Use of Diagnostics Tools

RELEVANTS PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL REQUIRED
Some skills are essential for technicians to possess and be proficient in them before venturing into setting up or working as lead technician in automobile repair shop, as without these skills it would difficult or impossible to perform some repair jobs. Some of these skills include
The Use of Diagnostic tools.
The Use of Hydraulic Jack.
The Use of Pliers and other Cutters.
Surface finishing and grinding.
The Use of Spanners.
The Use of Multimeter.
The Use of various kinds of adhesive materials.

THE USE OF DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS
Most vehicles usually have an inbuilt computerized diagnostic system, which send notifications (i.e. displays warning lights and messages) to the dashboard when faults arise in the vehicle. Not all faults in the vehicle can be detected by the inbuilt diagnostic computer, only faults that occur in components and systems whose sensors are connected to the inbuilt diagnostic computer.

Most vehicles of models from 1998 up till date usually come with an On-Board Diagnostic II (OBD II) Protocol installed. The OBD II Protocol helps to interpret the information from the inbuilt diagnostic computer which helps to detect the faults, when a diagnostic scanner/tool is connected to the vehicles OBD II port the faults present and other information of the vehicle are displayed on the diagnostic scanner/tool.

Vehicles with faults that are cases of Complex Repairs Jobs (i.e. difficult to diagnose manually) are usually connected to the diagnostic tool and diagnosed, several diagnoses are done for various vehicles of which artisans perform a few of them. These diagnostic tools are also used to clear fault codes present in the vehicles computer memory after repair are made.