In this seminar, we approach all drivability complaints using the same disciplined approach. It’s too intuitive to be printed as a flowchart. Instead it’s a top-down approach that first asks if the fault is related to engine breathing, engine fueling, or ignition. That appears too simplistic, but all of the technology they’ve bolted onto these engines only manages and modifies these basic functions. Any fault that can cause drivability complaint only does so because it affects one of these categories.
Because of this, we believe the first job in diagnosis is to determine if the breathing, fueling, or ignition are faulty, and only then dig deeper into specific system and component diagnostics. That may sound a lot like “check the basis”, but the ATG approach is more like “easily determine which basics need checking.” For example, if you can drive around the block with a scan tool and know for sure that you have a fueling fault, then compression, vacuum, timing, and other basic checks are suddenly unnecessary. So we aren’t adding steps-we’re preventing them. This strategy is field tested and has been proven to greatly trim diagnostic times by stopping you from making any tests that can’t result in a fix.
Development
Some tool & equipment manufacturers have begun to focus on this same top-down approach, so of course we use those tools as we explain and demonstrate the methods. For technicians that own or are interested in these new “gadgets”, this seminar will help get the most out of the investment. But the strategy still works for everyone else, since most of these initial tests can be performed with even a simple generic scan tool. So yes, it covers various uses of transducers and data-processing lab scopes and scan tools, but these tools are based on truths that are available to every technician with any level of equipment and experience.
These strategies can also be used for no-starts, most trouble code diagnostics and even emissions faults a well, so this is a seminar that gives something that can be used every day.
