A 12 months in the past we spoke to 3 skilled tuners, one specialist for every of The Large Three, about how you can correctly tune your automobile. Whereas the small print differed about how you can construction a long-term tuning program relying on model, a unifying theme appeared throughout all three interviews, especially applicable to Mopar products: Correctly tuning a automobile prices correct cash. As this cautionary story related by Carscoops exhibits, fixing a damaged tune additionally prices correct cash.
The story started with the proprietor of a 2023 Dodge Challenger Hellcat Widebody Jailbreak, Brennon Vinet, posting on the Dodge Challenger Proprietor’s Membership web page on Fb. Vinet claimed his Hellcat engine misplaced compression after round 800 miles of driving and wanted a brand new engine and transmission. He mentioned he’d by no means pushed over 100 miles per hour, by no means abused the automobile, by no means had something carried out to the engine, saying the one modification was the favored mid-muffler delete, which removes a set of mufflers in the midst of the exhaust piping.
His Fb posts present Dodge denied the warranty declare, the automaker “alleging that [Vinet] altered the ECM.” He by some means obtained the scenario escalated far sufficient up the chain that he mentioned he spoke to model CEO Tim Kuniskis and VP Steve Stander, neither one among whom reversed Dodge’s place on the declare. The refusals left Vinet with a invoice for $36,000 if he needed his automobile fastened.
Vinet despatched Carscoops paperwork concerning the subject, one merchandise displaying the lack of compression in cylinder seven. Regrettably, a breakdown of that $36,000 invoice wasn’t included. As a substitute, the paperwork additionally appeared to indicate the guarantee was being denied “on account of emissions tampering.” When Carscoops first reached out to Dodge with questions, the automaker confirmed emissions tampering as the difficulty. When the outlet reached out again to confirm if the mid-muffler delete brought on the emissions drawback, Dodge was responded that it wasn’t the mufflers, however that “a Stellantis Calibration Engineer ran Powertrain Management Module (PCM) diagnostics and confirmed that the automobile’s PCM [powertrain control module] was tampered with and contained non-factory software program.”
Flash Dodge’s inventory PCM with unauthorized software program or swap out the PCM for a non-authorized unit, and increase, the car’s warranty is vaporized. This has been an enormous topic on Dodge boards for years, homeowners questioning concerning the ins and outs of the P1400 code that exhibits on a scan report signifying an altered PCM. The entire alarm reads, “P1400-AFTERMARKET CALIBRATION DETECTED/WARRANTY COVERAGE CONFIRMATION REQUIRED.” As soon as it exhibits, it can’t be erased; a tuner said the code will get saved within the automobile’s Physique Management Module; a forum poster wrote that Dodge up to date its software program in 2018 for the code to be written to the BCM.
As for Vinet, it seems he is gone quiet. On the Challenger Speak boards, a poster wrote, “I am in the identical [Facebook] group and as soon as all this crap hit the fan, he deleted all of the images of his automobile from his FB profile and deleted any point out of it.”
We have learn posts by not less than one tuner saying it gives flashed PCMs that do not set off a P1400. That could possibly be true. It could appear safer, although, to comply with the recommendation of many different discussion board posters who recommend that when you insist on holding your guarantee, do not mod your automobile past a cold-air consumption and cat-back exhaust. Now that automakers are de facto software program firms, they’re solely going to get higher at determining who did what to a PCM.
