OK, for all who've kept up with this post, and just to recap. The PCM in my 06 is fried. I kept thinking at first that it was my fault (fooling with the programmer), but listen to this. On the first phone conversaton with the service dept. the guy said, " hey man, the PCM fuse is burnt", "we'll have to look more into this". On the following conversation he says, " the pcm fuse is missing, and without it, the PCM won't work and the truck engine won't start." NOW,,, PROBLEM: pcm fuse is missing, engine wont fire. SOLUTION: replace the fuse, engine fires. BUT, if the fuse was burnt (like I was told at first),,, PROBLEM: pcm fuse is burnt. SOLUTION: replace the fuse and the engine fires. RESULT: engine does not fire. POSSIBLE CAUSE: voltage surge, burnt the fuse, and the PCM. ( for those of you who are electronics savvy, the on board comp. operates on milivolts (thousandths of a volt) but the battery system will provide anywhere from 0 to aprox. 14 volts, which is plenty of enough to fry the pcm. Then I'm told that the pcm is on back order and there not sure when they are gonna get one. On top of this, my wife leaves this weekend for Iraq, and I'm moving to La the next day, which means I REAAAAAAALLLLLLYYY NEED MY FRIGGIN TRUCK!!!! Now, with that said, the dealership loans me a single cab 2500 2wd with a hemi (good enough, but I rather mine), and says that if my truck not ready by the time I leave, I can use this truck to go to La, turn it in to a dealer there, and they will ship my truck to me. All of whom think this is a crock of s$$t, please raise your hand. This didn't dawn on me at first,, but,,,,,,,,,,,, comon.

 

huh? sounds like you popped the pcm fuse somehow. did they swap the fuse and it did or did not fire? Is the fuse in the fuse box or inside the PCM? is this something you accidentilly blew trying to get it going again?

 

Not sure, the guy said the fuse was burnt, then missing. Either way they replaced it and the engine still did not fire. Its the fuse in the box right under the hood. The service rep accused me of removing the fuse. "maybe you knocked it out" he said, but these things don't just rattle out, or are knocked out accidently, and I searched my driveway and didn't see a thing. I believe something (not the programmer, b/c its just impossible) sent a surge to the pcm which was mostly caught by the fuse, but still fryed the pcm. They kept asking me if I had a box on my truck, and proceeded to tell me of another guy that bought his in and they saw it and voided his warranty. In my opinion, this thing fried itself and they were trying to blame it on me. I think that the most damage that could have been done by the programmer is just that it would have screwed up the programming in the pcm, but not fried it. I believe this thing fried itself and the dealer is just trying to get me to admit to having a programmer so he can void my warranty. I'm going to call Daimler Chrysler in the morning and talk to them about.

 

2 phone calls from the dealer and 2 different things said. Sounds to me like they are trying to give you the shaft. stick to your guns like you have been. remember DENY, DENY, DENY....Make Counter Allegations. Hope it works out for you.

 

The only reason there is a fuse there in the first place is to protect the PCM. If your programmer blew the fuse, it should have blown long before there was any damage to the PCM. If your programmer blew the fuse and destroyed the PCM, then it is bad engineering by Dodge because they did not use the correct size fuse for this purpose. Sounds like the PCM is fried and they are trying to blame it on you.

 

Not too long ago the modding group was alot smaller. Now we have a dozen or more programmers not to mention the thousands of aftermarket parts.

Unfortunmately I think the service depts (not just Dodge) have been instructed to question everything nowadays.

This sucks for us all. I mean how many people just change the exhuast. LOTS! Then they take there truck in and get grilled. THe exhuast had nothing to do with the prob and the dealer makes him / her pay if they dont stand up (stick to there guns) to them.

That is the fine line we walk when we start modding.

I have spent a lot of time and money at my prefered service dept. in attemps of bypassing this scrutiny. However not too long ago when I thought my truck was "making oil" I contacted them and talked about having a test done to check this out:

From "OIL To FULL" post

Now this was shortly after they fixed the line on the feul tank (TSB) that was thought to allow water in the tank. Water can cause an injector to stick. But that couldnt have possibly been the prob. when they looked at my truck. (exhaust)

Anyways, I'm rootin for ya and wish you kuck. Enjoy (beat the snot out of it) that Hemi while you got it (and while the gas prices are low).

And as a side note, Tell your wife Good luck and God Bless.

 

Thanks for the input guys, I'm callin Chrysler this morning. I'll keep yall posted.

 

OK, now it makes sense... the dealer discovered a missing fuse and presumed you yanked it when you "yanked the box" that was not on there to begin with. Anyway the programmer is not going to cause the pcm to fry in ANY case. you have to remember what the pcm is... a processor scanning the inputs, reading address data to provide the outputs, there is nothing any program can do to fry a pcm (when the pcm is designed right to begin with). the only thing that MAY be possible is if the program is running a duty cycle of some part out of that parts spec. if that was the case then the driver of that line may blow, not the whole pcm...

If you had a box under the hood, then yeah, it could happen.

 

Not sure about the techy part...

But if they will let you drive THIER pickup to LA from TX (your profile says TX...) and leave it with any dealer, and then offer to ship your pickup to you... at no charge - that goes WAY above and beyond the expectations of service.

And I hate to defend this dealership without hearing the whole story... but to all of you who think the dealer is trying to screw USAFR - what would be thier motive? They get paid either way..granted warranty doesn't pay as good as retail - but not enough worth screwing anybody over. And do you know what it will cost them to ship his pickup to LA? I think they want to get this problem fixed as bad as he does!

But I will give you this much... The conflicting stories about the fuse are suspicious.

 

Your right, and its not so much that they are trying to screw me,, its just the conflicting stories that I don't like, and how long are they gonna have my truck here before they ship it to me. I am on the phone with chrysler now, they called the dealer and now the dealer says it not the pcm its the ecm, two different modules. I don't like all the conflicting stories and info., thats just not cool.