Diagnostic skill
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and overkill
The IRTE Conference last weekend highlighted more problems than solutions, but it is only by identifying problem areas that the right attention can be directed to them. One particular subject which came in for scrutiny was the difficulty of diagnosing vehicle faults in an economic way— and the consequences of not doing so were put squarely by the ERF engineer who revealed that 70 per cent of all the service exchange parts received at the company's stores were in perfect condition indicating that they had been changed by the mechanic in an attempt to "overkillthe problem.
This raises the hoary old question of whether it pays an operator, overall, to spend more on diagnostic labour than to opt for quick exchanges of units. With the fast-rising cost of labour unlikely to be checked long-term by Government freezes, the immediate temptation is to decide that rapid, if wasteful, unit replacement is the most economic solution. But there is more to it than that. If the unnecessary replacement is, in general, anything. like the figure quoted at the conference, then the practice exceeds all reasonable bounds.
Transport is not so flush with fitters that it can afford to waste a single man's skills. And vehicle manufacturers should heed the message that sophistication in design can breed sophistication in diagnostic equipment that is beyond the scope of much of the labour which, increasingly, workshops will have to employ. It is encouraging to see much more attention being paid to servicing and access in the initial design of vehicles, but we would like to see experienced fitters given a bigger say at the design stage. Every move towards sophistication should be measured against the question: Is it still practical?