My truck is a '07 and has 10,500 miles on it and one year left on the Dodge warranty. Should I go ahead and get a programmer now or wait until my warranty is up? I was thinking about getting a smarty jr. My truck is stock.

 

There are some things that are not detectable by the dealer, but the engine...Cummins...is 100k mile warranty...so be careful what you do. I'm sure others may say the same and suggest what will be ok to put on then take off if you need to ever take it in to the dealer for warranty things.

 

Yeah, supposedly the smarty is undetectable. I'm not so much worried about the motor, but the trans is another story.

 

I don't get where people are getting this, but Smarty is detectable, pretty much all programmers claim they are undectable but it is BS. I don't care what anyone says, they are WRONG. If the dealer looks hard enough they will see that something was modified. It might not show up on electronics but the inside of the motor does not lie, you might fool them for smaller stuff, or they might not care, but if you end up needing a rebuild, they will look hard and find it.

Now if you took it off, and ran the truck for say 6 months or something, I would say it would be extremly tough to tell, unless you did damage with it.

The moment you plug in any programmer, chip, etc, you are risking loosing any or all warranty.

 

Yes, I've only heard on the smaller things as well. If you need engine work done, I would be worried of the warranty on it cause it's dang expensive. Mine has 97k miles on it and pretty well stock, pulls 37k# no problem at all.

 

I put the quadzilla on my 06 one month after I bought it, thats over 3 years now and no problems at all, depends on your dealer, mine actully sell`s and installed them, they were pretty cool. depends on yours.

 

My truck is still under warrenty. But I installed the Smarty Jr anyway. If I have a problem with the truck, I'll return the ECU back to stock, and take it in.

As for detectability, that's somewhat debatable. The guys at Madd say it's not, once the ECU is back to stock. I believe them.

Mocho could be right under certain circumstances. If you have it turned up all the way, and pound on it regularly, that will cause an early failure that a smart mechanic will identify as being caused by an ECU reprogramming.

OTOH, I think a computer tune done sensibly won't be detectable. If your goal is max power at all times, you might as well forget the warrenty. But, reprogramming can do more than just that. It helps with drivability, fine tuning, improved mileage, etc.

For normal driving, my truck is defueled (POD60) to get better mileage. That also makes less power. That can only help downstream components last longer. If an injector fails, it's definatly not from the Smarty.

 

If you don't have the money to fix your truck then I would say wait till the warrenty is off it till you put a programmer on it.
If you have problems with your truck and you have a programmer installed they can trace it back. There are always tell tale signs of one being installed. I don't care what claims anyone makes if you look hard enough they can tell.

The dealership maynot be able to but I am positive Chrysler Engineering can.

Why would you remove your chip/box if you have a problem? some of the problems are comming from the add ons so having it on when you go to the dealership might help solve your problem.

This whole attitude of it's ok to remove the chip and blame the dealership for my trucks problems. is not ok in my books.

I had many issues with my 03 long before adding a programmer. the programmer exaggerated my problems so I could actually diagnose it myself and be sure.
Yup my tranny went, along with injectors. Injectors were always a problem, I had clean fuel but they always had internal failures. The tranny burnt up the torque convertor along with all the band and the clutch plates.
Long before installing a programmer the tranny was going. But it checked out ok to the dealership.
I ended up buying all six injectors and rebuilding the tranny 5000km after warrenty was up. Then the electrical caught fire on the truck. Which was one of my main culprits in what I thought all along was an issue. Which I guess it was.

Have fun it's your truck, but it is a signed contract between you and the dealership about your warrenty. if they don't hold up their end then sue, if you don't hold up your end they soak you harder.