Garage diagnostic equipment? Pah!

I served a 5 year apprenticeship as a motor mechanic in the 60s.

We had no machines to tell us what was wrong, we were trained to diagnose the fault and had pride in our work.

We used to Reline brakes, Fit brushes to dynamos and starters, Recondition engines and gearboxes. Today a mechanic fit's replacement parts after a machine tells him what to replace.

but the cars of the 60s had bugger electrical gizmos all on them to fail ... but they had tappets to adjust every other week, points in dizzys that seemed to be out of adjustment by the end of the street. King pins needed lub'ing, grease nipplesin all sorts of places needed a squirt of grease. The engines that you reconn'ed were probably goosed by 70/80 000 miles .... cars with half a million miles aren't unheard of these day & the head would have never been removed in its life. Could you imagine a dynamo even attemptingto keep up with today's electrickery load? And its regulator .... what a PITA they were .... cover off - tweak, try it, cover off - tweak, try it .....etc etc Modern cars will go for 10s of thousands of miles without touching them, and they don't rust like 60s cars did.

Well I read that and had to agree with all of it, because as an owner with a bit of nous and little money I did all that except the building of an engine

I changed the points regularly, cleaned the carb float chambers regularly, greased a dozen points regularly, adjusted tappets regularly, used 'GumGum' by the bucket full and the list goes on

Unfortunately diagnosing is out of most peoples hands these days plus I'm not interested in maintaining it myself anymore, but as for longevity and reliability you can't beat the modern car ...... until it goes wrong 

Some friends of ours have a Volvo which had an engine fault light,which was unable to be diagnosed on two different volvo dealers diagnostic machines that they kept resetting,they took it to an independant garage, who found that the adblue tank was empty,and that was after a service at a volvo dealer

Way back in the distant past I went on a camping trip with my best mate in his Austin 1100. We set off late one Friday night heading South down the M6. At about 2 O’clock in the morning, we were both fed up of the orange oil warning light glowing at us from the dash board so we cured it by putting some insulation tape over it. Problem solved. Had a great week in the Cotswolds but had to leave the car there and get the train back when the engine collapsed. The local Police did a fine job of organising a scrap yard to collect the car free of charge.

As mentioned in a previous post the difference between cars of yesteryear and today's is monumental, gone are the days where a guy with some idea of car workings could fix anything on the side of the road.

I am one of the old school where if I have a problem I'd fix it myself, not because I'm Scrooge but, A/ I can't afford to have a garage rectify it. And B/ I enjoy it!!. Anyhow I digress. My Jeep Grand Cherokee has more than a common problems which, I have mostly sorted.

However last week it went into "limp mode" (this function kicks in when the engine management light comes on telling you there is a problem, and it stays in one gear (2nd) enabling you to limp home).

Now this light can mean a number of things that are causing the fault, the only way is connecting a diagnostic reader. You can buy DIY items that will clear codes and turn the light off. Even the most expensive garage equipment will not point a finger and say "this is the part that's too barred, please replace " it will only send you in the right direction.

I have a function on the Jeep that lets you read what faults codes are showing. Then you look online for the code and it will tell you where to start. Mine through up a P0700 which is just a generic transmission fault. It could have been:-

Transmission control ECU fail £200

Gear selector ECU fail              £200

Transmission solenoid pack  £400 

So you see I was crying by now.

Gearbox input solenoid £35

Gearbox output solenoid £28

Gearbox adaptor plug £3.99

So I rang my local Jeep main stealer for a diagnostic check.

Yes sir, no problem £175 please. 

Will that get it back running?

Oh no, that just for the check

!!!!!!!!!!.

So I got on the phone and did some ringing round. Now it turns out that these readers will read every car make. . . . . Except Jeep, 

They have their own system.  (Grrrrrrrrr) 

By chance I called an old mate that has been running his own garage for some time, for advice really.

Yes mate my Bosch kit will read that bring it in.

So  did, 

Looks like the adaptor plug isn't getting a signal, hold on.

He got underneath separated the plug sprays it with contact cleaner drys it off with an air line, sprays waterproofer reconnects.

Bingo! Then he "flashed" the cars software to reset everything.

That plug may need replacing at some point, let me know if it goes again. £30 please.

I could have spent hundreds trying to sort the problem without the diagnostic equipment.

But I didn't have to send to a dealer either yay!!

Lot to be said for garages that pride themselves on doing a good job rather than fleecing you.

I agree that modern cars are massively superior in virtually all respects to the earlier models.

But there is definitely a tendency for some garages to try one thing after another, untill they find the problem (if they ever do).......and you foot the bill for this experimentation.

It's all about finding a good garage......

I have a Tablet Computer and Diagnostic Adapter that i got cheap from China and is the same as the £1500 piece of kit my local garage has.

So using this and looking online i can find a solution to almost every fault and then fix it myself. So maintaining your own car can still be done!.