[mseepman]

After reading your post here, I thought I would chip in my 2 cents. I previously worked for a Ford dealer and still work in the auto industry, but as a consultant/vendor to dealers rather than to consumers. I now deal with all brands, especially imports.

The first thing to note is that pretty much all mods to a new vehicle (whether done by the dealer or not) can have warranty implications. Even Ford Racing and Toyota Racing brand parts have a disclaimer about how they affect warranty. That does not necessarily mean that your warranty should be void.

The second thing to note is that I highly doubt that the dealer is truly just trying to stiff you. They really want to do the warranty work (that's how they get paid) but they can't go against the manufacturer. What generally happens in these situations is that the dealer spends some time looking to see if the mods influenced the failure. Often they would "help you out" by not disclosing all the info to the manufacturer in order to get your warranty work approved/done. This has often been especially true when they sold the mods to you.

Since the huge mess in the US banking system, all the manufacturers (yes Toyota and Honda too) are having some cash issues. This has been more prevalent with the US brands as they tend to loan money to consumers more freely than the imports. With this cash crunch, they've been looking at ways to cut costs and one of those ways is to really watch the dealers hard on all warranty work. This is something the imports have done all along (you would not believe how much warranty is refused by the import brands.) Since they are being watched, audited and measured constantly, dealers are unable to provide the level of help they previously provided.

Unfortunately, it sounds like somewhere along the line, Ford has been informed of the mods which immediately prompts the "watch list" My suggestion to you would be to re-approach the dealer and ask what they feel a solution will be outside of buying a new vehicle. Suggest to them that you will probably have to start discussing things with Ford directly and you will need the dealer to provide the manufacturer some details about the modifications they are doing to new vehicles. This may prompt them to "help" you further as many dealers have really started backing away from doing mods and don't really want the OEM to know they do it.

The last thing that strikes me is that it's not very common for someone who gets mods done by the dealer to only get the Cold Air return done. Is there anything else that they may be blaming for the problem? Maybe a combo of a bunch of things?

Sorry about writing a book here, but I thought some background info might help you come up with a solution or some more ideas. I agree with what was said earlier about keeping cool, calm and persistent is the best way to get this handled.