A Weatherbug Spring Auto Tip.

We got to the shop this morning and found this on weatherbug.

http://weather.weatherbug.com/weather-news/weather-reports.html?zcode=z6286&story=8134

Well they asked for a reply, so why not?
................................................................
Who wrote that article? Does he/she actually have any formal training to work on cars?

O2 sensors:

     "Faulty sensors are the most common reason for a failed emissions test. Precise oxygen sensors can increase your mileage efficiency by an average of 10-15 percent. Replacing a faulty oxygen sensor is easy and costs between 60-80 dollars on average, which is inexpensive compared to the amount of gas money it can save. The most obvious way to know when your oxygen sensor needs to be replaced is if the "check engine" light appears, but they should ideally be replaced every 50,000 miles." 


    Nobody should just on a whim replace an O2 sensor,  or as they are more correctly named on most cars today an air/fuel ratio sensor. The cost to replace some of those components isn't the fifty or sixty dollars as suggested by the article but quite often can approach three hundred dollars per sensor. Besides, the computers on today's cars constantly test the performance of these sensors so they should be left alone until either the PCM reports them as failing or if a emissions control specialist technician proves that they need to be attended to. With today's cars some of the O2 and air fuel sensors have the potential to be lifetime components. That essentially means if your author was a tech and doing that work for someone else, the advice given would be a rip-off of that vehicle owner.

Spark Plugs:

"Spark plugs are good indicators of engine condition. Spark plugs should be checked every 30,000 miles, even if your car is low-maintenance."

    In many cars scheduled maintenance for the spark plugs occurs at the 100,000 mile range, not 30,000. Plus many engine designs today have the spark plugs buried under the upper intake manifold and you need an experienced hand to deal with some of these because of the complexity at even that level.

Engine Oil:

"Oil filters: Oil filters are easy to replace and can help prevent unnecessary wear and tear of the engine. Oil filters should be replaced with engine oil every 3,000 miles."

   Extended oil drain intervals are the norm today and the old 3 month or 3000 mile has been inaccurate for at least a decade. We have O.E. recommendations that run from the 5000 mile range to as much as 15000 miles. In fact there are some manufacturers maintenance reminder systems that could allow a car to go even further mathematically, but in practice routinely average 11,000. The real advice that should have been given would have the writer explaining to the readers how to choose the correct oil for their car so that it meets all of the O.E. requirements. Today vehicle owners cannot just grab any oil that shows their recommended viscosity on the front label.

Filters:

    "Air filters: Cars run on both gas and oxygen. If the flow of air is blocked by a clogged air filter, a car`s performance and fuel efficiency will go down. Air filters should be checked and replaced every 12,000 miles."

     A dirty air filter does not impact fuel mileage. Now power, maybe but mileage no. We have cars on the road today that do not have a scheduled air filter replacement. The ones that do it is often in the 30,000 and as much as 50,000 mile intervals.

    "Transmission filters: A blocked transmission filter can produce transmission slippage, engagement problems and engine hesitation. This filter should be changed every 12-15,000 miles to extend the life of your automatic transmission."

    Transmission filters on many designs are not serviceable without major disassembly and are considered a lifetime component, only to be addressed if the transmission needs a repair.


#weatherbug, #O2 Sensor, #transmission, #service, #air filter, #engine oil, #gas

The Impala, part #2

     The main question asked at this point is how to proceed. It quite often happens that the information that is passed onto the technician about the symptoms that a car is displaying turns out to not match what was initially described to him/her. The Airbag (SRS) and ABS lights flashing on, instead of the turn indicators suggests a completely different issue, and the scan tool is now the next thing to bring into play.


     So connecting the TechII scan tool, and going straight for the Airbag system there was no communication found with that module. Other systems were communicating on the data bus, and they of course had active codes for the airbag module communication failure and historical codes for multiple modules losing communication. When a module has fallen off of the data bus the thing to do is confirm power and grounds. In this case with the turn signals are also being affected, looking for something common to both systems makes for a logical plan and what they share is the same power connection from the ignition switch. The fuse for the turn signals is in the fuse block on the drivers end of the dash, and measuring power on that fuse showed 7v. Meanwhile any fuse that wasn't getting power from the pink wire pin "B" of connector #2  was a showing battery voltage of 12.2v. That's a big voltage drop to that circuit.


