Being that the car was tuned, IF your Dealership has to provide any PCM info to Ford for a Warranty Authorization, Ford will see the “tune” via key start logs. IF the Dealership is one that is not required to turn over PCM data logs for Warranty Authorization, then most likely you may get a new engine. Every Dealership is different in how they handle such major warranty work (and if they are a high volume dealer vs a low volume dealer).
I heard those things are horrible for your car and that is likely the cause. Especially with a tune. All those pedalmax controllers do is tell the ecu to push more boost by tricking it to think the boost is lower than what it is. Which results in too high of a boost for the engine and turbo and boom goes your engine. If you look at people selling those things used, no one buys them. Cause everyone knows they're crap. Sorry that happened but I'm willing to bet that was the cause. Hooefully the dealership will still honor your warranty..
I'm not sure, but I heard none of those plug and play type devices are good for your car. And especially with a tune. Anything that pedalmax can do, a tuner can do. Think about it, it's just making changes to your ecu. Which is a tuners job, except they do it custom to your car. I dont know if that was the cause for sure, but I wouldn't doubt it. I see those on a lot of cars with blown engines. I'd say if you have one, be careful or just get rid of it. Better safe than sorry..
I was thinking the same thing. The only modification I have is a drop in air filter and I drive like a mad man, within legal limits of course.
I cant say for sure but I will say this... I bought my mustang at a high volume dealership and when I talked to them they said they would have to for a problem like that. On the other hand, I have a buddy who took his car in for warranty work on his engine at a low volume dealer and left his accessport plugged in and one of the guys at the dealership hid it for him so none of the other employees would see it. So seems as if low volume would be your best bet..
Fwiw, I talked to a friend of mine who is a tech at a large dealership in Tulsa. He told me the decision isn't up to the dealership, but rather it is up to Ford. He said they'll turn it in to Ford and its up to Ford if they want additional info. Sometimes they'll ask for ECU data and sometimes they wont.
Makes sense. I heard with problems that serious they have to send it up. But who knows...
FWIW, my son was the service manager for a CDJR dealership, all warranty claims are subject to approval by the manufacturer. Most of the time its just a matter of course that it is approved, other times they require the dealership to do some extra investigation, sometimes they send a field service tech to look at the vehicle, sometimes they want the offending part back for root cause analysis. Dealerships also get some flexibility to cover things that aren't under warranty for good will. Dealerships also are tracked and if they are putting in an unusual level of claims for a particular failure they may have to do extra investigations before a warranty claim that is normally approved without question gets approved.
FTFY. Obviously, you won't know what caused the issue until you have the engine torn down (and you may not be able to definitively prove anything even then), but the overwhelming majority of reported catastrophic engine failures (that I've heard about) involve an engine tune. There is a lot of expectation that these engines are hearty enough to withstand power deliveries significantly higher than stock, and I'm not sure that it's deserved. As far as I know, Ford Performance is the only aftermarket tune supplier that conducted long-term testing, and the additional power above stock on tap with its tune is modest.
