay for it. If i don't think the mods caused the issue then i'll fight with ford about it, I wont try to hide anything.

Rob72

You drive an extra 100 miles on it and you may convert a $4000 repair job to an $8000 replace job. And I do believe that Ford can tell the difference between a flash and a dead battery on these copperheads.