     The customer was then brought to the car and shown what we had found, she didn't have a turn signal issue, she had an ignition switch problem that was even shutting down her alternator at times and it was a good thing we squeezed this in. It was kind of fun to show her the turn signals not working, which is the symptom that she noted, then show her the airbag module not having communication with the scan tool, and then by jumping power to the turn fuse, all of the systems that were affected came back to life. When the jumper was removed, they all shut right back down, which by the way is exactly what the car was going to do to her real soon, stall out and leave her stranded somewhere. That pin of the ignition switch also powers up the fuel injection system, and all she had to do was drop just a little more power and that would have shut the engine down too. At this point it was time to get a charger on the battery, and get a new switch ordered and installed and we had her back on the road in a couple hours.


#Tech II , # Airbag, #ignition, #ignition switch, #SRS, #battery, #module, #fuse, #jumper wire, #data bus, #turn signal

From the Saturday Morning Mechanic Show

     I do a live radio show and one of the callers had an interesting question. Her 2002 Chevrolet Impala would randomly make a buzzing sound and the turn signals would not work correctly when she tried to use them. She also mentioned that the lights on the dash would flash to which I asked her if she was referring to the turn indicators and she said yes. I then asked her if the four way (hazzard) flashers worked normally when she pushed that button and she said yes they did.

    This is a common description of the flasher unit failing inside the four way flasher button, but like any failure it needs to be confirmed before one simply replaces a part. The caller had already had several people look at the car for this issue but it wasn't acting up when they did so they did the right thing which was to ask her to return when it did act up. Just because failures of that switch are common, that does not mean that it is bad this time. In the past if a shop would replace that part based on nothing except experience, and doing that failed to fix the car, they would end up with an unhappy customer and be refunding the money and it didn't matter how it was explained, they were danged if they did try, and danged if they didn't.

    She called us at our shop a few hours later that day and to their credit even armed with more information her local shop didn't want to see the car, nor change the flasher without confirming the cause and she wanted to know if we would look at it. I told her pretty much the same thing, except we would start testing and see if we can determine anything. She showed up about 3:30pm and we brought the car in the door. Now when we were talking she changed the story a little bit. The lights that were acting strangely wasn't the turn indicators, it was several of the other lights on the dash which included the airbag light, and the antilock brake lights. She also said quite happily that it started doing it on her way down to the shop. Now things were starting to make more sense, when the ABS and SIR lights started coming on, that's when the turn signals wouldn't work and a buzzing could be heard in the dash if you tried to use them. That's a completely different scenario compared to what she seemed to describe while we were on the air.

    Based on this updated information, what path would you choose to start your testing? Do you have any expectations as to what you are likely to find? Use the comments to field your ideas and I'll respond with what you would have found.

#4way, #four way, #Chevrolet, #Impala, #turn signals, #Radio, #saturday morning mechanic, #antilock, #brakes, #buzz, #hazzard

Here is a Honda CRV Cranks but won't start.

This car was reported to have been running very poorly earlier in the day and then it stalled and would not restart. The driver reported adding three quarts of oil earlier (it only holds 4).

The initial testing confirmed that there was spark, and while there was an odor of fuel when cranking, that actually still needed confirmed, so alternate fuel was attempted and the engine didn't even attempt to fire.

The next step was to inspect the spark plugs and they were fouled black with soot. Conventional compression testing showed the compression in #1 to be 110PSI. We have to allow for the possibility of the cylinders to be washed down from too much fuel and no combustion so the pressure transducer now becomes the best next step.

Here is the waveform that was achieved. What do you think is wrong?

Here is a known good cranking waveform to compare

#Honda, #compression test, #Autotechtitude

#PICO,  #scope, #thecardoc, #cardoc

Here are a few random scope captures from some of the cars we worked on the last few weeks.

In this one, the Grand Am would intermittently crank but not start. This was after taking care of a bad crank sensor, and fixing a wire that had been cut to the ignition switch Passlock sensor.

This was one of the events where the car cranked and started, but it did not start right away.
The tan trace is power to the coil pack, the green is the electronic spark timing command from the PCM to the module,
The red is the reference signal from the module to the PCM, and the blue is the crankshaft position sensor signal.

Here you see a close up of the failure, during key on you can see the tan at 12v, but it falls to 0v when the engine is being cranked. The blue trace shows the crank sensor signal, but with no 12v to the module assembly, you don't see the reference signal to the PCM to inform it that the engine is indeed being cranked.

Here is a Chevrolet Prizm electrical system test. The customer had a battery installed but wanted to be assured if everything else was OK or not. This first capture is the starter draw and batter voltage during cranking.
 The blue trace is the current and this is a classic drawing of a good starter, battery, and cable connections. The initial draw is over 600 amps for a brief moment and the battery is only pulled down to 9.2v. This occurs just before the starter starts to spin. Once the engine is cranking a normal cranking amperage is seen in the 150 amp range.

