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I have to give credit to Mark Hicks from Wells Electronics for giving me the idea for this video. I look forward to your thoughts on it. Here’s a link to the article on that Trailblazer.
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As usual excellent video! My opinion is the true cost of diagnosis or in converse misdiagnosis is immeasuable! As a professional tech with a ton of training and experience on diagnostics it’s a pet peeve of mine that uninformed customers and diy-ers will spend thousands in parts they don’t need or poor quality aftermarket units before taking it to a truly competent diagnostic tech! It’s bad enough when a “pro” misdiagnoses something but it’s worse when a diy-er ignores factory bulletins, and tsbs and on-line forums that can point them to pattern failures of vehicles! Anyone looks pretty stupid when a vehicle has 4 new 02 sensors because of codes that could have been remedied by 1 twenty five cent fuse but by then too many feel they are owed a break because of the incorrect diagnosis they’ve attempted or had done by less qualified people in the name of “savings”! It’s pricelss because no two cases are exactly the same and if you don’t have the tools or the training investment to fix it yourself then pay an expert and don’t complain about it! if the cost comes in at less then the investment they have which it always does then to the customer it’s a bargain
Fantastic video and diagnostic. If the dealership did keep
the vehicle for 9-10 days and never fixed the problem or say
they did fix the problem.There is no way that a customer should
pay all that labor.People should not pay for guessing and at the
end of the day be no better off.I understand that sometimes we
do try something to see if will solve our problem.If it works then
we our the hero.If it doesn’t then we look like we don’t know what
we are doing.Its a hard call.There is no blame here. But at the end
of the day the customer wants the car fixed and the shop wants to get
paid.The other problem I see here is time.Wells has alot more time for the
diagnostic. The busy dealership wants that vehicle in and out.The techs
looked at the usual suspects. I know that at the end of the day people think
we are these all knowing gurus with crystal balls or magic wands.sometimes
crap happens.:unsure:Got one of these in right now. Have an hour in just driving it alone because the noise is so intermittent. It’s not warranty, but this person cried enough that it is going to be good willed, which is the same as warranty and I know I am not going to get paid even half of what I have in it.
Some repairs may take some unseasoned tech’s longer to figure out and diagnose. Is it there fault for taking too long? No. Should the customer be charged for there lack of experience in the repair issue at hand?, probably not.
There needs to be that ‘happy medium’ somewhere though.
Where i work, i have only seen 1 vehicle our master tech could not figure out without calling in a specialist. I believe we only charged a few hours diag in the end as well as the cost of the repair and parts.
We had that vehicle for a week too.
just this week ironically I fixed a driveability issue on my VW golf.
It’s been hesitating especially when it gets cold, and often idling rough, sometimes stalling when coming to a stop.
No check engine light but there was an intermittent code 00537 lamda sensor lower limit exceed intermittent . It was pretty clear it was running Lean.
I cleared the code and just left it to Idle, it was back in a minute. Fortunately I know for a fact there are 2 other sensors that have a huge tenancy to go faulty. The coolant temperature sensor, which I replaced 11 months ago. Which leaves the MAF which is rewound for going faulty. So I unplugged the MAF and it idled nice and smooth. 😀
I gave it a clean with contact cleaner, put it back and it ran alot better. at least during the day time. Fortunately during the day when I have it a nice drive I went to the scrap yard and picked up a MAF for next to nothing. and the problem reared it’s head in the cold evening again not as bad but still there.
Put the other maf sensor in, the code didn’t come back but the problem seemed to still be there. Went for a drive the next morning it was still freeing and the car ran perfectly.
The worst one I know of is my mates AUDI A4 which he brought second hand from a dealer, It was intermittently cutting out, just after we put some BG44k in there to give the fuel system a clean out and a fresh start.
They took the car away and to diagnose it, They couldn’t find the problem took it to Audi They put a new fuel pump in and said it was fine, got it back and it was still acting up and getting worse. They had another look changed the ignition leads plugs, the problem was still present. In about the 3rd week and middle of the second month of the issue they finally had a look in the fuel filter and it was clogged up with sludge. They opened up the fuel tank and it was lined with sludge from a possible fuel contamination.
Stuck in another fuel system cleaner after steaming it out and it’s been fine since. the bill was about £1600 which the dealer agreed to split with him.
