2015 SHO, my huge upgrade!

[Wirednuke]

Good Morning all,

I purchased my first "new to me" car in over a decade on Friday. I got a relatively brand new 2015 Taurus SHO, it only had 11,000 miles on it and still had the new car smell. I looked around for a performance version, but I couldn't find any that didn't have lots of issues (multiple owners, rental, accident, high miles, etc). So I ended up getting a relatively bare bones one, but it was a one owner 2-year lease return with only 11k miles, purchased and returned to the same dealer so they had the service records too.

I've read a little bit about tuning the engine, but they threw in the 100k mile bumper-bumper warranty, and I figured this will probably void that. The thing has a ton of power stock anyway, so I might just leave it alone until the warranty expires. If you all have any feedback on this, it would be greatly appreciated.

My old ride was a 2007 Ford Focus so it's a pretty huge upgrade. I'm pleased to see there's quite a community behind this car, look forward to gettin to know ya'll.

Phil

 

[Lostneye]

Congrats on your new ride. The tune will not void the entire warranty, for example if a wheel bearing goes, the rear sunshade brakes, etc. you should be fine. However throw a rod through the block, yeah be prepared to have to pick that one up yourself. This has been debated and some actual warranty issues have been fixed or denied with no real certainty on exactly where the line is. If tuned you should always return to stock if possible before going to the dealer, 1. to not advertise you have one, and 2. to let the dealer techs work on a car that will behave as they expect and avoid problems if they have to flash the computer with updated software from Ford.

Personally I have tuned a few cars and you have to balance your want for more performance with the possibility of warranty service denied because of it. A reputable tuner should give you a noticeable bump in performance while staying relatively safe. If you don't abuse the car, meaning let it warm up before flooring it, keeping up with maintenance, etc. IMHO the risk of catastrophic failure really isn't much more than stock.

 

[SHOdded]

X2 on above. Checking out and prepping your car before tuning it is as vital a step to a long and happy life as anything else. Tuned cars should be serviced on the special operating conditions schedule as well. Use a quality full synthetic motor oil with motorcraft filter. Good time to swap out the PTU and RDU fluids, get those breakin metals outta there. bpd1151's maintenance routine is quite rigorous, you could do worse than to follow his example. Fuel -use top tier gas only. Try out various stations, see which ones work best. Yes, there IS a difference . toptiergas.com. Shell 93 w Nitro+ is pretty awesome.

Only 11k in 2 years worries me a bit. These cars do love some highway and some WOT action. Just remember to be more conservative when temps drop to near freezing or below. Get the trans warmed up before "taking off", preferably to at least 100F. Takes about 5-10 minutes, more the colder it gets.

Learn to use Torque Pro software to your advantage. See what is normal and learn wgat is not. Hopefully no "learning" experiences.

A ways to go yet, but you do realize the coolant pump is driven by the timing chain and internal to the engine! Service the coolant at least every 5 years/60.000 miles regardless of tuned/untuned.

 

[Wirednuke]

Funny that you were worried about the low mileage. On the way home from work today I started smelling burning coolant. The level in the expansion tank was midway when hot and right at the low level when cooled down. Didn't see any puddles or any visible leaking/coolant crusties. Hopefully I'm just being paranoid and they spilled coolant. Either way, taking it back to a dealer.

Disappointed,

Phil

 

[SHOdded]

Hope they get it figured out 4 ya. Coolant should always be at the COLD FULL/MAX line when engine is cold. The water pump has a weep hole but the bellypan is prone to hiding spillage. More likely a leak at the turbo cooler lines, but lets see!

 

[Wirednuke]

Won't be able to drop it off until Wednesday. Feeling pretty good about that warranty now though. Let's hope it's something easy to fix.

Hope they get it figured out 4 ya. Coolant should always be at the COLD FULL/MAX line when engine is cold. The water pump has a weep hole but the bellypan is prone to hiding spillage. More likely a leak at the turbo cooler lines, but lets see!

 

[Wirednuke]

Just wanted to verify, it won't hurt anything to add a little bit of distilled water to keep it above the low line until I make it to the shop on Wed? The local part store doesn't carry the motorcraft antifreeze.

 

[SHOdded]

Should be fine to top off with distilled water.

 

[Wirednuke]

Update: Got the car back from the shop, it passed the pressure test. Maybe it just needed to be driven, **** up all those dry seals or something.

Thanks for all your insight!

 

[SHOdded]