Here in the next capture we tested the alternator at 2000 rpm and it is putting out 70 amps and the alternator ripple  waveform shows that all of the diodes are good. A bad diode would have a repeating pattern  of distortion instead of all of the peaks being uniform.

The last thing to check is for a drain on the battery. This test  passed with no parasitic drain .

By the way, remember this from a few weeks ago? This is just a bad starter from a Honda and it makes for a good comparison for the capture on the Prizm.

#GrandAm, #alternator, #drain, #Chevrolet, #Passlock

Commentary and response to an article found in the Philly Inquirer

Here is a link to an article in the Philly Inquirer and the e-mail that I sent the author.


http://articles.philly.com/2014-02-12/business/47238848_1_pep-boys-philadelphia-auto-show-technicians




Hello.

After some 38 years in the trade as a technician, (I also own my own shop and teach continuing educational classes nationwide) I have a problem with the article that appeared in the Philly Inquirer.

I'll refer to my blog where you can see a post written by one of the best technicians in the country, and you can also find this same post in a fixed operations managers forum on linked in. (I sent you a request but have not see it be accepted).

Here is my blog. http://johng673.blogspot.com/

The simple facts amount to your article was really nothing but an advertisement for UTI to try and attract students to try and get jobs that they cannot possibly be trained for in that short of a period of time, and even the most stellar students if they have all of the natural gifts to be a great technician are decades away from being that person when they do graduate. These kids are being saddled with a huge debt to try and get entry level jobs in a trade that routinely eats its young.

BTW the fixed operations forum on Linked in is here..

http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=3945201&item=5839734171479601155&type=member&commentID=5839741901611241472&trk=hb_ntf_LIKED_GROUP_DISCUSSION_COMMENT_YOU_CREATED#commentID_5839741901611241472

It should be noted that the thread is getting next to no response at this point essentially because the real atmosphere in the workplace as an automotive technician is on display. In any other career advice like work harder than the rest, be the first one in the door and the last one to leave should lead to success. But as my blog demonstrates the only thing that is important to these managers is how many hours a tech produces, even if the way the hours are calculated is terribly flawed, and even dishonest. Before we try and attract the young people that the consumer needs us to have, we need to genuinely fix the compensation packages and working conditions of the current technicians. Your article made it seem like there is a lot of money to be made. How about going to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and try to confirm that position.

Here is a link.

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/installation-maintenance-and-repair/automotive-service-technicians-and-mechanics.htm

With the quality of todays automobiles climbing, there are fewer repairs to do than there was just a few years ago. While the technician workforce, especially the real top techs are aging and leaving the trade, there are in fact too many shops and techs. That's a two-fold problem because anyone coming in won't generate enough income to make it worth sticking out and life is going to do what it is going to do and the senior techs will all be gone, with no-one to step in and take their place. When you article said that dealerships will be happy to see Ms. Lukatchik in two years, the reality is she won't be who you need the dealer to have for at least fifteen to twenty years. Even then not she nor anyone else can ever be the master technician that we had in the shops when I was a kid just starting out. Back then there wasn't much that really needed to be learned, today there is so much that the best anyone can do is specialize in one or two areas.

Please follow up on this.
John Gillespie
ASE CMAT L1 A9
Owner/ Technician/ Technical Writer/ Instructor
Electronics/ Diagnostics Specialist.
724-728-5484 Shop
724-312-4939 Cell

#Philly Inquirer, #Auto Technician, #Auto Mechanic, #Automotive, #Service, #Technician

This post was written by James Avery and posted in the iATN

If you want a little insight into what diagnostics look like on the newest cars this is a great example. I'll comment on this at the end.

A 2014 Corvette with 1500 miles came in with a complaint of
intermittently the radio and/or Nav system would shut off at
times for 2 or 3 minutes and then come back on by itself and
operate normally. Scanning the infotainment system, U0028
was set as history in the radio. This signifies a MOST ring
break in the past.

Looking at MOST operation, the MOST network is a two wire
twisted pair infotainment data bus that runs 100 times
faster than high speed GMLAN. It is a unidirectional ring
network that has a master module that serves as a MOST to
LSGMLAN gateway. There are other satellite modules in the
MOST ring. Requests are usually supplied by other non MOST
modules connected by a LIN network, The request is sent by
LIN to the MOST module which sends it along the ring network
and watches for a return. Each MOST module watches the
module before it in the network for data. This occurs in an
downstream position only as the ring is unidirectional. The
modules are assigned places in the MOST ring by the master
module and assigned a numerical position ID number.

