Owner: Mario Rojas
Shop: Autobahn Performance
Location: Oakland Park, Florida
Some technicians rely on massive toolboxes to store the cures for what ails their customers’ vehicles. Others, like Autobahn Performance's Mario Rojas, whittle everything they need down to one specialized box – or in this instance, a cart -- to streamline the process.
Diagnostician Rojas has been in the automotive business for seven years. During that time, he's used a variety of toolboxes. But while his 76" workhorse is great for storage, he "rarely" goes in it. Instead, his pride and joy is a custom Harbor Freight diagnostic cart that features a 43" 4K TV as its major set piece. It also happens to hold all the tools that help him do his job, day in and day out.
"I have several boxes, but the main one I work with the most is my diagnostic cart," Rojas says. "It allows me to do a lot of things at once, like [reading] email, looking up service information, looking up wiring diagrams, and using a PicoScope simultaneously."
The cart is "nothing out of the ordinary," says Rojas, but he's made a few major modifications to help him perform his job duties more efficiently. He’s been using it for about two years, and it’s gone through a few major iterations. His favorite part of the setup, by far, is its latest addition: the TV.
"I went from a 27" monitor to this and it's a huge difference," Rojas attests. "I get to do a lot of things all at once because of it that I have not been able to do before. [Before], it was very cluttered and cumbersome. Now, with the big screen, I can just throw a couple of windows around and click in and out of all the things that I'm doing.”
You might think pushing around a cart with a TV, seemingly more appropriate for the living room, might be difficult in a shop. That’s not the case, according to Rojas.
"I can no longer go underneath cars that are fully lifted," he says. "I do have to go around them. That's the only disadvantage, but overall the movement is the same."
It’s still easy to keep the cart portable, even with a large screen to contend with. Rojas has added a power bank to help boost the items on his cart; this gives him two more hours of disconnected runtime. There's an extension cable to ensure he's never too far from a hookup. He needs the extra juice, especially when it comes to powering the most important tool in his arsenal: the PicoScope 4425, an industry-standard four-channel scope.
"Without [my cart], using the PicoScope would be much more difficult. The cart makes it a whole lot easier for me to just roll up with everything I need in it," says Rojas. "All of my diagnostic equipment, multimeters, leads, probes, transducers, sensors, and all the stuff that I use to make the diagnostics happen is right there.” He also uses a one-channel, battery-operated handheld uScope in tandem with his PicoScope, in addition to keeping plenty of pull sensors on hand, as you can "never have too many of those."
"I would [give] huge thanks to Trained by Techs for basically exposing me to all of this," says Rojas. "It really did start with them for me. Also, thanks to [Trained by Techs'] Brandon Steckler for teaching me and getting me to where I'm at, which lead up to this diagnostics cart being made."
