Wheres The Power Gone; Hits The Press

[harvyk]

Harvyk....... there is no jealousy involved..... If you ever get a lemon I hope you remember those words.... I have already had one lemon and I really feel for those who are pushing sh1t uphill to get ford to fix the problems

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This wasn't directed at those ppl with the lemons. (Nothing but sympathy for them) it was more directed at those ppl who bag these cars out period, (eg a lovely full page article). I know that there can be problems with the latest flash (luckily I haven't lost any power because of it ) but to make it such a big thing in the media I do not think that’s right as it could give the wrong people the wrong idea.

As for those people with the lemons ford should.......... <- (Insert standard arguments here)

And I'll also admit I have a very vested interest in keeping these cars resale value high as in a little under 3 years I need the resale value to be a high as anything (end of lease) and articles (such as this one) that can potentially destroy the resale value are worrying to me... (Selfish I know)

And just to prove that it's not directed at ppl with the lemons I mentioned in my post that it's jealousy by people who can't afford these cars or doesn't have one, ppl with the lemons can obviously afford to go out and buy one, and they obviously have one... + I doubt they would want to destroy their own resale value...

Just my 2c, and not intended to cause a fight

[aaronmihe]

It mentions that of 10,232 cars that could be affected....2% have complained.

What I find interesting is that when I went through the whole Overboost thing Ford publically said there were under 100 cars affected ....

*ponders*

A.

[BLK6T]

Its odd,

I could have sworn my car lost power from the flash at my 15000km service. I did a 400m run with the g-tech and pulled low 14's average and my first run a 13.9. This is done on a back lane near my house, nothin but bush all around, dead flat, 2.78km long. Saying this prior to my service I was pulling high 14's, but its getting colder. So I think all the hype possibly made me concerned and I was imagining it was slower, but I have just gotten used to it....

[exar]

  So I think all the hype possibly made me concerned and I was imagining it was slower, but I have just gotten used to it....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yep. It's too easy to forget what a n/a version feels like. After driving the Turbo for months, if you start to think it doesn't have that ooomph anymore, try one without. Once you go Turbo, you'll never go back.

[Space Ace]

Well, the story finally gets better.

I took my car in to the dealer last week for some minor work and I mentioned that the car was sluggish during acceleration I.e. planting the fark out of it. Well, I finally picked it up today and it seems to have gone back to normal after another re-flash.

I asked him why it was re-flashed in the first place during the 3K inspection and he said that some T's were overboosting and that Ford recommended it. I then asked him if he had heard of the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" theory and to ask his customers what they want. He somewhat agreed with me and said that it was Ford pushing the re-flashes, not them.

What gets me, is how bleeding obvious the difference is in the car.

Anyway, now that Blackie is back fighting fit, I'm off to hunt down some SS's & HSV's....

[aiboart]

Its odd,

I could have sworn my car lost power from the flash at my 15000km service.  I did a 400m run with the g-tech and pulled low 14's average and my first run a 13.9.  This is done on a back lane near my house, nothin but bush all around, dead flat, 2.78km long. Saying this prior to my service I was pulling high 14's, but its getting colder.  So I think all the hype possibly made me concerned and I was imagining it was slower, but I have just gotten used to it....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The smoother and better behaved Ford make this car the slower people think it is.

Bad traction and spiky torque curves are just that but people experience them as speed and power. How often do you hear people complain that the car can't break traction?

These are not slow cars. These are smooth cars. Yeah Ford team, thank you and well done. My next BMW will be a Ford - this is how good this stuff is.

I was just discussing this article with a guy at work. My comment to him was that I had yet to see some hard data, such as G-Tech data, to verify the claim that the cars were slower and that I suspected that the flash was smoothing the torque curve and smoothing acceleration in general, as the software was refined.

The area under the torque curve could in fact be bigger, the gear changes could be smoother, the traction could be better, and the car could be going a lot faster, but, without the perception cue of surges in acceleration the general impression is that the car is going slower.

Regards,

aa

Edited 27/04/05 10:44 AM by aiboart

[exar]

Well, the story finally gets better.

I took my car in to the dealer last week for some minor work and I mentioned that the car was sluggish during acceleration I.e. planting the fark out of it. Well, I finally picked it up today and it seems to have gone back to normal after another re-flash.

Are you saying there's another new version of the firmware out there that fixed your problems, or did they find a way to flash it back to the older version? (or did they fix some other fault at the same time?)

[aaronmihe]

Dealership based falshing is "Upgrade" ONly. Unless the WDS is reset with a lower version (not easy) it's not possible.

Remember this gear is designed to be rugged and EASY to use when doing the job, Mechanics these days need a lot more computer skills than they used to, but that doesn't mean they need boxes that say upgrade, downgrade, etc that is so classically apparent in the "Toxic Option Syndrome" world of IT.

As the only customer to have his name mentioned in the press whinging about overboost (and the subsequent fallout from FoMoCo etc due to it) I've grabbed the reflash with open arms. At least my car can be safely driven to work each day. It doesn't cut out at 100km/h, it doesn't stall in the carpark after accelerating up the hill into the car-park etc. To top it off fuel consumption is back to "normal" with a 10% drop in usage compared to the overboost-prone April 2004 Flash I previously had.

As others have noted the new flash is a lot smoother in power delivery, and while I suspect I may be not holding peak boost at higher RPMs/speeds it's definately as quick in normal use. At 160km/h it seems to taper off a bit compared to before, but actually in Performance Mode the performance comes back. So perhaps there's a subtle difference in mapping strategies between the 'box and the boost mapping compared to before?

Overall until someone actually pulls down the code and has a real look at it back-to-back we won't know. And I'd be guessing that people with the tools to do it aren't interested unless they can use the info to make a quick and dirty buck with it.

My new CANBus gear should be here in few weeks (fingers crossed) so when the car is back together (at dealership with dash out at the moment) I'll get some base-line son what the ECU thinks it's doing, and then hopefully get a local who hasn't flashed and doesn't have overboost to do the same logging run. Rresults may be interesting.

A.

[exar]

Dealership based falshing is "Upgrade" ONly.  Unless the WDS is reset with a lower version (not easy) it's not possible.

So, if the one mentioned above was flashed, then seemed to lack power, then was flashed again recently, it follows that there's another new version out there now (otherwise 2 reflashes would not have been possible).

Maybe someone at Ford found a mistake and rushed out a revision, and maybe people like myself, who don't experience any loss of power, might have been lucky and skipped the buggy release (mine was upgraded in late March)?

[mickey_gee]

every time my T went into Kloster ford it felt as if it came back more sedate. It has had a new auto gearbox and I think a lot of people out there are having box problems. My car felt softer but still seems to get it on pretty hard so I think that the final power figures and torque figures just might be the same. but at gear change I think the it feels smoother, and when going onto boost it dosnt feel like im being hit in the back with a baseball bat. so Im proposing the updates make things more refined, introduce a little more self preservation on boxes, tailshafts and diffs and overall dont treat the equipment too harshly when going onto boost. Im still happy because my car is harder than most on the road.

It annoys me that in motor mag the first T's could do a standing quarter in 14.41s and only recently were getting 14.81s this confirmed in my mind that the firmware is taking usable power and torque away from T's. If anybody can come up with a more feasible answer than go ahead.

overall I think the upgrades are taking usable power and torque away but not at the top end. This whinge is backed by no figures except what was found in motor mag

MG