My employers have expressed that they would like me to take on the role of auto electrician along side my role doing general maintenance and repair of
our fleet of vans and trucks, now i'm fairly confident around vehicle electrics, i've build a couple of looms in my time and done general
fault finding etc. it's been a long time since i had any real training though, 17 years ago when i served my time i don't think a can bus
system had even been thought about so i only know what i've picked up over the years about things like that, could just do with a bit of a
refresher and then bringing me up to speed on todays technology.
so to the point, does anyone know of anywhere that does such courses? there's thousands of independent garages out there, they can't all be
running with techs that car only fix things with a hammer?
Try Thatcham, they run industry approved training.
I'd guess for newer vehicles you're going to need a laptop, software and cables. VW certainly like to connect a car up to do things.
Step 1 get them to Paul Danner's "ScannerDanner Premium" Subscription channel on YouTube and pay for a copy of his ebook which covers
basic and advanced testing methods in detail.
Scannerdanner Free Channel
Scannerdanner Premium Channel
[Edited on 28/11/16 by britishtrident]
Have you thought about contacting the supplier of your OBD equipment? Some suppliers that sell specific vehicle manufacturers diagnostic tools might not be the best if you have a fleet of various brands, but maybe some of the independent equipment manufacturers (I'm thinking Snap On etc.). If they don't do courses themselves, perhaps they can point you in the right direction? From what I understand of the industry now though, if your diagnostics machine can't tell you the precise fault, there's usually a hotline to call for further information or updates!
quote:
Originally posted by Charlie_Zetec
Have you thought about contacting the supplier of your OBD equipment? Some suppliers that sell specific vehicle manufacturers diagnostic tools might not be the best if you have a fleet of various brands, but maybe some of the independent equipment manufacturers (I'm thinking Snap On etc.). If they don't do courses themselves, perhaps they can point you in the right direction? From what I understand of the industry now though, if your diagnostics machine can't tell you the precise fault, there's usually a hotline to call for further information or updates!
thanks for the replies guys
I've contacted thatcham as they advertise a course that appears to meet the needs of what we are after. Bosch also do a very similar course so
will see what comes back from them.
snap on only want to train you to work with their diagnostic tools, i have been on their training days in the past and found them very informative but
problems with after sales support has made us steer from using their diagnostics, we've just bought into some eclipse diagnostic equipment, the
jaltest side of it seems great for the trucks but at present i'm not at all impressed with their edis system for car diagnostics, it's let
down from the start by a hopeless windows based tablet, again they only offer training relating to their specific equipment.
not to knock it but auto electrician does seem a rather dull and easy job these days with the computer just telling you what is broken and just changing one part for another since nothing is now fixable. I have computer diagnostics for all 3 of my modern cars with plenty of faults over the years but nothing has been very technical or required any electrical skill at all bar unplugging a connector or two.
I find many issues with modern stuff comes down to confidence that you've identified the issue before spending money on modules Ecu,s etc .
Had an a5 Audi cabriolet in recently that failed the mot on the rear fog light not working .another garage found broken wires in the bootlid and
repaired them but still no luck then belled all the lights in the boot lid to the big module buried in the offside 1/4 panel , before pulling the
trigger I had a look and found the problem straight away .
All the test work had been done with the boot open . Shut the boot and the fog light worked . If they had gone for the module it would have been a
£600 bill to fit and code the new unit .
The American scanner Dan is worth watching and there's a few others with some really handy tips for fault finding . Personally I don't like
to see anything in the diary with "intermittent fault " as the job description . Broken stuff is a lot more straightforward