why is my pcm programmed to a different VIN# than my car?

Asked by GuruX8XC4 Jul 01, 2020 at 05:38 PM about the 2017 Ford Explorer Limited

Question type: General

My car is at a ford dealer to have a rack & Pinion replaced for $2500 and when
they went to program my PCM they noticed it was originally programmed to a
different VIN# than my car?  How does that happen and why would that be
done?  Did my rack and pinion really need to be replaced or was it that my
PCM was programmed to the wrong VIN# that was the problem?

2 Answers

GuruX8XC4 answered 3 years ago

They only told me yesterday they had discovered that it had been programmed with the wrong VIN# and they were trying to figure out what and how it happened. Today they said they were going to order me a new PCM and that it would be covered under the warranty. I ask them if they thought something fraudulent had happened and they said they didn't think so, that maybe whoever had programmed it must have keyed in the wrong VIN# by mistake. I do not believe that. When I bought my car last December it only had 36k miles on it and it has 42k now when I looked at the carfax report it doesn't show any repair that involved the PCM so that means it would have been programmed at the factory with the wrong VIN# according to the dealer. I am not buying that for one second. Something is not right, I just don't know what.

Mark helpful

F_O_R answered 3 years ago

If the VIN is one digit off you know it was an honest mistake.

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