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Hello Eric,
I’m Lucky enough to have my own pico scope, 5 gas analyzer and scanners.
I work in a medium sized Toyota dealer in Australia, I do find that even with the workshop scope it is all about prior experience and a lot of time playing with known good cars with no fault to help improve how to interrupt what you are seeing. It is hard sometimes with the other type of technicians you spoke of and having different points of views on some things.The biggest thing that I have seen over the 6 years I have been doing this is how scanners have gone from handheld to pc based equipment and the information systems have gone from paper manuals to all being on a computer. Just makes you wonder how far they will be in 10 years time.
Your lucky in the US going to the standard ob2 connector in 1996, over here we just implemented the plugs in late 2005/2006 and there are heaps of cars here still getting around with the old ob1 diagnostic connectors and manufacture specific codes. There are still quite a few shops here with no scanners or information systems. Also information on vehicles here outside of the dealer are a lot harder to obtain.
The diagnostic tools that are on my wish list are a smoke machine, another scanner/s and thermal imaging camera.
The way it seems to be going is almost like diagnostics on vehicles is a specialized field in itself. Also the divide between general repair and servicing is a completely different type of skill set is different to diagnostics.
Hi Eric,
You just came up with ideas for a couple great videos. Show me how to use the point thermal tools to diagnose problems, Specifically how do I use it to test a front wheel bearing, I am assuming one going bad will have a different (higher) heat profile. What is the amount of run (drive) time, what are the temperature differentials of the ambient temp and the other bearing, where is the best place to check the temp, will I be able to detect problems before they fail inspection etc.?
The thermal temp tool is one that I have in my toolbox just because the cool factor, low price, and HVAC trouble shooting. I though the cat testing with the thermal temp tool and the scanner was the best video that you did. You made the numbers come out of the scan tools mean something to me and what you did with the temp tool was so informative, because most of the time the sensor is bad and not the system that it is monitoring. My daughter has a Subaru in which I had to do this exact diagnoses and the temp tool will save me from changing the sensors. Is the Subaru notorious for cat problems? Have a friend that had to replace the cat on her Subaru multiple time, not sure it was not being replaced for the core value.
My diagnosis tools consist of Multi meters, scan tool that I usually borrow from Advanced, and now thanks to you (Eric) the thermal sensor.
Always looking forward to your next repair video.
Todd
What tools have I used and what diagnostic tools will I be using in the future?
I currently use an Actron Autoscanner CP9575, Actron Auto troubleshooter CP7677, the website hyundaitechinco.com when working on my wifes ’03 Santa Fe, your videos, common sense, and dumb luck.
Oh yeah, and on occasion, duck tape ;). If you can’t duck it…..
As for what tools would I be using in the future, it will vary. But I believe that the path of automotive diagnostic technology is moving into the hands of the car owner. I remember a video you did on a new technology were a diagnostic system would be installed into the car. When periodic maintenance approached or an engine light came on, that information would already be sent to the dealership, cutting repair and guess work. Well, in my opinion, this is the possible start of how vehicle diagnostics would change.
Take OTC’s Genisys as an example. It’s a heavy duty tablet built for engine diagnostics. It’s portable, and available to anyone who can afford it, not just vehicle repair shops. If you combine the technology from your recent video with OTC’s Genisys, then you will have what I think is the future of vehicle diagnostics.
I think that almost all vehicles of all types will eventually have a built in diagnostic system. The system would monitor the engine performance, driving habits, and how it will possible shorten the time between maintenance. Only service issues would be sent to the dealership or a repair station that can access the information via the owners phone or wi-fi access point. This would have the information sent to the repair location ahead of time so the techs could know what to expect and how to solve it instead of spending the time to first diagnose, then attempt to correct this issue.
Another possibility is the technology that OTC has developed in their Genisys system. Home/car owners would have a type of diagnostic system installed into the garage, maybe on the wall. The system would also be linked, if installed, with the on-board diag. system. This home system would be capable of handling more tests, monitor more sensors, and be able to diagnose more issues with a larger on-board database of solutions.
