Page 5 - Australasian Paint & Panel May-June 2021

Editorial
EDITOR
Sam Street (02) 9213 8334 samstreet@yaffa.com.au
NATIONAL SALES MANAGER
Lynette Rochford (02) 9213 8331 0407 241 554 lynetterochford@yaffa.com.au
ADVERTISING PRODUCTION
Michelle Carniero (02) 9213 8219 michellecarneiro@yaffa.com.au
PUBLISHER
Tracy Yaffa
MARKETING MANAGER
Lucy Yaffa
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR
Matthew Gunn
ART DIRECTOR
Ana Heraud
STUDIO MANAGER
Lauren Esdaile
DESIGNER
Stéphanie Blandin de Chalain
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
WHEN THE CHIPS ARE DOWN
with an on board diagnostic sys- tem with scanning capability was troduced to the market by Volk-
swagen all the way back in 1968? It was when Queen and Pink Floyd topped the charts in 1980 that GM introduced a pro- prietary interface and protocol capable of providing engine diagnostics by flashing the Check Engine Light. I take this trip down memory lane to prove the point that diagnostics is not new and yet it is becoming an increasingly vital part of completing a safe repair. And also to point out that it’s not just brand new cars that need scanning.
Back in the 80s and even the 90s a dash light was just an irritation that an auto electrician could generally fix with ease and was not an intrinsic part of collision repair. Fast forward a bit and even a 10 year old Toyota is packed with up to 100 million lines of computer code – more than some jet fighters. It has at least 30 microprocessors – where as a 10 year old luxury car could have as many as 100.
No technology has so consistently and dramatically rebooted the car as the computer chip. Electronics are responsi- ble for 40 percent of a new car’s total cost – that’s up from 18 percent in 2000. The microprocessors and chips that power modern vehicles are now so prev- alent that they are a commodity in the same vein as steel and aluminium. Car production lines have been shut down all over the world because of the current lack of chips. They’ve made cars quick- er, safer, cleaner, more efficient, and more reliable – better in every way... but way trickier to repair.
It could be argued that pre and post repair scanning should have been stand- ard practice many moons ago, and I
don’t even want to think that there are any shops out there that are still not do- ing it. The saying ignorance is bliss does not apply here, nowadays ignorance is potentially fatal. I’m no technician but even I understand that there are a vast array of reasons why a fault code isn’t generated despite the fact that some- thingiswrong.Manycarsneedtohave a certain set of circumstances take place – such as being driven above a certain speed to trigger a fault code. These often won’t be met if the vehicle is towed to the shop from the accident.
What is clear is that there needs to be a huge amount of education throughout the industry and most especially for re- pairers and assessors – and this needs to happen yesterday.
The day of the cursory pre-scan and post-scan is over. It’s no longer enough to generate a report, someone needs to actually understand what those lines of code mean. And decrypting that code thoroughly takes time and that time needs to be paid for. I’m always hearing about assessors (I don’t mean to have a go – they could just be following orders) arguing against the need and not want- ing to pay for proper diagnostics. This surely must be because they don’t un- derstand how if one chip can’t commu- nicate with all the chips it needs to that this could actually cause an accident.
You’ll notice I haven’t even mentioned the four letter word beginning with A and ending in S, but if you flip forward a few pages you’ll see that we have a whole feature on it. Let’s get learning.
Sam Street – Editor
PAINT&PANEL
MAY / JUNE 2021
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