Adding a tune to any engine is going to increase the chance of engine failure. Every engine has a flaw that could potentially cause engine failure at some point under some conditions; does that make every tuner/customer an idiot for tuning a car?

No, the answer is no. It is the customers job to educate themselves and understand the risks of their actions. You cannot blame the alcohol manufacturer because you decided to get into a car drunk and killed someone.

 

Hi JVIII,

Firstly, I'm sorry to hear that you are having these engine issues.

I think there is a quite a lot of information missing/not explained here, which you may or may not have. (This might be why there is so much speculation by the forum members.)
If it were me in this same situation, I would surely, firstly want to know much more information on the exact damage to the engine. (i.e. Is the engine seized or will it still run/turn-over, are the cylinders scored too badly to hold compression, are the pistons burnt, is this a bottom-end failure involving the block/cylinders or a top-end failure involving the head/valves, did the oil pump fail or some other component such as an oil line or the oil filter, was it a bearing failure, etc.?)
Once the actual damage to the engine is known, then a cause may be able to be determined. Quite frankly I am surprised that JLRNA has not done a more thorough investigation before dismissing the cause as the "Non-OEM Calibration." (Did the Jaguar dealer open the engine to determine the issue? If not, it would be very difficult to surmise a cause!) Simply stating that there are metal shavings present in the oil is insufficient in my opinion.
Further to all this, you may want to get an independent oil analysis for yourself.
You should also thoroughly read the warranty and the legal briefings available. As well, read up on-line, for other similar cases regarding what the manufacturer may or may not be held liable for regardless of "Non-OEM Calibrations". Specifically, if this (Non-OEM Calibration") cannot be proven to be the cause of whatever failed in the engine. If it cannot be proven that this caused the failure (this is why it is important to know exactly what has failed), then the manufacturer may still be required to provide a warranty repair. (Note you should also check the relevant state laws regarding this.)

This is a very grey area for all involved, and quite frankly I believe every manufacturer would attempt to dismiss the warranty repair due to a "Non-OEM Calibration" and wash their hands of it. However, you may have greater legal rights than you believe. Do your homework before you pay out of pocket.
On a side note, I'm sure most of the forum members here mean well, even though it doesn't always appear to be that way.
It would also be very interesting to know the final cost to you for the repair once all is said and done, if you are comfortable letting us know.

Best of luck in resolving this issue.

 

But you can blame the establishment that served you to many.

 

Generally when there are metal "shavings" in the sump oil it indicates bearing failure. Main and big-end bearings are of white metal and oil starvation causes the white metal to break-up and fall into the sump. I had this once on a Triumph motorcycle. This metal can get circulated round the oil galleries and block them if there is no sludge trap on the oil intake and thus other parts get wrecked too.

I have to say I don't think any manufacturer in the world will pay for warranty repairs if the owner has made modifications to the engine. So far we don't know the detail of these, but I assume part of those is a re-programmed ECU. I don't know US consumer law, but I suspect that if the warranty depends on the owner not modifying the car and not using it on a race track, then the law will stand behind Jaguar. However there is nothing to prevent Jaguar showing some goodwill, and contributing to a repair or replacement engine. This might be the best avenue to go down rather than an expensive confrontation which ends up in court. Then only the lawyers make money.

Interestingly a few years ago, a chap a few doors away bought an MG ZT260 saloon, a car that has the Ford Mustang engine in it. Not being satisfied with the performance, he had it supercharged by a company in Scotland, (I think it was), and the engine subsequently blew-up on him. This company accepted their fault and rebuilt the engine.

 

I think it's safe to tune a car with known issues as long as the modifications don't increase the chance of damage. Since the OP never said what he was doing, I'll assume it was high load at low RPM. Lack of flow / splash possibly galled the cylinders or crank bearings starting the chain reaction of failure. I don't think a tune that avoids that area of the curve wouldn't effect the durability there. However since these tunes rely on a tune of different variables to determine how it runs there's a chance that the tune increased the load where they didn't want it. Since most dyno runs start above 2500 they may not have realized it was close to the damage limit.

 

I would imagine the dealer didn't open the engine because they told him he'd have to pay for the labor if they found anything that the tune could even potentially be to blame for. And as a result he decided to go elsewhere. But this is just speculation.

OEMs don't typically open the engines at the dealership. If an engine has failed or shows major signs of failure under warranty, the OEM just replaces the entire engine and ships the failed unit back to a quality center for a more technical diagnosis. It's very possible because of that Jaguar imediately voided the claim. I would imagine any OEM would have done the same if this is the case.