To put this one step further, if the vehicle continues to have issues, or the either system can not determine a solution, the owner can contact their preferred technician via a live video/audio chat with the larger home system. The technician can link into the system and watch the live data stream and recommend or even as the owner to perform certain actions to test out what’s wrong. With live video chat so popular, if the technician can’t determine anything, but would like to see how the problem appears to the owner, he could be patched to the owners mobile phone, and “ride along” for a test drive as live data is streamed to him/her.
I know it’s a long ramble and a long read, but this is how I think the field of diagnostic technology will evolve. If you can now get on your computer, do a live video chat with a doctor, have it considered a doctors vist and have that doc email/fax you a prescription, then this future is possible.
What do you and everyone else thing?
Great video Eric!
I always love when you delve into the “diagnostic side of things”, and that’s always been one of those “leit motives” of your videos; it’s good to know how to fix things, but it’s better to know WHY! 😉
As always, scan tools are only an extension of our main diagnostic device (the one between the ears B) ) ; they can be of good help if the one who uses them can interpret and make good use of the big amount of data they produce.
It’s the internet model that repeats itself: the net is nothing without a search engine, and the search engine is nothing without a human using it.
What you say about “looking at a working car” is very true, in fact when a techie is “idle” and takes apart things just to see how they work, that’s not wasted time, instead it is learning time.
I mean, how can you know what a car (or a computer for that matter) can do when it’s OK , if you don’t *experience* it?
Tinkering with perfectly good things IS useful, in fact it gives you the “calibration” to judge, to be able to feel when those very same things (or similar ones too) ARE NOT good and need to be fixed.Also, to be able to feel things, to have “gut feelings” about how cars behave and get a good diagnostic out of these feelings, is one of the best “diagnostic tools” one can ever get.
I acknowledge not every one of us gets this “gift”, but this “intuition” can be helped with lots of experience.And the more you listen to a (for example) misfiring engine, the more you become able to spot the problem in a flinch, instead of having to connect a moltitude of scan tools to get to the same conclusion.
I sometimes do cause problems to be able to get a feel on how that particular “technological device” (be it a car or a computer or whatever, it doesn’t matter) behaves when it has *that* particular problem.
I’m not saying this “second sight” never fails, in fact it can, and can lead you to do very time consuming things for no reason, for example like Eric just showed with that blower fan on the mercury.
It happens from time to time to me too, but the most good can come from these experiences, and that is to LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES.And about “old school cars” , the ones with carburettor and distributors and points, they may seem old and not useful, but they are THE BEST playground to refine our diagnostic instincts.
For example, some weeks ago I was tinkering with my 1990 Citroen BX ignition system, the distributor did leak from the o-ring and as I replaced it I took the occasion to take it all apart, and then did a mistake, and that is I put the ignition together and then started tinkering with the carburettor ( I cleaned it with my can of carb cleaner I had sitting on the shelf :cheer: :cheer: ) , WITHOUT trying the car again between the two things.
That was a mistake, since after putting everything together the car had some very bad losses of power.
Since then I took it apart, I decided the ignition system was the culprit and started *swapping out parts* (that’s the thing you Eric always tell us to not to do! 😛 ), and it improved but didn’t get at least to as good as it was before.
The car did seem to run too rich, had problems starting, and did seem to have lost some power and torque.
I tried to compensate by adding some static ignition advance, and it improved, but didn’t return to as good as it was before.Then I decided it was the carburettor, and it improved a little but I really had to radically change the settings to get it almost to where it was before.
And then one night an illumination came to my mind: I had changed the ignition advance too much and needed to come back to “stock”.
This time, while tinkering with the advance I made the real discovery, and that is I had rotated the distributor in the wrong direction the last time I put it together, so that the ignition timing wasn’t advanced, but retarded!!!!
What’s the lesson behind all this?
Never change more than one parameter at a time, or else you’ll lose track of everything and it will soon become a mess.
And if you do get lost, DON’T PANIC!
Be persistent and don’t surrender to the machine, because YOU are it’s master!
And take breaks, as Eric teaches, these are very useful to clear your mind.If you repeat this “mental gym” enough times you’ll start to see a pattern , and start to see the interconnections between different factors, that some times do compensate and one positive factor compensates a negative one and they mask the truth, so it *seems* random, but it’s not really.
That’s what I thing the pro tuners do when they do hit all of the possible positive factors to get more performance; they have developed the ability to spot these factors, and they know how to exploit these to their advantage.
