Ford has locked the Mustang’s ECU. The CEO of Ford explains why: His daughter’s friend tampered with the ECU and caused significant damage. And that’s exactly what they want to prevent in the future.
In the Decoder podcast by TheVerge, the host spoke with Jim Farley (in the title image), the CEO of Ford Motor Company. Here, he talked about how his daughter’s friend ruined his car by changing a setting on his vehicle. With this anecdote, he wanted to justify a controversial decision by Ford that caused a stir in tuner circles.
Ford locks Mustang’s ECU, CEO of Ford explains why
Ford decided in early 2025 to lock the ECU of the Mustang (2024) so that tuners can no longer modify it easily. ECU stands for “Electronic Control Unit” and is the electronic control unit in the car responsible for various tasks. Among other things, the ECU can monitor and control engine management, air supply, and exhaust treatment.
Jim Farley explained with an anecdote why they decided to lock the ECU. His daughter’s friend did exactly that and experimented with the ECU, ruining an expensive vehicle. The friend is said to have bought a new F-150 and modified the ECU, leading to a series of costly repairs (via thedrive.com):
The aftermarket is a real opportunity, but also a big challenge for us, as many people like to write software into the control module that governs the drivetrain for better performance. What they do not realize, and what users may not be aware of, is that all issues regarding reliability and quality that can arise from this are very expensive.
My daughter’s friend is one of those people. He bought a brand-new F-150 and equipped it with a supercharger. Recently, he received a series of error codes because he updated the ECU contrary to Ford’s standards, and now he has to perform costly repairs amounting to several thousand dollars because the vehicle has started to wear out its camshaft. It was great that he was able to extract 650 horsepower from his EcoBoost F-150. He did not consider what that meant for the reliability of the vehicle, but we at Ford must do so.
Jim Farley is quite sure: Had the friend not tampered with the software, he would not have to pay for expensive repairs on his F-150 now. And he sees that as enough proof of why they locked the ECU for tuners on the Mustang (2024).
The prices for the Ford EcoBoost F-150 start in Germany between €70,000 and €75,000 in the base model.
The CEO of Ford has realized that many young people do not want to work for him. Because young people avoid jobs in the industry. For this reason, Farley has made various adjustments within his company to make the job in the auto industry more appealing to young workers: Because young people did not want to work for him, the CEO of Ford used a “trick” from 100 years ago
