Blown Transmission

[Cdubya]

Yeah, Ford wasn't able to prove it but that Crackpot Team at the dealership knew you did. Uh huh! F those guys for pulling that shit on you!

 

[Flyman]

I totally agree. The three on one confrontation seems unnecessary.

 

[BrooseDaMoose]

You might think it came out of their poket or something! They were so nice to me when they went to give me my key and told me about the survey I would get from Ford. I won't bash them but I'm sure not going to give them props either. I'll just delete it!

 

[Polo08816]

Well, I can finally put this to bed. I got my vehicle back today! I got a little suprise when I walked in though. The service manager, the operations manager and some other upper managment guy were all there waiting for me. The service manager told me my vehicle was all done and Ford covered everything except for a melted transmission vent tube (which they blamed on the downpipe) BUT, and there was an errie pause, he said, "we know you are tuning your car but Ford was unable to prove it"! That is what took so much time. Then the operations manager spoke up and said "we see this all the time with these high performance vehicles. Had the guys at Ford been able to prove your computer had been tampered with, you would have been on the hook for around $12-13K and your extended warranty would have become null and void." Of course I still denied it to the end. If I had to pay for it then so be it. You accept that as soon as you load that tune in the vehicle. I was prepared to fork out the $5,900 to this other guy to get it fixed. At least it's done, so far there are no issues and I have somewhere else to take it if I have an issue in the future.

Moral of the story for others: If you're not willing to go out of pocket for major powertrain repairs, then don't tune your vehicle in the warranty period.

 

[BrooseDaMoose]

Exactly that! It’s too bad it has to be this way when some of these tuners know more about the platform than the manufacturer does! But I totally understand them needing to cover their asses from people who tune to race and when something breaks, they want to get it covered under warranty.


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[Polo08816]

Exactly that! It’s too bad it has to be this way when some of these tuners know more about the platform than the manufacturer does! But I totally understand them needing to cover their asses from people who tune to race and when something breaks, they want to get it covered under warranty.


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There's no way a tuner knows more about a platform than the manufacturer.

Just because a tuner can extract more power from a powertrain without an immediate failure doesn't mean the tuner knows more about the platform.

The same could be said of the F30 335i / F80 M3 crowd. (I have a F30 335i). You'll have people from the F30 335i crowd criticizing BMW for not "knowing" their own N55 can made similar power levels as a F80 M3 with a tune and some simple modifications. But I guarantee you a FBO F30 335i's powertrain would turn into kibbles and bits on the racetrack after overheating while the F80 M3 will run ice cold all day with no durability / reliability issues.

 

[BrooseDaMoose]

I said “some tuners”. You don’t think that a tuner who specializes in a specific platform could be just as good, if not better, than the manufacturer tuning literally hundreds of different platforms? I understand that some tuners produce a bunch of “canned” tunes to just increase the hp for multiple platforms but I would stand behind the notion that my tuner knows more about tuning my Explorer ST than Ford does. Especially where he tunes according to my specific vehicle with specific mods rather than sell me a tune to fit any Explorer ST. That’s just what I think though. And I’m not dissing the Ford tuners either! They are certainly amazing at what they do.


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[Cruising68]

I think the trans tuning is better than stick for longevity. Oem tune is pretty slow and mushy to shift. Quicker more crisp shifts actually help longevity. But they have to tune for the vast majority of people.

Regarding the motor, while a tune might make it run better, anything increasing hp adds risk.

In the end, I really have no issue with voiding drivetrain warranty after a tune. I would obviously love it if they knew it was tune and they covered it. There is no doubt if the look for a tune, they can see it. In my company, we would also never warranty anything that was customer modified. If you want to play, you might end up paying.


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[BrooseDaMoose]

There is no doubt if the look for a tune, they can see it.

I wonder why they couldn't find mine! If they took three months examining my vehicle and ended up covering the cost to replace the transmission it's because they couldn't prove my vehicle was ever tuned. All they had to go on was the fact that there was only seven key cycles and that was from them upgrading the programming a week earlier. Maybe mine is just an oddball case. What they told me about Ford seeing the seven key cycles and investigating further must be the truth! I can't imagine an entire dealership would just sit on a repair out of spite because the service manager suspected I was tuning the vehicle.

 

[GearHead_1]

...I can't imagine an entire dealership would just sit on a repair out of spite because the service manager suspected I was tuning the vehicle.

I can. Dealerships have employees, employees who are people, people who like recognition, hold grudges, they want to be someone, and be in control. Some people may like you and your actions, while others may not. I think you came across a person or persons, who had the mindset of we'll show you.

I don't believe it's a matter of whether or not they could see you had a tune but more a matter of whether they could prove that the tune caused your transmission issue. The fact that they had serviced your trans in the not-too-distant past more or less put them on the line but they didn't need to make it easy for you.

Sadly, all too often a Dealer, sales team, finance team, parts team, and service team are not on the same page and don't look at how the harmony between them may result in repeat customers.

 

[BrooseDaMoose]

I only said that due to there being two members of upper management there. This is not a small dealership either. But who knows. I’m just happy to have my vehicle back!


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