 

With all that being said, is it safe to say that he can sue the tuner for the price of a new engine. If in the same sitiuation would the site sponser tuners step up to the plate and take care of their customers.

 

If the root cause was a defect in the engine and not the tune, why would they ?

As has been pointed out, until there's a forensic explanation for what broke, finger pointing in all directions...

 

Thanks for the reply, and I understand what your saying, but if it is determined that the tune caused the engine failure is the tuner responsible to replace his engine. Maybe the vap guy can educate me on the responsibility they have to their customer. If any.

 

I think this pretty concisely sums up the situation here. Vehicle owner modified the ECU. From that point forward, Jaguar is not going to accept responsibility for anything that occurs within the engine. Why? because the moment the Engine Control Module parameters were voluntarily modified by the vehicle owner, the manufacturer is released of all liability due to the fact their built-in safety parameters - of which there are many - have been compromised.

I could be wrong here, but I do not believe there is a way to forensically reveal - after the fact - precisely which parameters were changed, by how much, and at what load and revs, or under what conditions, any initial damage may have occurred... but I do believe in this instance that this tuner purportedly applied the same or very similar tune once offered on this forum some time ago by the now defunct Vmax, who quickly disappeared into the shadows after screwing several forum members and failing to honor promises.

In my own quest to obtain a tune and based on what I have learned from other forum members that installed and studied the parameter changes made by the Vmax tune, that particular code pushed certain parameters (aka Nannies) well beyond the safe limits, in the interest of squeaking out a few extra horsepower. Simply stated, the vehicle manufacture is not going to accept liability for a product that has been exposed to that type of tinkering. I think everybody here realizes a performance tune comes with certain risks, which only makes the following point all that more important.

To be completely candid, I have been a member of this F-Type forum for over three years, since 2014, before the first Coupe was ever sold. I have seen as many as 10 different tuners show up here with promises of increased performance... each and every one of those offerings were quickly and summarily throttled by the more knowledgeable forum members, demanding documentation, dyno charts, tuning history and other proof of the validity of their claims, all aimed at one thing... the safeness and sanity of their tune! With one exception, every other tuner disappeared as quickly as they appeared on the scene, apparently overwhelmed and daunted by the pressure to prove themselves and their product.

The one tuner that not only survived the onslaught, they embraced the skeptical questioning with openness, transparency and integrity - Velocity AP (VAP) has built a credible following of satisfied F-Type customers and done so by offering a product which has proven time and again to be safe, and they've provided stellar customer service all along the way. To anyone considering a tune, I would not let this owners unfortunate plight deter you, but I would strongly recommend you choose to go with a well-proven commodity.

 

Thanks Iron Mike, but if a car with a Vap tuned engine fails and Jaguar wont touch it will Vap replace the said engine. Yes or no.

 

It is going to depend entirely on the circumstances and the type of failure.

If you come to me with a 150,000 mile engine and we put a crank pulley and a tune on it and the thing goes bang... I don't think it is reasonable to expect us to warranty an engine for which we have zero control over or knowledge of the provenance.

That's one example at one end of the spectrum. If you're talking about essentially a brand new car that's different. The way you have phrased the question above and some of your other comments in this thread lead me to believe you're asking whether when a person puts a VAP tune on their car, assuming that they lose ALL warranty from JLR, does VAP say 'okay, we'll cover everything that JLR was going to cover.' If that is the question you're asking then no, we do not offer blanket coverage in lieu of any lost warranty coverage.

We have been pretty clear and transparent with people regarding warranty coverage and what they should expect. It's a question we get asked multiple times a day. And we've always said - if you have an unrelated failure like a window regulator, you shouldn't be concerned about losing any coverage. If you have a 'known' issue on a related component - timing chain tensioners, while by no means endemic, are a 'known' failure item. We have generally advised that it has been our experience that JLR covers 'known' warranty items.

What we do say is, we will stand behind our product on something that is clearly an issue produced by one of our products. For example, if we wrote a terrible tune and you burned a valve due to excessively lean mixture.

