In article ,
Parish wrote:
Really? So if I took the Fiesta, or my Saab, to say a Vauxhall dealer or
(good, competent) independent that they'd be able to hook them up to
their diagnostic kit and extract as much info as the respective main
dealers? I would have thought that the manufacturers would make their
systems (both in the car and the workshop) proprietary in order to
(attempt to) force people to use their dealers.

I'd not necessarily expect a main dealer to have the equipment for other
maker's cars. But an independant should. For a start they can charge for
using it, and it makes diagnostics so much easier.

BTW, in the US - the land of free enterprise - *all* cars have to have a
common diagnostic socket that can be read by just one instrument. Called
OBC, IIRC. It's basically for checking emissions, but any engine fault
will effect those, so it will diagnose pretty well all. Not sure about
auto gearbox codes, though.

and
the fault codes are available to the trade.

Again, that surprises me - for the reasons stated above.

To me it's unfair practice trying to keep such things to themselves. And
it's fairly recent. At one time anyone could buy a maker's workshop manual
for virtually any car - now it's near impossible. So dealers get a licence
to print money - mine is some 110 quid an hour for rubbish service coupled
to shoddy work and downright dishonesty.


BTW, I'm not being sarcastic, I'd be interested to know.

Regards,

Parish

--
*To err is human. To forgive is against company policy.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.