He said thank **** you put the BG44k in there else we may never have found this, and I would have footed the whole bill down the line when this reared it’s ugly head later.
I watched this vid, and I want to read the article you mentioned in there — but the link just sends me to the ETCG.com home-page… I’m guessing in the 6 months since this vid was made, the web-site has changed and that link is no longer valid? Do you have a link to that article that will work? Or am I just S.O.L.? 😉
L.
EDIT: I think I found it here: http://www.wellsve.com/press_trailblazer_p0171.html There’s a link to a video in that article, too. Cool. 🙂
OMG! I can go on and on about diagnostics and it’s true cost. First off, the average Joe doesn’t even know what diagnosis means. The average Joe thinks a diagnosis is hooking up a scan tool and reading the code and whatever the code says, that’s the problem. :blink: I have decided to post signs stating the definition of the word diagnosis and the word troubleshoot all over my shop. Well, at least in two places where customers can see them, if they can even read English. I should probably put some in Spanish too. Any who, it’s typically a one hour charge for a diagnosis. And that seems to be all that you can get away with even if you know by the complaint that it is going to take you half a day diagnosing the problem if you’re lucky. Customers just don’t want to pay more than one hour labor period. I have always said there is no money in diagnosis. And it’s true. Perfect example. Thursday, which was yesterday, my most consistent customer finally comes in after weeks of complaining about his AC not working right. It blows cold most of the time but will shut off for moments at a time only while at freeway speeds. I received the truck around 2 in the afternoon and didn’t go home until 7 that evening. I could not get the AC to act up unless I was on a test drive at 50 mph. Stupid me though. I probably should have hooked up the scanner while test driving because I probably would have seen that the data showed compressor on when in fact the clutch was not engaged. Sadly the data only showed on or off. No pressure or voltage readings from the sensors. So, finally after the second test drive on my way back the AC was hot and stayed hot when I pulled up and put it in park. I lifted the hood and saw the clutch wasn’t engaged. I checked for power and ground at the clutch and sure enough power and ground were good. To take it a step further I powered it up with my power probe and nothing. I even went over to my own vehicle to try the power probe and it engaged my clutch nicely. The next morning before I called my customer I did the same test and the clutch worked fine. Obviously it stops working when it gets hot and starts working when it cools down again. So the diagnosis was a bad clutch coil/solenoid. We opted to replace the complete unit and there’s another AC job for me. But the fact of the matter is it took me 5 hours to find the problem. Not sure if having the scan tool hooked up while test driving would have been valid enough though.I still would have had to verify voltage readings and jump the clutch. In conclusion, I feel that one hour diagnosis is fair to my best customer and the repair that I got out of it was worth it. I am a slow paced shop any way and it’s not like I had any other jobs waiting. That’s the good thing about my shop. I can actually take the time to troubleshoot a problem. But when I get a fresh victim 👿 it’s really hard to get more than one hour of diagnosing out of them even when I know it is going to take a lot of time. Shucks, I spend more time than that trying to explain the process to them.
Diagnostics and troubleshooting systems is one of my favirote parts of my job! 🙂 I’ve gotten pretty good at it over the years. Though I still HATE intermitant problems.
[quote=”InsyleM” post=103579]Diagnostics and troubleshooting systems is one of my favirote parts of my job! 🙂 I’ve gotten pretty good at it over the years. Though I still HATE intermitant problems.[/quote]
Everybody hates intermittent problems. 🙂
[quote=”jeffsmopar” post=42452]As usual excellent video! My opinion is the true cost of diagnosis or in converse misdiagnosis is immeasuable! As a professional tech with a ton of training and experience on diagnostics it’s a pet peeve of mine that uninformed customers and diy-ers will spend thousands in parts they don’t need or poor quality aftermarket units before taking it to a truly competent diagnostic tech! It’s bad enough when a “pro” misdiagnoses something but it’s worse when a diy-er ignores factory bulletins, and tsbs and on-line forums that can point them to pattern failures of vehicles![/quote]
This summed it up nicely for me. As a new DIYer, what I immediately noticed is that people tend to throw parts at symptoms instead of attempting to track the real problem down. It seems there needs to be way more Sherlock Holmes activity going on. Some other sources besides ETCG that I have found extremely useful in this regard are Larry Carley’s AA1auto.com and Motor Magazine.
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