However, we've again been quite clear with people that there is some level of risk involved. You are getting into a grey area with your warranty coverage and you may find yourself in a position where you have a legitimate warranty issue that is not produced by your modifications, and JLR (or McLaren or whoever) will use that as an excuse to try and get out of paying for the warranty repair. We are also pretty clear and honest when people ask for example 'can the engine handle this' or 'will this shorten the life of my engine.' The answer of course is absolutely increasing the output levels will place more stress on several components in the engine, and depending upon how you use that power & drive the car it may lead to a decrease in the life of the engine. How much decrease is really an unknown quantity. On a perfectly looked after engine who knows, maybe it goes for 250,000 miles instead of 260,000? On an engine that was already running around with a clogged oil pump, it might last 500 miles instead of 600? Similarly, Rods, Pistons etc. are all placed under greater stress. What I can tell you is there are literally hundreds of JLR vehicles out there with our software & other upgrades, running flawlessly and being subjected to a lot of miles and abuse, and there are a tiny handful that have had issues, thus far only attributable to known JLR failure items.

We would also take into consideration what events had transpired leading up to a problem. For example, if your car presented a fault code, and you chose to continue driving the car rather than investigating the issue or following our advice, and subsequently experienced a problem. JLR would take the same view. For example if your engine ran low on oil and you decided to drive it around anyway and ignore the fault, and the data bore this out, I suspect they would also point the finger at the customer for negligence.

One of the reasons we're very comfortable with our products is because we do NOT alter or remove protections that the factory includes in the programming. For example, over temperature fuelling maps, transmission torque limiters etc. are left in place so that if an error state occurs, the protections will still be enabled to protect the engine.

So our attitude fundamentally, is to give the consumer a complete, fair and transparent understanding of the process and the risks and to let them as educated adults make their own decisions. We as a company take the view that if we make a mistake, or their is a fault with one of our products we will stand behind it, but only insofar as the issue is attributable to something we have done wrong.

As far as the analogy about being served too much alcohol I think that's an inappropriate thing to draw parallels to. People pick up a bottle of their own volition they are responsible for their own actions. Blaming it on the place that sold them 'too much' is nonsense. For some people, one is too much. And frankly, it wasn't that long ago that intoxication was a legally defensible position to get off all sorts of charges like Rape. So we ought not to be talking about that as a relevance.

 

Just want to say thanks for such kind words, and we appreciate the open & honest dialogue with our customers as much as you appreciate it with us. It helps us to continue to improve our products and it give us the opportunity to earn your trust as well.

 

Hi All,

JVIII has been kind enough to share his experience with this form despite it not turning out in the best of circumstances. He is certainly under no obligation to anyone to disclose any information at all.
With this in mind, please refrain from the down-talking, bad-mouthing, and "I told you so" comments, as well as any speculation on the causes and circumstances of his vehicles current condition.

I do hope JVIII will post some additional facts on the condition and perhaps even the causes of this unfortunate event, as well as the eventual outcome once it is finalized.

I believe the members of this forum are here to gain knowledge and information, both positive and negative regarding this car and it's engine. To this end I welcome all opinions, but please try to keep them relevant and positive and factual.

Thanks.

 

Thanks for the response, the only reason you where brought into it was because someone else said your name. It's been an interesting topic, unfortunately at expense of someone else.
By the way, 30 or so states would disagree that the merchant would not be held responsible for serving someone to much alcohol. And that wasn't my anology.

 

And just to remain factual, I believe the tune JVMIII had was not provided by VAP....somewhere I think the lines got blurred...

 

Jo be fair, JVIII stated as fact that the issue was caused by the F Type having a bad oil pan design, that it is a known issue, and that the blow up was caused by this bad design and not by the tune - I am not entirely sure those statements are factual and not speculation.

 

I have no dog in the fight. I was just asking, if it was the tuners fault can they be held responsible for the engine failure. Vap was brought up from other forum members and he stepped up to the plate with his response. When I do a tune when my warranty expires it will be with his company.

 

Get an attorney. If im not mistaken CA law requires Jaguar to prove it was the tune that caused it if they cannot you will prevail, but im not completely sure on that. Furthermore, I don't blame Jaguar for not wanting to pay if they have a potential of having you pay for it, thats where lawyers come in its just business.

 

I was considering a tune, but a few weeks ago decided that for the driving I intend to use the car, it has plenty of power if you have it in the right mode, so have now decided against it. I find a lot of people are more infatuated with stating/bragging about the hp and torque than actually using it...just my 2 cents. Thanks, but for street driving my 340 hp does just fine!

I do feel really bad for your issue, and I do hope you get some resolution to the problem, either from the tuner or from JLR.