I had some problems with my tuner and wiped my stock strategy off of it and had to send it in to have it cleared while I ran my truck off of the street tune.

So while I was waiting to get my tuner back I took my truck to the Ford dealership and asked them to reflash it and calibrate the speedo. I waited about 2.5 hours and they told me my truck was done. When I started my truck and drove it out of there I thought " Wow this new flash has got some zip to it.

I've been driving it about two weeks and finally got my tuner back so I figured I would check to see what the new flash was so I could have my tunes rewritten accordingly. When I hit vehicle info it came up as VXCF7 which is my tune strategy and NOT the newest strategy.

So I wanted to educate myself for when I take this thing back to the dealership to cry foul on them for charging me for labor not conducted.

To the Techs, Is there any way this could have been been a simple mistake and these guys tried to load the new flash and the truck just didn't take it. Or was this most likely a blatent attempt for the Tech to charge for labor not conducted?

I'm pissed, but don't want to go in there raising hell if it was a simple mistake.

 

I thought everybody always says to return your truck to stock before you have it reflashed? Idk. That's what I've always read.

 

ok they may have done the work but.....
they may not have used an ids that was at the latist calibration level

I dont know what the latist is for an 05 though.
for 06 its vxcf9

 

Yeah, like I said though I had wiped my stock file from the tuner and had no way to return to stock.

That's why I had to send the tuner in to get totally wiped clean, and had to go get the truck reflashed so that I would have a stock file to go back to.

 

It was VXCF9 for the 05 too, that was what my stock strategy was and was the strategy that I sent to Eric to write tunes for.

I guess I can go in there and ask in a polite manner (instead of turning the rage on like I want too) and tell them that I know that VXCF7 is not the latest strat for that truck and that is what I wanted.

The strat the tunes read and the strat that the truck reads now "untuned" are the exact same VXCF7. Just seems like if they did the work even if they used an out of date IDS, there would be some difference.

 

thats got to be frustrating man, i feel for ya

 

"I guess I can go in there and ask in a polite manner (instead of turning the rage on like I want too) and tell them that I know that VXCF7 is not the latest strat for that truck and that is what I wanted."

Me thinks this is the smartest thing to TRY at this point.

 

thtas the right way to do it.

 

I took the truck in this morning to have them flash it. I told them that it could not have been updated before because it still had the VXCF7v3 stategy on it and I knew that the newest strategy was a VXCF9.

They told me they would look into it and took my truck into the garage. About 45 minutes later the tech and the SA called me to the desk and told me that they had no idea what I was talking about and did not know what I meant when I used the term "strategy". They also said that Ford uses no such numbers as VXCF7v3 or VXCF9N4 for programing and wanted to know where I got those numbers. They also handed me a print out stating that my truck was up to date.

So I offered to take the tech and show him where I get my numbers, he followed me out and I hooked the SF3 up and he asked in a very concerned voice "are you going to reflash the PCM now?" I said "No I'm going to read the programing on the PCM and show you where I get these numbers.

So I pulled it up and it was updated to VXCF9N4, I showed it to him told him that was the correct strategy that I wanted, He seemed very confused and claimed that he had not made any changes.

I started my truck up to leave and I could feel that it was indeed back to the stock programming. Compared to when it's tuned
turbo lag was at an all time high and I had to push the pedal significantly to pick up speed.

After that experience though I think I may find a new place to take her when she gets sick.

 

Sounds like someone was doing some CYA in the shop. Finding a new place sounds like the best bet to me too.

 

lots of guys still have not figured out how to get that info from fords scan tool. its rathered burried in the information. our reprograming screen only gives out a part numbers, not a strat code.

 

do dealers just think the guys who buy these trucks are ignorant or what?

 

is this a rhetorical farley type question that really requires an awnser?

 

I don't know, at first I really thought that these guys just figured it was an easy hour that they could log without doing the work.

But after seeing the dazed and confused look on the techs face today when I was talking strategies, PCM's and FICM's, I can't help but think that maybe he just didn't do it right the first time.
Understandably he thought my Insight was a tuner, but when he asked me what EGT's stood for I had to wonder. This guy is a diesel tech.

I know that the SA is fairly new, he's an older gentleman and for some reason he filed my reflash and speedo calibration appointment under stereo faults on their computer, which really confused the other SA when I showed up. So his knowledge may be lacking too.

I'm not saying that I know everything about this truck, I wouldn't have found this site if I did. I probably know just enough to be a danger to myself and my truck, but I am continuing to learn and think I will try to find someone who knows more than me to take it to next time.

 

Jeremy......See what your strategy is after you reprogram your truck with the SCT to see if it changes. I was reading on another forum that some of the performance flashes were based on the VXCF7 strategy although I didn't know the SCT changed it. I know it can't affect the FICM programming in any way.