2013 Escalade Hybrid - AFM disabling recommended?

[tengelman]

Hello!
Its been a while....but now I am back.
I sold my 2011 Yukon last year and bought a 2012 Dodge Durango. I was not satisfied with that Durango, so I sold it last week and came back to Full Size SUVs. Now I have a 2013 Escalade Hybrid with 110.000 miles on it. Well maintained and runs great so far.

Currently I am thinking about disabling the Active Fule Management via an OBD-Plug.
(example: https://www.rangetechnology.com/platform/cadillac/escalade/products/afm-dfm_disabler/)

My yukon hat a spun lifter at 70.000 miles with regular oil changes all the time
After repair it only took another 20.000 miles to have a spun lifert again

So I am a little bit nervous with the AFM in my Escalade.
I have all the documentation of the car from the previous owner - it never had any issues with the lifter. And no ticking so far.

Do you recommend disabling it anyway?
I mean - it ran for 110.000 miles now without disabling it.
I definetly wont do a "hardware-disabling" (with cam and so on...).
The only option for me would be the OBD-Plug.

What do you think?
Any experiences?

Regards from Germany
Dennis

 

[j91z28d1]

being in Germany makes it a bit more complicated. I bought mine with no afm issues, but I turned it off on the ecm using hptuners software before the road trip home.

do you have emissions testing where you are, where they plug into the obd2 port to check all emissions monitors are set to pass? in states here that do testing, the plug in dongle to keep the afm from turning on also keeps one of the monitors from completing it's cycle. so to pass the yearly inspection. have to remove the dongle and drive it around a while risking lifter damage.

if you can access a way to turn it off in the ecm that's a better option than the dongle. having access to that in Germany might be harder thou. if something like hptuners ain't available, another tuning type of thing might be. but I don't know which.


I'm always amazed to see how many of these trucks made it around the world.

 

[tengelman]

Thanks. Yes, I need to do emission test every 2 years. And they need that OBD2-port for this. But in that case it would be no problem to unplug the disable-dongle for this. Always made this with my yukon for testing...

I think there is no one here that knows how to disable via ecm...and hardware disabling would be too much....so the only option is that dongle.

How many miles do you have on yours now? How many miles with AFM disabled?

 

[j91z28d1]

I am pretty sure things like the Diablo tuner and black bear tuner can turn off afm in the ecm over with a device shipped to you and then email tune files but I don't know if the hybrid ecm is supported by them.

a dongle sounds better than nothing thou. especially since having a full delete done if the afm fails isn't an option.

 

[tengelman]

ok. i just received a cheap china-AFM-disabler-Dongle for my OBD. It seems to work perfect. I might run into about 0.5 Litre more of gas each 100km, but thats ok for me.

Are there any other "mechanical" disadvantages I could face with always running on V8? (maybe combined with the auto-stop function? or anything else?)

 

[j91z28d1]

not that I know of. only good things.

mine has been turned off in the ecm with hptuners for a good 30k and no issues

 

[Marky Dissod]

Any other "mechanical" disadvantages I could face with always running on V8?

Are you referring to the same disadvantages faced by GM V8s prior to Cylinder Valve deactivation?
As in, what were those?

 

[tengelman]

no...just wondering about the the AFM lifters running all the time, shifting....and so on.

 

[Marky Dissod]

Are there any other "mechanical" disadvantages I could face with always running on V8?
(maybe combined with the auto-stop function? or anything else?)

Are you referring to the same disadvantages faced by GM V8s prior to Cylinder Valve deactivation?
As in, what were those?

no ... just wondering about the the AFM lifters running all the time, shifting ... and so on.

Except that they're NOT running all the time, shifting.
The failure of two-mode lifters is accelerated by:
* chronic deactivations and reactivations / switching between V8 & V4 mode
disabling Engine Half@$$ mode lengthens the two-mode lifters' lifespan
* not changing oil & filter often enough
the cleaner the motor oil is kept, the less detritus in the engine, the longer those lifters will last

Disabling is not as good as deletion, but it's a good start.
I'm always baffled by those who don't disable cylinder (valve) deactivation first chance they get.

 

[OBSalsoNNBS]

ok. i just received a cheap china-AFM-disabler-Dongle for my OBD. It seems to work perfect. I might run into about 0.5 Litre more of gas each 100km, but thats ok for me.

Are there any other "mechanical" disadvantages I could face with always running on V8? (maybe combined with the auto-stop function? or anything else?)

@tengelman
I have been wanting to do an afm disable too. I was also going to go the dongle route.

I had the occasional habit of running it in M5 instead of D, because the afm does not engage until 6th gear. This was mostly around the neighborhood, I would shift up for higher speeds.

And, I can't make this up. I've had the truck 6 months and had two engine problems, Throttle body and oil sender. BOTH occurred very soon after an M5 session... coincidence? Probably. I guess.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I also had a transfer case output shaft seal go under those circumstances too

I'm kind of scared off at the moment. I find V4 mode supremely annoying, but the paranoid voice is winning out.