vF Tuner for the 3.5L Tacoma & OEM Warranty

Community,

I'm looking for any stories of personal experience regarding OEM warranty being voided after doing vF/OV Tuner or like reprogramming. My 2020 4x4 limited needs some programming help.

After reading as much of the 400+ page board as I could (https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/vf-tuner-for-the-3-5l-tacoma.662948/page-470), I'm wanting to check if anyone has some personal experience with Toyota finding their changes and voiding their warranty.

Some posts insisted Toyota can't tell if you've changed the vehicle's programming. However, I just spoke to the service manager at my dealership who insists they can. He said every time they do warranty work on the drive train, they pull all the programming from the vehicle and send it all to Toyota for analysis to determine if you made any changes and try to void your warranty.

He insisted they could see not only see changes, but if you did reprogram and then flashed it back to stock trying to hide it, it would show that the ECU had been at least changed twice.

I don't know who to believe, so I need personal accounts. I can't imagine there are many people who've had to replace their engines or transmissions under warranty since these are so new, but I'll ask anyway.

I even read vFtuner's website FAQ where they said no one had told them they got caught, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. @OVTune I wonder if this is still true?

Sad thing is, the service manager was honest and said a lot of their customers are unhappy with the Tacoma programming and there's really nothing he could do about it. He confirmed the customers that stoke to him and admitted they reprogrammed their vehicles were all very happy afterwards, so I have to decide if I flush all the money for the warranty down the toilet or not just to get the vehicle to drive how we know Tacomas should.

Thanks all!

 

Sounds like this is a question for Matt, which I see you've tagged him.

I don't think there's anything to worry about.

 

As far as I know, the only thing that the ECU can report is distance and time from the last DTC reset. Any OBD adapter can do a Reset, as will a battery disconnect. We do not have a checksum or flash count.

My Taco was never in for warranty work but was in for the final ToyotaCare visits. I have some obvious and uncommon mods, like the 2Lo mod. I never heard a single thing, good or bad, from the shop folks. What I can say, for anyone that spent any time in a 3rd Gen, the change in the way it drives would be immediately noticeable.

As for the reset, I will let more informed folks post up.

 

Interest to hear what OVtune has to say about the subject. My previous car was a Honda... they void warranty the minute you take it in and they see the flash count isn't what it is supposed to be...

 

I've taken my truck in twice and have had no issues. I've been running the tune for three+ years.

 

If I'm not mistaken, Hondas have a checksum / flash count in their ECUs. We do not.