New Equipment for Intermittent Problems
Comments (1) We have a new tool here at Happy Jap’s, and it may help diagnose an intermittent problem with your car.
Modern cars (For these purposes 1996 and up) use whats known as OBDII. This is a system that monitors several aspects of your cars performance. The on board computer measures several engine parameters such as throttle position, and ignition timing, and much more. All this data is used several ways. The computer uses the data to make constant adjustment to engine inputs (fuel, air, etc.) to keep performance and emissions within standards. It also tracks data to warn the driver in the event of a problem. This is what turns on your check engine light.
As you can imagine, this information can be very useful for diagnosing problems. However, we have to connect a computer to the car to view this information. When there is an intermittent problem with the car, it has to occur while we are watching or the data does us no good. Naturally, the cars run perfectly when in the shop, but not when the customer has it.
The solution? The MAC Tools ET3010 allows us to record up to 24 hours of data from a cars computer. This means we can plug the device in, and let the customer drive the car normally until it fails. Using this data we can form a picture of what is going wrong, and find a solution. This should ease headaches for both the mechanic and the customer!
Themocracy