Most technicians have reliable examination procedures to determine the root cause of an issue when provided with a list of active faults on the vehicle. However, that procedure becomes more difficult when no fault codes are present and the technician must attempt to diagnose based on symptoms.
By listening to the customer complaint and test-driving the vehicle, technicians gain a clear understanding of the problem, but much work remains to pinpoint the exact cause. Programs like JPRO Professional's Data Monitor are built to simplify tasks help solve symptom-based issues when no fault codes are present.
Imagine a customer arrives at your shop with his or her vehicle and complains of low power and increased fuel consumption when accelerating during an incline. You understand the problem, but also recognize there are enough possible causes to create a very lengthy diagnosis process. JPRO’s Data Monitor feature, for example, lets technicians create a custom data group. To create a custom data group, users search, filter, and select which data points are of interest to their diagnosis needs. Then users can select Add to Data Group and save the custom group for repeated use on vehicles exhibiting similar symptoms.
For the low power example, the technician could create a “Low Power and Fuel Economy Items” group (Image 1) and select all items that affect power and/or fuel economy. These data points come from all components that could cause the issue, such as the engine, transmission, body controller, etc. By test-driving the vehicle while running the custom Low Power and Fuel Economy Items group, the software captures all relevant data to assist in the diagnosis process.
After capturing the data, the next step is to look at all relevant items and determine where an anomaly occurs. For example, is fuel pressure meeting the minimum pressure requirements from that vehicle’s manufacture? Is boost pressure meeting the minimum requirements under a full load? The custom data group lets users answer these questions, find the deviations, determine the root cause, and repair the problem.
Information provided by: NOREGON