So, to come back to the topic at hand, what’s the best diagnostic tool?
Well, as long as it’s connected to the main one between our ears, any tool is good in its particular context.
For some problems some tools are just better suited, as a scope is indeed better in analyzing digital signals than a DVOM (as Eric has pointed out many times).
Being able to chose the right tool for the right job IS part of a technician experience, and it’s often more important than the tool itself.An engine always operates under the same basic principles, and sometimes understanding how it works in its most simple form , for example an old school carbed-pointed car, can be more useful to understand these basic principles than a self adjusting, self learning modern car.
It’s always the principle behind things that rules the big picture, and to remove all those self-regulations can be very helpful to understand that very principle.
THEN, and only then, one can start understanding why and when they started adding all those servos, all those ECU, all these sensors.Of course , given all this prior knowledge, a very advanced scan tool like a thermal imaging camera, IS very useful to diagnose problems, and I really hope their prices will drop in the next years, since SOME diagnoses CAN be very much more easily done with these.
Ok, that’s my two cents on this, I hope I’ve not bored you to death 😆
Live long and prosper (and stay dirty!)
10nico
[quote=”roastlambpie” post=60371]Hello Eric,
I’m Lucky enough to have my own pico scope, 5 gas analyzer and scanners.
I work in a medium sized Toyota dealer in Australia, I do find that even with the workshop scope it is all about prior experience and a lot of time playing with known good cars with no fault to help improve how to interrupt what you are seeing. It is hard sometimes with the other type of technicians you spoke of and having different points of views on some things.The biggest thing that I have seen over the 6 years I have been doing this is how scanners have gone from handheld to pc based equipment and the information systems have gone from paper manuals to all being on a computer. Just makes you wonder how far they will be in 10 years time.
Your lucky in the US going to the standard ob2 connector in 1996, over here we just implemented the plugs in late 2005/2006 and there are heaps of cars here still getting around with the old ob1 diagnostic connectors and manufacture specific codes. There are still quite a few shops here with no scanners or information systems. Also information on vehicles here outside of the dealer are a lot harder to obtain.
The diagnostic tools that are on my wish list are a smoke machine, another scanner/s and thermal imaging camera.
The way it seems to be going is almost like diagnostics on vehicles is a specialized field in itself. Also the divide between general repair and servicing is a completely different type of skill set is different to diagnostics.[/quote]
Thanks for the info on what it’s like in Australia. I learned something today. I agree diagnostics is a field in and of itself. For the most part you don’t see a lot of stuff that really needs that kind of diagnosis but when you do having someone that’s good at it is worth their weight in gold.
As for the smoke machine you might check out the ‘smoke pro’. If you run out of stuff to make smoke you can just use baby oil.
[quote=”IAD_TDI” post=60392]Hi Eric,
You just came up with ideas for a couple great videos. Show me how to use the point thermal tools to diagnose problems, Specifically how do I use it to test a front wheel bearing, I am assuming one going bad will have a different (higher) heat profile. What is the amount of run (drive) time, what are the temperature differentials of the ambient temp and the other bearing, where is the best place to check the temp, will I be able to detect problems before they fail inspection etc.?
The thermal temp tool is one that I have in my toolbox just because the cool factor, low price, and HVAC trouble shooting. I though the cat testing with the thermal temp tool and the scanner was the best video that you did. You made the numbers come out of the scan tools mean something to me and what you did with the temp tool was so informative, because most of the time the sensor is bad and not the system that it is monitoring. My daughter has a Subaru in which I had to do this exact diagnoses and the temp tool will save me from changing the sensors. Is the Subaru notorious for cat problems? Have a friend that had to replace the cat on her Subaru multiple time, not sure it was not being replaced for the core value.
My diagnosis tools consist of Multi meters, scan tool that I usually borrow from Advanced, and now thanks to you (Eric) the thermal sensor.
Always looking forward to your next repair video.
Todd[/quote]
Those would make for some good videos. Thing is I’d need a vehicle to come in with a bad bearing in order for it to be effective. You’ve got the idea however. A bad bearing will be hotter than a good one.
As for Subaru cats, well, they are pretty far away from the engine. Catalytic converters need to be hot to work properly. the farther away from the engine they are, the cooler they run. This may be why Subaru cats often leave the building.
