Meeting Report - Apr. 2019

LIEVT held its regular meeting at the Huntington FD on Thursday, April 18, 2019 which started with a wonderful dinner of Italian food. The president, John Manetta introduced Michael Baker, GM Regional Training & Operations Manager for the NorthEast who gave a talk on scan tools. Since Michael had travelled some distance the regular order of the meeting was altered so that the presentation could proceed without delay.

Click read more here or below for the minutes, or click on the picture to see pictures from the meeting.

Nate took some notes from the talk, all mistakes are his:

Not all scan tools are created equal, and there are lots of different types being used including Tech2, Tech2Win, GDS2 Global Diagnostic (~$1,200+ requires yearly maintenace fee, 2 members have this tool). Tablet and laptop based versions available.

Member asked about high power alternators triggering a code as if it was bad "bad AC ripple" or "excessive" but within spec. Thought it might be a problem given that emergency service alternators are much heavier duty?

Breakout box for CAN, can be probed into - very handy.
Communication of charging systems, Fuel trim (+ numbers mean ECM is adding fuel, - numbers indicate removing fuel), Mass Air Flow Sensor acts as an EGR valve - 1g/s per cylinder on diesel at idle at least on GM vehicles.

A generic Snap-On tool will not help much for safety systems as the info is quite vauge. The GM scan tool is needed for this. The Snap-On Ethos is a good tool but is very general tool as opposed to the more specific GM tool.

Drew CarDAQ replaced by Mongoose Pro is another universal tool

Went over the various Modes.
Mode 6 was originally intended for service use in the factory. It provides a runability / driveability test which sends known data to the ECM and measures responses. This data can help diagnose a potential problem long before an actual code gets logged in the standard Mode 3 (the P codes we're all familiar with). You need to know the test ID# you want to run in Mode 6.

Reading of minutes was waived till next time.

Everyone enjoyed cake for Kit's 88th birthday and most of the balloons made it home!