Ok all. I am very seriously thinking about buying one of Matts SCT and tunes. I have an 05 with only 30k miles on her. I would love to have some tunes from Spartan for Economy, Towing, and very mild performance.

My main concern is will this tuner void my warranty?

Is it possible that the dealer can tell if Spartans Tunes has ever been installed?

What I would like to do is run the tunes, then if I needed to go for warranty work, could I just load up factory tune, unplug the tuner and pull the battery cables to drain and wipe the KAM. Is this all it takes to keep a dealer from "seeing" I was running Matts tunes?

It would be awesome to run these tunes, but its not worth throwing a good warranty away.

 

Ford agreed to warranty your stock engine for 100,000 miles. If you want to tune it more power to you, however, why don't you take responsibilty for your own actions instead of wanting Ford to bail you out. Of all the tunes I have read about here, Matt's tunes sound like the safest on the market, but you are still violating your end of the warranty. Bottom line

"Be Responsible"

 

Sorry, made a double post by accident... please read the one below.

 

Yes I totally understand that 69cj.

My question was, is there truth to the statements that the ECU has a "tattle tell" feature, and does the Spartan tunes "get around" the tattle tell. Also, I asked if it was possible to load up the factory tunes and reset the KAM so as not to trip a "tattle tell".

but thanks for your reply.

Also, I really dont want to make alot of power with tunes... I just want to increase fuel mileage with one tune, have a tune designed for towing around 8k pounds. I also like the fact that his tunes disable the darn EGR. I am totally happy with the amount of power the truck makes stock, but after reading alot of the comments folks have had on his tunes, it looks as if it would actually increase reliability and make the truck run better. I like the ability to load up a economy tune for daily driving, then on the weekend when we take the boat out, I can load up a towing tune.

 

Yes boo, there is a sequence you can do to get rid of the tattle feature. When you load back to stock, the night before you bring the truck to ford disconnect the battery, and when you hook it back up in the morning, you should have a fresh ecu.

 

And 69, it's not always about screwing Ford, but sometimes Ford can be just as bad to us trying to jerk people around with issues the tuner didn't cause. For example if you were having a/c problems, ford could say your warranty is void because you have a tuner, so it's just easier to flash back to stock before letting them see the truck instead of getting into all of the magnusson-moss b/s. But yes, if you blow the heads off the truck, the tech could probably figure out that you weren't running stock anyway, and you will be eating it.

 

Also, has anyone had any good or bad experiences once they take their truck to the dealer after they have cleared the KAM?

I mean has a dealer refused warranty work even after you have cleared the KAM of any tuning evidence?
Or on the other side of the story, how many folks have taken their truck in after clearing the KAM and the dealer never noticed the ECM being tuned?

 

wow that was a solid answer to his question.
we pay 50000 for a truck for a reason, i see no reason for him not to get warranty work done if he can get it covered. Do you pay auto insurance ? do you feel bad if you rearend someone and have your insurance pay for it, or do you say that's okay, it's my fault for hitting you, let me fix our vehicles with the money out of my pocket.

to the poster, yes it is possible to run an sct tune, and erase all traces of it later if you would like warranty work.

also CJ, what if he needs to have some sort of squeaking dash board replaced , and the dealer says no dice because he has a tuner. the tuner had nothing to do with the defect, but could still cause the dealer to black ball him, and you know this, even though it's not right, it happens all the time.

Pay to Play, i'd slap the first guy that said that to me in real life.

 

Amen LvTitan, I got the same preaching to from the same one when I made my last post on the subject.

 

First and foremost the mere fact that you have a tuner on the vehicle does not void your warranty on your truck(as it relates to the 6.0, that has changed with the 6.4). What happens is when you come in for damages that can be linked to the tuner then you run the risk of voiding your warranty. I have not seen anywhere in my warranty book where it states that the mere presence of a tuner voids my warranty, it does however state that damages resulting from aftermarket modifications do void my warranty. While that my seem like semantics it is very important. If it was already worded such a way that the mere presence of a tuner voids our warranty then there would be no need for ford to have people sign a piece of paper on the new 6.4s saying that evidence of a tuner voids your warranty(now the new exhaust part of that paper I understand for them putting that on there, but there is no need about the tuner unless it wasn't stated very clearly as such, even if it was in the fine print in the original warranty booklets). Now in the real word you probably won't win, which has lead people to this mistaken correlation they are however not correct in that correlation(that's why correlations are very weak evidence because it's too easy to make incorrect ones, for example, I fly to las vegas and win lots of money, therefore, there is a correlation that if I fly to las vegas I'm going to win lots of money. Now is that really true?).

 

This is a touchy subject around here for some reason, I guess the problem is that there's no balance or give on either side.

On one hand you've got one guy who wants to get a little bit of a mileage boost with a little extra power so he gets an SCT with a mild tune, some gauges. Then his turbo packs it in because shaft was flawed and broke. This guy goes to his dealer and the dealer voids the warranty because the guy had a tuner and forgot to reset his truck before coming in.

On the other hand you've got a guy who gets his truck, puts an AM air intake on it, a 150 shot of NOS and the hottest tune he can find and stacks it with an Edge on level 6.... Blows his head gaskets to pieces; takes a weekend puts his truck back to stock, goes to the dealer with this POS 6.0 with blown heads; and gets it all replaced under waranty.

Now who got screwed? Ford has to set policies to try to protect themselves from guy #2; and the result of that is that guy #1 gets the brunt of it.

If I tell someone that you have to pay to play what I really mean is that if you are doing things to your rig that are WAY outside of what is reasonable I don't think it's reasonable for you to expect Ford to pony up the cash to fix what you break.

There's got to be a reasonable middle ground, and realistically there isn't. So everybody takes measures to ensure they are not targeted by warranty voiding policies.

I totally agree with LvTitan that it's unfair for warranty to be voided on items that had nothing to do with a tuner/mods, but too many people abuse the system and Ford is left with no choice but to be *********s about it.

I also know that the way Ford's policies are applied vary greatly from dealer to dealer. So when going down the road of tuners/mods it's more of a warning know what your dealer will tolerate and if you go outside that window be prepared to pay.

Back on topic

Boo_Daddy:

If you have to clear the KAM I would always try to drive the truck for a while in stock trim to make sure the condition (CEL or whatever) repeats without the tuner; then when you take it in to the dealer the codes they need to see are there.

I would never advertise to the dealer that you cleared the KAM and if they ask tell them you batteries went dead for some reason.

Sorry to hijack your thread

 

"would never advertise to the dealer that you cleared the KAM and if they ask tell them you batteries went dead for some reason."

Better to say that you DID pull the battery cables as you needed to install the XM whatchacallit (or whatever) in your radio and didn't want to short anything out.

 

If you SERIOUSLY need your warrantee (financially), you should think through what you are going to do IF your truck breaks down in a city far enough away from home that you need it towed immediately to a dealership you do not know. I have no first hand knowledge, but I have heard it said ........ One entry in a computer and your life w/ FoMoCo can get seriously complicated if you have a tuner.

 

Ford can and will void warranty is what my service manger told me. But he also told me if i did run a chip to set back to stock and run it for a week or so before bringing it back in.

 

you are correct. on paper. but in the real world there are plenty of dealers who will see a tuner and put you on a list, and they will do everything in their power to not warranty stuff, even if it's obvious the tuner was not to blame, so we just would prefer not to take chances.