[quote=”Civic_Dude” post=60436]What tools have I used and what diagnostic tools will I be using in the future?
I currently use an Actron Autoscanner CP9575, Actron Auto troubleshooter CP7677, the website hyundaitechinco.com when working on my wifes ’03 Santa Fe, your videos, common sense, and dumb luck.
Oh yeah, and on occasion, duck tape ;). If you can’t duck it…..
As for what tools would I be using in the future, it will vary. But I believe that the path of automotive diagnostic technology is moving into the hands of the car owner. I remember a video you did on a new technology were a diagnostic system would be installed into the car. When periodic maintenance approached or an engine light came on, that information would already be sent to the dealership, cutting repair and guess work. Well, in my opinion, this is the possible start of how vehicle diagnostics would change.
Take OTC’s Genisys as an example. It’s a heavy duty tablet built for engine diagnostics. It’s portable, and available to anyone who can afford it, not just vehicle repair shops. If you combine the technology from your recent video with OTC’s Genisys, then you will have what I think is the future of vehicle diagnostics.
I think that almost all vehicles of all types will eventually have a built in diagnostic system. The system would monitor the engine performance, driving habits, and how it will possible shorten the time between maintenance. Only service issues would be sent to the dealership or a repair station that can access the information via the owners phone or wi-fi access point. This would have the information sent to the repair location ahead of time so the techs could know what to expect and how to solve it instead of spending the time to first diagnose, then attempt to correct this issue.
Another possibility is the technology that OTC has developed in their Genisys system. Home/car owners would have a type of diagnostic system installed into the garage, maybe on the wall. The system would also be linked, if installed, with the on-board diag. system. This home system would be capable of handling more tests, monitor more sensors, and be able to diagnose more issues with a larger on-board database of solutions.
To put this one step further, if the vehicle continues to have issues, or the either system can not determine a solution, the owner can contact their preferred technician via a live video/audio chat with the larger home system. The technician can link into the system and watch the live data stream and recommend or even as the owner to perform certain actions to test out what’s wrong. With live video chat so popular, if the technician can’t determine anything, but would like to see how the problem appears to the owner, he could be patched to the owners mobile phone, and “ride along” for a test drive as live data is streamed to him/her.
I know it’s a long ramble and a long read, but this is how I think the field of diagnostic technology will evolve. If you can now get on your computer, do a live video chat with a doctor, have it considered a doctors vist and have that doc email/fax you a prescription, then this future is possible.
What do you and everyone else thing?[/quote]
Why mount something to the wall when you could just give the vehicle a wifi connection and it’s own IP address? Do this and the next generation of diagnostic tools can be completely software based. Just install them onto a computer and login to the vehicles systems. This way all you need is a ‘tablet’ or computer programed with the vehicles diagnostic software and you’re good to go. I’m sure the scan tool makers won’t be into that but we will still need the existing tools for some time due to older vehicles being on the road.
Thanks for the input.
[quote=”10nico” post=60445]Great video Eric!
I always love when you delve into the “diagnostic side of things”, and that’s always been one of those “leit motives” of your videos; it’s good to know how to fix things, but it’s better to know WHY! 😉
As always, scan tools are only an extension of our main diagnostic device (the one between the ears B) ) ; they can be of good help if the one who uses them can interpret and make good use of the big amount of data they produce.
It’s the internet model that repeats itself: the net is nothing without a search engine, and the search engine is nothing without a human using it.
What you say about “looking at a working car” is very true, in fact when a techie is “idle” and takes apart things just to see how they work, that’s not wasted time, instead it is learning time.
I mean, how can you know what a car (or a computer for that matter) can do when it’s OK , if you don’t *experience* it?
Tinkering with perfectly good things IS useful, in fact it gives you the “calibration” to judge, to be able to feel when those very same things (or similar ones too) ARE NOT good and need to be fixed.Also, to be able to feel things, to have “gut feelings” about how cars behave and get a good diagnostic out of these feelings, is one of the best “diagnostic tools” one can ever get.
I acknowledge not every one of us gets this “gift”, but this “intuition” can be helped with lots of experience.And the more you listen to a (for example) misfiring engine, the more you become able to spot the problem in a flinch, instead of having to connect a moltitude of scan tools to get to the same conclusion.
