Can ford tell you've reflashed the ECU?

[Flylow11]

A friend of mine who works for GM said that the technicians can't tell you have put a tune on your car but when you flash it back to stock for service they can tell by mileage how long you have been running that flash. Has anyone ever heard of this and is there any truth? Or is it just service dept scare tactic lol.

 

[John Shugarts]

The tell-tale sign that your ECU has been flashed is key cycles. For example, if you own your car for 2 years and never tuned it or had it in for maintenance where the ECU was reflashed, your ECU would show several thousand key cycles. When your ECU is flashed, your key cycles are reset to 0 (Zero).

 

[Druseph T. Justice]

The tell-tale sign that your ECU has been flashed is key cycles. For example, if you own your car for 2 years and never tuned it or had it in for maintenance where the ECU was reflashed, your ECU would show several thousand key cycles. When your ECU is flashed, your key cycles are reset to 0 (Zero).

Would disconnecting the battery reset the key cycles?

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[John Shugarts]

From what I understand, disconnecting the batteries DOES NOT reset key cycles.

 

[Flylow11]

It would be nice to know for sure. If they can tell key cycles the will know you've had a tune on your car. Or at the least hav th ECU flashed and without a maint ticket or something they will assume a tune especially on our cars.

 

[markathome]

I might be wrong, but I thought I read somewhere that the key cycles, along with other values, are reset if the battery is unhooked for an extended period on the 10-12 models. In 13+ models those values are retained.
However, yes, that is one of the ways they can dig to find out if tuned.

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[rubydist]

Our service manager tells me that they can infer some things like you might have had a tune, but they do not know. And as long as you have flashed it back to stock for several drive cycles, so that the initialization routines are all completed, they would have no reason to go looking for the number of key cycles, etc.

 

[Flylow11]

Cool. I just know that FoMoCo is looking to make sure you haven't messed with things like the other auto companies. Most peopl that mod there cars do it very responsible or do it knowing it might mess things up and accept responsibility. But I'm sure there's a very small group that damage their car and expect ford to fix it and the rest of us pay for their mistakes. And rant over lol. Thanks for all the inputs!

 

[OmaHahn]

Which confuses me! Ford offers 'Ford Racing,' parts for their vehicles so why not open the door a little a let a reputable (LMS, who works right next to Ford in their shop) have a chance to sell performance upgrades also?! Or develop their own upgrades such as ECU tunes, etc and this way they can have direct control over the aftermarket on their vehicles. They would make so much money. Other manufactures actually do this such as BMW. I don't get the hesitancy.

 

[SilverSH0]

Which confuses me! Ford offers 'Ford Racing,' parts for their vehicles so why not open the door a little a let a reputable (LMS, who works right next to Ford in their shop) have a chance to sell performance upgrades also?! Or develop their own upgrades such as ECU tunes, etc and this way they can have direct control over the aftermarket on their vehicles. They would make so much money. Other manufactures actually do this such as BMW. I don't get the hesitancy.

My guess if for the exact same reason LMS won't tune if you don't buy their specific parts. They know how their parts change the performance characteristics of the cars and allowing others into the mix can change variables and make unknowns.

If Ford offers Ford Racing parts that are compatible with their warranty then they have done some testing to make sure it doesn't damage the vehicles. Allowing other companies in makes competition for performance parts that still carry a warranty and they also have to test more variables to make sure no damage is done.

 

[SHOdded]

Probably helps the SHO remain in a "family" insurance category rather than suffer the higher rates that sports cars are subject to.

 

[John Miller]

Ford Racing parts affect factory warranty to the same extent other aftermarket parts do.

The difference is that Ford Racing offers its own warranty, that differs from the Ford factory warranty, on many of its parts.

Example would be super chargers - Ford Racing offers its own warranty on the power train if certain criteria is met, and that warranty differs from the factory power train warranty, which you presumably lose when the SC is added.


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[FoMoCoSHO]

SCT does not alter key cycle count.

I verified with OBDLink mode 9 (6?) diagnostics.

 

[Pintony]

I can see how ford could figure anything out??? As in another post, a member supplied oil for the dealer and they could not read the jug to figure out there were 5 quarts in the jug!!!!!