Can a tune erase my Mustang from a Ford scan tool?

I asked this in the FP Tune thread but it may have gotten buried in the other gazillion posts. I need an answer if there is one.

Has anyone had a problem with a Ford scan tool not being able to identify their vehicle after the FP tune? I took mine in for an unrelated matter to my Ford dealer service department, and when they plugged into my port with two different scan tools, neither one was able to identify my car VIN. Even after manually putting in the VIN, they still could not get the tool to recognize/find my car. They were completely unable to diagnose anything at all because of this, nothing they used could recognize the car.

Has anyone else had this happen; and if so, found a fix?

Did you do the tune or did the dealer? :headbonk: It's supposed to be done by the dealer...

If so, it's their responsibility.

Dealer did, but that's not my question. Could the tune be the cause, has it happened to anyone else? Or is there another problem? I am wondering if anyone else has had a Mustang that cannot be read by a scantool, and if so, did a tune cause it or something else?

I need the scan to work in order to help diagnose another problem and am trying to find out what is causing the scan not to work. We're stuck until it can be scanned - or at least it will help cross off things to look at.

The dealer must do a manual ID of the PCM. They 100% can do it with the FP calibration in the car.

did the same dealer that did the tune have the issue with the scan tool?
did the dealer with scan issue check for obvious things like a blown fuse for the port?

2ND The blown fuse

I was thinking that too, or a short in one of the computer sensors like the solenoid valve. i would figure a blown fuse or a bad sensor would stop the OBD port from communicating entirely and not just decrypting the VIN. Sounds more like a security or software compatibility issue to me. Check with Ford Performance and see if they can reach out to the ProCal programmer. Or check with another garage or dealership because the dealer you went to seem lazy enough not to troubleshoot the issue for you.

white15gt said:

The dealer must do a manual ID of the PCM. They 100% can do it with the FP calibration in the car.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I was finally able to confirm with FP that this is what needs to be done. Instead of entering the VIN, enter the "tear tag" number of the PCM ID and it will read it. They told me this is true of all tunes (?)

We still had a problem though because the newer scan tools only let the dealer enter the VIN whereas previous older ones allowed an option to enter the VIN or the PCM ID. I gave up and just reflashed my car back to stock tune. Once we get a scan I'll simply reload the FP tune. On the bright side I still had the old original tune, so when I reflash I'll get the updated tune from last year.

Did reflashing back to the stock tune allow the scan tool to work? I have a hellion twin turbo system and same thing happened to me and I did flash it back to stock and VCM3/IDS would correctly identify vehicle but still can't read any modules? Any suggestions?

Yes reflashing back to stock tune allowed the scan to work