Diagnosing vehicle problems requires more than a code reader or gut feeling
The Car Talk guys did the automotive world a bit of a disservice. They led people to believe complex automotive problems can be accurately diagnosed in 4 minutes from a vague description and some mimicked noises. Throw in a couple wisecracks and the vehicle is all but repaired! While this sometimes works on a radio show, the real world is much different. The cause of some automotive problems is indeed obvious and the diagnosis straightforward, but other problems are complex, may only appear intermittently or under certain conditions, or may be caused by multiple interacting systems. It’s correspondingly harder to track these issues down. When we start looking for the cause of your vehicle’s glitches we start with the least invasive, least expensive methods first and move on to the more invasive and time-consuming techniques only when necessary (and always, only with your approval). Here’s a look at some of our inspection and diagnostic methods so you’ll be prepared when it’s time to follow this path with your own vehicle…
Before there’s a problem… inspect and monitor
Before ever starting down the diagnostic path, it makes sense to monitor your vehicle and prevent as many failures as possible. Whenever possible, we assign your vehicle to the same ASE-Certified Technician so we have someone familiar with the vehicle’s history, performance, and quirks. Many of our clients don’t know we perform a 40-point inspection and double-check of our work after every vehicle service. Combined with the Technician’s notes and evaluations this gives us an on-going overview your vehicle’s condition, so if it begins to develop problems we may have a clue to where they’re starting.
If your vehicle hasn’t been in for service lately, isn’t having a specific problem, and you just want to have it generally checked out, we offer a FREE Basic 90-point Inspection. (This is would be considered an “in-depth or “multipoint” inspection by many other shops). Our ASE-Certified Technicians check all the major systems of your vehicle that are accessible without taking things apart or using technical tools. It’s a good way to catch issues like active leaks or worn or broken parts before they fail, but it’s far from an exhaustive inspection or a diagnosis of any but the grossest problems.
Our Comprehensive Inspection (also called our “130-point Inspection”, “Inspection-For-Repair”, or “IFR”) is our more thorough inspection. It’s a look at major systems on your vehicle, covering details like fluid pH, ignition components, filters, fluids, brake pad thickness, and much more. Your vehicle will be assigned to an ASE-Certified Technician who will evaluate the following areas…
Road Test- 28 points Tires- 6 points
Fluids- 18 points Brakes/Axle- 14 points
Chassis Inspection- 12 points Under-hood Inspection- 33 points
Battery/Starting/Charging- 12 points Miscellaneous- 7 points
When we’re done, we compile a comprehensive list and prioritize all repair and maintenance recommendations so you’ll have a precise mechanical picture of your vehicle and can make informed choices based on your ACTUAL VEHICLE NEEDS. We recommend this inspection to all our New Clients to establish a baseline for their vehicle, but we also recommend it be repeated yearly to catch developing problems before they become serious and expensive.
When something goes wrong… diagnose, prescribe, and repair
The diagnostic process begins when a client has a specific issue that’s troubling them. Again, obvious problems aren’t very difficult to diagnose or prescribe repairs for… if sparks are coming from your alternator then it’s a pretty good bet that replacing it will help. But that may not be the end of the story. What made the alternator go bad? Was it faulty itself, or did some other system cause it to fail? Will the new alternator be compromised by a fault in another system? Even obvious problems can have non-obvious aspects, and a good diagnosis will address all these points.
One situation likely to require real diagnostic expertise is when the vehicle develops a problem but is still drivable. An unusual sound, a new grinding, a sudden loss of performance, all could be serious problems without obvious solutions. The more information you can give us the easier it can be to find the source of your problem, but it may still require some time to specifically identify. This is where our Technician’s years of experience and our state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment come into play. We track down the exact cause of your problem so we can propose an exact solution. We never “throw parts” at a problem; making repairs without a specific diagnosis in the hope that we fix it. That’s expensive for you and inefficient for us. Our process is always diagnose, prescribe, repair.
Another common diagnostic scenario is the dreaded “check engine light”. This innocuous little light can result in anything from a loose gas cap to a serious malfunction. You probably know that we can “pull the codes” for the light, but there is a world of difference between knowing the fault code and knowing the cause of or solution to the problem. Your vehicle’s computer can store fault codes, and most codes can be caused by a single or combinations of failures. The fault codes will give our Technicians clues, but we’ll still need to establish the actual cause of the problem. We’ll pull fault codes for free if requested, but we can’t move from this information to professional guaranteed repair without diagnosis and repair verification.
The hardest diagnostic tasks come from problems where there are no fault codes, or where the symptoms may be mild or intermittent. These complaints can challenge even the best tools and technicians! Difficult problems on late model computer-controlled vehicles often require more time for diagnostic procedures than the actual repair time needed to correct them. For example, we might invest hours testing vehicle systems to ultimately find that corrosion in some buried wiring connector is creating a malfunction, in order to spend just a few minutes cleaning the guilty connector to resolve the problem. Tracking down these problems can be time-consuming and difficult, but accurate diagnosis of your vehicle’s troubles is imperative to provide precise estimates and economical, targeted, lasting repairs.
Why do you charge for diagnostic time?
We spend roughly 20% of our total available time on some form of diagnostic evaluation, and the expense of proprietary equipment and experienced personnel represents major overhead. Aside from the labor costs of experienced ASE Certified Technicians, diagnostic equipment and data access are costly. There is a world of difference between a code reader and a manufacturer-specific diagnostic scanner that can access and record multiple live data streams! Even a good generic diagnostic scanner is expensive, but the manufacturer-specific diagnostic tools we require are $3000 to $9000 each and require thousands of dollars in yearly updates. The software and databases we must subscribe to for each make of vehicle we service are correspondingly expensive.
Like many shops, we could choose not to do technical work. We could just take profit from basic repairs and maintenance services, and then when presented a real problem say “Oh sorry we can’t do that” and send clients to seek help elsewhere. Or, worse yet, we could hire unqualified techs to stumble around and guess at causes, and then replace parts to find out if they’re right- all at our client’s expense. We could just to do the high-profit easy stuff, but that’s not why people use our service.
The time has passed when someone with basic knowledge and a few tools can properly diagnose or repair your vehicle. Today’s technical problems require the attention of highly trained and experienced personnel, along with the use of proprietary equipment and data resources. Maintaining this ability to accurately diagnose technical problems is expensive. We understand it is frustrating to hear that we need to charge for time just to determine the cause and correction for your vehicle’s problem before we can even give an accurate estimate for repair. But, not billing for diagnostic time would quickly force us to change our professional methods. We prefer to stay well-equipped, well-staffed, and ready to solve your most difficult automotive problems. Honest and accurate billing for our most valuable product- our expertise- is the only way to keep providing the service you’ve come to expect.
