What exactly is the DOD issue on the 6.2? I have never heard of that until recently, and it was just on this forum.
With the key cycles, ford has some kind of algorithm that matches key cycles to miles. I do not think removing the tune and driving around a bit will fix that. if you tuned at 16k miles, had an issue at 18k miles, and drove another 2k miles on stock tune, I think you are out of luck. The key cycles will not match 20k miles.... it's more like 2k miles.
The more people talk about this issue, the more there is proof that nothing solidly fixes the issue or prevents it from happening. It is not oil specific, it is not filter specific, it is not change interval specific, it is not start/stop specific, it is not "hold the gas down while starting" specific, etc. It just happens. With all the different phaser part number revisions, it is evident ford doesn't understand it either. It was said here before that it sounds like ford is just limping these things out of warranty as they have other engines replacing 3.5 in the future and they are just focused on those. It is surprising that since 2010, no ford engineer has figured out how to not have failed cam phasers on a 3.5 ecoboost.
One other item I am not sure about. Does anyone know if the NA 3.5 engine also has cam per failures? I guess I don't recall ever reading about those.