I sometimes do cause problems to be able to get a feel on how that particular “technological device” (be it a car or a computer or whatever, it doesn’t matter) behaves when it has *that* particular problem.
I’m not saying this “second sight” never fails, in fact it can, and can lead you to do very time consuming things for no reason, for example like Eric just showed with that blower fan on the mercury.
It happens from time to time to me too, but the most good can come from these experiences, and that is to LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES.And about “old school cars” , the ones with carburettor and distributors and points, they may seem old and not useful, but they are THE BEST playground to refine our diagnostic instincts.
For example, some weeks ago I was tinkering with my 1990 Citroen BX ignition system, the distributor did leak from the o-ring and as I replaced it I took the occasion to take it all apart, and then did a mistake, and that is I put the ignition together and then started tinkering with the carburettor ( I cleaned it with my can of carb cleaner I had sitting on the shelf :cheer: :cheer: ) , WITHOUT trying the car again between the two things.
That was a mistake, since after putting everything together the car had some very bad losses of power.
Since then I took it apart, I decided the ignition system was the culprit and started *swapping out parts* (that’s the thing you Eric always tell us to not to do! 😛 ), and it improved but didn’t get at least to as good as it was before.
The car did seem to run too rich, had problems starting, and did seem to have lost some power and torque.
I tried to compensate by adding some static ignition advance, and it improved, but didn’t return to as good as it was before.Then I decided it was the carburettor, and it improved a little but I really had to radically change the settings to get it almost to where it was before.
And then one night an illumination came to my mind: I had changed the ignition advance too much and needed to come back to “stock”.
This time, while tinkering with the advance I made the real discovery, and that is I had rotated the distributor in the wrong direction the last time I put it together, so that the ignition timing wasn’t advanced, but retarded!!!!
What’s the lesson behind all this?
Never change more than one parameter at a time, or else you’ll lose track of everything and it will soon become a mess.
And if you do get lost, DON’T PANIC!
Be persistent and don’t surrender to the machine, because YOU are it’s master!
And take breaks, as Eric teaches, these are very useful to clear your mind.If you repeat this “mental gym” enough times you’ll start to see a pattern , and start to see the interconnections between different factors, that some times do compensate and one positive factor compensates a negative one and they mask the truth, so it *seems* random, but it’s not really.
That’s what I thing the pro tuners do when they do hit all of the possible positive factors to get more performance; they have developed the ability to spot these factors, and they know how to exploit these to their advantage.
So, to come back to the topic at hand, what’s the best diagnostic tool?
Well, as long as it’s connected to the main one between our ears, any tool is good in its particular context.
For some problems some tools are just better suited, as a scope is indeed better in analyzing digital signals than a DVOM (as Eric has pointed out many times).
Being able to chose the right tool for the right job IS part of a technician experience, and it’s often more important than the tool itself.An engine always operates under the same basic principles, and sometimes understanding how it works in its most simple form , for example an old school carbed-pointed car, can be more useful to understand these basic principles than a self adjusting, self learning modern car.
It’s always the principle behind things that rules the big picture, and to remove all those self-regulations can be very helpful to understand that very principle.
THEN, and only then, one can start understanding why and when they started adding all those servos, all those ECU, all these sensors.Of course , given all this prior knowledge, a very advanced scan tool like a thermal imaging camera, IS very useful to diagnose problems, and I really hope their prices will drop in the next years, since SOME diagnoses CAN be very much more easily done with these.
Ok, that’s my two cents on this, I hope I’ve not bored you to death 😆
Live long and prosper (and stay dirty!)
10nico[/quote]
Thank you for that great contribution. I’ve spent the better part of the last 2 days writing an article for the new website outlining the steps to take to diagnose a performance problem. You ALMOST covered a big portion of what I say at the beginning and the end of that article. I look forward to hearing your response after I get it posted to the new site.
Thanks again for your input.
[quote=”EricTheCarGuy” post=60629][quote=”roastlambpie” post=60371]Hello Eric,
I’m Lucky enough to have my own pico scope, 5 gas analyzer and scanners.
