A Low-Cost Interactive Diagnostic Tester

Nearly all passenger vehicles now in production use electronics to control one or more functions. The complexity of such systems has made fault diagnosis an expensive and unreliable process for the service technician. This paper describes the Bendix Vehicle Diagnostic Tester, a stand-alone, low cost, portable microcomputer which simplifies vehicle service by interrogating controls for the technician. The tester is connected to the vehicle wiring, and instructs the technician to perform a series of simple tests from the driver's seat. When a fault is found the tester displays a description of the failure and directs the technician to a manual of fault-finding procedures.

The Bendix Vehicle Diagnostic Tester has proven to be a powerful, cost-effective field service tool because it requires no special training and needs only software to adapt to any vehicle system.