How to integrate new tool
technologies into your shop
An overview of new tool technologies and benefits to implementing
these technologies to maximize your investment.
SBy Barry Hoyland, Contributing Editor
ome of the tool types
have been around
for quite some time,
but advances in their
technology have
increased their value to you, your
technicians and your service advisors.
Many technicians do not fully utilize a
tool for various reasons, but the primary
reason for not using all the features
is that they do not understand how to
utilize the tool to create the best value.
Let’s take a look at some of the different
tool categories, how those tools have
changed and how your shop can benefit
from adopting these new technologies.
SCAN TOOLS
Scan tools may not seem as if they have
changed significantly, other than having
the ability to interact with more vehicle
platforms. That is true to some point,
but one of the most significant changes
is that most scan tools have gone to either
a PC or mobile platform, allowing other
applications to work with the tool. Having
multiple applications on a scan tool can
expedite the diagnosis and repair by having
repair information, interaction with
your shop management system and a web
search engine right at the technician’s fingertips.
All of these features can assist the
technician to be more productive.
Other benefits to PC-based scan tools
will be revealed shortly when Right-to-
Repair (R2R) rules come into effect in
2018. In short, R2R mandates vehicle
manufacturers provide individuals or
shops the ability to access dealership level
software. Installing OE vehicle software
onto a laptop will provide a technician the
ability to have the same repair information,
scanning capabilities and programming
capabilities as the dealership.
One of the potential drawbacks to
installing OE vehicle software on a laptop
has been that some of the vehicle-specific
software does not work if a competing OE
vehicle software is on the same computer.
An example has been Nissan or Jaguar
software having issues if Ford software is
on the same laptop. The most common fix
for this has been to send the computer out
to an expert to partition the hard drive,
separating the different programs. I have
found a simpler fix for this by installing
each OEs software onto a separate
external hard drive (external hard drives
have come down in price, and are relatively
68 PTEN OCTOBER 2017 www.VehicleServicePros.com
inexpensive now), and plugging in
the appropriate external hard drives as I
need them.
Other improvements in scan tools are
their ability to graph multiple PIDs, additional
bidirectional controls and complete
Mode $06 data and definitions.
Innovations in remote diagnostics, like
Photo from iStock
Launch Tech USA’s Tech-to-Tech installed
onto their Pad scan tools, allow a technician
to remotely log in from their scan
tool to another Launch tool to perform
remote diagnosis. This can be useful
for shops that have multiple locations,
or you could even place a scan tool in a
customer’s vehicle and remotely connect
to diagnose intermittent issues, provided
you have an internet connection.
To watch a video
demonstration
of the Launch
Tech Tech-to-Tech
program, visit:
VehicleServicePros.com/
20977147
/www.VehicleServicePros.com
/VehicleServicePros.com