Still with me? If a module loses data from the module
upstream of it in the ring, this is known as a ring break.
At this point, the module first losing data will declare
itself on the ring as the Surrogate MOST Master Module. This
happens ONLY while the ring break is active. Surrogacy is
cancelled if the communication is restored. When the ring is
broken, only modules downstream of the break will send
information to the radio which usually is the MOST master
module. Ring architecture can be viewed on GDS2 as the Last
Working MOST ID of Node XX. XX will be the assigned ID
number of the module. The numbers will increase from node 1,
(usually the radio) through the other nodes in a downstream
direction.

On this vehicle the node IDs are as follows....

Node 1 - radio

Node 2 - Audio Amplifier

Node 3 - Human Machine Interface Control Module

Node 4 - Instrument Cluster

The Surrogate MOST Master Upstream Position value on the GDS
display was NONE as the ring break was not evident at the
time that I looked at the vehicle. How do we diagnose it? I
had two options. One would be to check the entire MOST
network ring for module/connection problems. The other would
be to test at the time of failure when the ring break
reoccurs which would supply me with information about the
declared Surrogate MOST Master module. I drove the vehicle
with a laptop, monitoring data. After 12 miles, the radio
shut down. Looking at the radio data stream I saw Surrogate
MOST Master Node Upstream Position value was 2. I drove back
to the shop and the radio started working again after a mile
or so.

Now I know the module that declared itself as the Surrogate.
The Surrogate MOST Master Node Upstream Position value again
reads NONE as the problem is not occurring again and
Surrogacy is no longer enabled. Although the MOST ring
information is transmitted downstream, we need to look
upstream for a diagnosis. The upstream position set was
position 2 so we need to count backwards on the ring from
the master module to find the position, not the assigned ID.
The last MOST module on the ring is the Instrument Cluster
ID 4. This will be in position 1 counting upstream. The next
module is the HMI module, ID 3. This will be upstream
position 2. Therefore the HMI module was the module that
established Surrogacy during the ring break. Still with me?
The HMI module is not a failure point and is operating
correctly. It just lost communication with the module
upstream of it in the MOST ring that was transmitting
downstream to the HMI module. So, the ring break must have
occurred BETWEEN the next upstream module which is the Audio
Amplifier, ID 2 and the HMI module, ID 3 in the MOST ring.

Checking the wiring pin fits at the HMI module inputs, I was
able to re-introduce the ring break by wiggling the wires
and found a loose pin fit at one of the connectors. A new
terminal fixed the problem.

------------------------------------------------------

• I wonder how aware most managers are of the fact that in order for top techs to deal with today's cars we cannot rely on just the training that is typically provided. Many of us write up repair events such as what you just read through sometimes as a straight essay, and quite often just short of revealing what the failure was and letting the other techs practice looking up the information and figuring out the problem the best that they can without actually touching the car. We will do things like ask for a measurement at a particular pin connection with a scope/voltmeter and of course even send snapshots of serial data back and forth.
  
  Maybe you knew, maybe you didn't but most of us have been very active at doing this for the last fifteen to eighteen years. BTW James has another one out that he wrote after this one and both of them demonstrate that the cars can only test themselves so much, and the tools we have otherwise cannot diagnose the cars. It takes techs, dedicated, skilled, and committed way beyond what the compensation for the effort returns. The ugly truth about flat rate is for now that Corvette paid James straight time. If I was I the stall next to him while he was fixing this and doing customer pay front end and suspension work, I would have generated three to four times the income that he got paid.
  
  Now how does that make any sense?
  
  We always hear the advice of work smarter not harder. That simple line essentially suggests there is no reason to attempt to learn how to solve that Corvette's problem and is the heart of why it is difficult to find qualified technicians today. The need for speed and the one sided evaluations of the techs from the flat rate perspective has worked to discourage us from making the kind of investment in ourselves that we could grow into being the kind of technician that James is. What's even worse is many of the comments and especially the political pressures in the bays serves to duly punish anyone who genuinely tries. I hope you really hate seeing it written that way, in so much as to not just try and shout it down but to look closer at what really has been going on in all of the shops, and start managing to correct it. Straight time for that diagnosis and repair, what a joke. Soon the Corvette will go off of the straight time and that would probably be assigned the .3 like all of the other GM diagnostic routines that actually still pay anything. Of course the tech could beg for additional time which may or may not be granted.