Ram in the shop after installing tune

[DoubleARS]

I purchased a U7137 last week. On Friday, 10/15/2010, I used it on my 2005 Dodge Ram Daytona edition with the 5.7L Hemi. The first thing I found was that the software was not up to date. I plugged it into my computer and updated it with everything on the DiabloSport site. Went back to my Ram and everything seemed to go fine. When prompted, I selected the 91 Oct tune and I believe it was called the perf trans tune. I took it for a test drive and it seemed to be running fine including a noticeable bump in responsiveness.

It's not my daily driver so I only drove it a few times since last Friday. Today, my wife and I used the Ram to run some errands. We traveled about 20 miles away from home. We did a few stops and starts after the trip. It was going fine until the truck started jerking violently. I was going about 30mph at this time and not stressing the engine at all. A light on the dash was blinking and we determined that it meant something was wrong with the Electronic Throttle Control. I had to get it towed to a dealer. Of course the tuner was at home. They were nice enough to give us a ride home and they took the tuner back.

They later left me a message saying they restored the backup and tried to capture diagnostics. They said they determined that the tuner had fried a power controller and that they would install a $725 replacement. What's going on?

I will be calling the dealer to get clarification on why they think it was the tuner and what exactly is busted but this seems a like more than a coincidence that it would happen just after using a tuner. We bought the truck new and it has 56,000 miles on it. It has always run great and been well taken care of. I'm at a loss as to what to do next. Any thoughts?

[hemifever]

The Diablo techs more than likely could have recovered the pcm in the driveway. May still could if you called them while at the truck with the tuner. It would be worth a shot before shelling out that much cash. If you need a replacement, solopcms usually has them for the $300 to $350 range with warranty.

[SRT8Tech]

I highly doubt that the Predator fried anything.

[mikel]

Yeah, as I replied in your email, I highly doubt anything is fried.

Also, if you flashed it, then drove it for 20 miles, the flash had nothing to do with it.
If it was a flash issue, it would have happened right away, not a while later.

[DoubleARS]

Thank you for all the feedback. I went to the service department and they already had the PCM installed (It wasn't supposed to be in until Monday). This time I was told that there was a physical short in it. After it was installed, they were able to get the engine running (that wasn't true when I brought it in) and I was told that they were able to get the backup tune of of the Predator. I guess we will see when I pick it up next week if the predator will still work. Can you reinstall the backup if the PCM is shorted out? Now the problem is (and I assume was from the beginning) the MAP sensor went bad. It probably explains why the truck all of a sudden started behaving oddly.

All I can assume now is that some combination of the MAP going and me trying to keep the engine running (starting when it would stall) to get off the road caused a short whereby the PCM was affected somehow. Does this seem plausible? This is the scenario I want to believe and that this trouble is not indicative of a more substantial issue. The service manager still believes it was the tune which I don't agree with. He said he has "seen this happen before." Hopefully this will take care of it and I can move on.

[ztamez]

Well I do own a 2004 Dodge 1500 and had the same issue ,but it was before the tuner . Dodge has had a problem with the throttle controllers .According to a mechanic at a Dodge dealership in Corpus Christi,Tx.