I work in a medium sized Toyota dealer in Australia, I do find that even with the workshop scope it is all about prior experience and a lot of time playing with known good cars with no fault to help improve how to interrupt what you are seeing. It is hard sometimes with the other type of technicians you spoke of and having different points of views on some things.The biggest thing that I have seen over the 6 years I have been doing this is how scanners have gone from handheld to pc based equipment and the information systems have gone from paper manuals to all being on a computer. Just makes you wonder how far they will be in 10 years time.
Your lucky in the US going to the standard ob2 connector in 1996, over here we just implemented the plugs in late 2005/2006 and there are heaps of cars here still getting around with the old ob1 diagnostic connectors and manufacture specific codes. There are still quite a few shops here with no scanners or information systems. Also information on vehicles here outside of the dealer are a lot harder to obtain.
The diagnostic tools that are on my wish list are a smoke machine, another scanner/s and thermal imaging camera.
The way it seems to be going is almost like diagnostics on vehicles is a specialized field in itself. Also the divide between general repair and servicing is a completely different type of skill set is different to diagnostics.[/quote]
Thanks for the info on what it’s like in Australia. I learned something today. I agree diagnostics is a field in and of itself. For the most part you don’t see a lot of stuff that really needs that kind of diagnosis but when you do having someone that’s good at it is worth their weight in gold.
As for the smoke machine you might check out the ‘smoke pro’. If you run out of stuff to make smoke you can just use baby oil.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGAEy44gm70%5B/quote%5D
Hey Eric, I’ll definitely have a look into that smoke machine.
It is always good to network with other technicians and see different view points on the same topics.[quote=”EricTheCarGuy” post=60638]
Thank you for that great contribution. I’ve spent the better part of the last 2 days writing an article for the new website outlining the steps to take to diagnose a performance problem. You ALMOST covered a big portion of what I say at the beginning and the end of that article. I look forward to hearing your response after I get it posted to the new site.
Thanks again for your input.[/quote]
Really? 🙂
I’m glad B)
I can’t wait to watch your new article! :woohoo:
Also…I was thinking about your Rosedale videos, and since you have the learning at heart, I think that diagnosing is one of the best methods of learning, don’t you think?
At least for me , that I’m a practical guy and like to see the concepts translated into reality, into things that I can touch and feel , and which can make me dirty 😆
Live long and prosper (and stay dirty!)
10nico
The articles contain videos but it’s not a video. I’m hoping to have the new site together by July, the articles will be up then. Diagnostics is probably one of the most difficult things to learn and teach. You can’t really teach experience but you can provide a guide and that’s what I’ve tried to do with this series of articles. I hope you find them useful.
Scania VCI (vehicle communication interface) with SDP2 (scania diagnostic software) and Bosch KTS 800 for truck.
It would help if I had a picoscope as well to test MAF and speed sensors. Also, some functions are OEM specific so some “Equivalent Diagnostic Scantools” have limited capability.
I did perform tests on two units. One without a fault just for comparison. The vehicle’s ECU sometimes throw a bunch of codes and you’d have to determine what’s relevant. Things always gets better as we go along.
[quote=”EricTheCarGuy” post=60785]The articles contain videos but it’s not a video. I’m hoping to have the new site together by July, the articles will be up then. Diagnostics is probably one of the most difficult things to learn and teach. You can’t really teach experience but you can provide a guide and that’s what I’ve tried to do with this series of articles. I hope you find them useful.[/quote]
Oh, I see, so I’ll have to wait a little to read/view it.
Well, in the meantime, I cannot agree more with this your last statement that diagnostics is very very hard to teach.
I myself have spent the last 12 years making tips and howtos for all my colleagues trying to teach them how to manage the different situations in our IT work, but I have gotten very little learning in return; for how good and detailed tips I can make, it always seems that they are in “my own language” or “forma mentis”, and they “refuse” it.So I still have to be their “sled dog” (please allow me this stealing of your nickname 🙂 )
In other words, when there is a problem they go straight into the “reboot the server” thing, and don’t try to understand WHY that server is not behaving (just to make an example).
So when it does reboot and still doesn’t work , they call me (even if I’m on vacation) and I fix that for them.I don’t criticize them, it’s my fault that can’t teach them that “thing” that makes one want to look into the “WHY things happen”.
My kudos to you Eric! 🙂
Live long and prosper (and stay dirty!)
10nico
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