Professional Distributor - 44

DIAGNOSTIC DISCOURSE

Find out what
shop owners are
reading about in this
month's pages of

Inspecting the
pre- and post-scan
The practice of recording information before and
following a repair is not new, but the methods and
technology to do so have improved over time.

find it rather interesting that this subject of preand post-scans seems to pop up these days.
It's as if somebody is saying that we didn't do
anything like this in the past and they are trying
BY SCOTT "GONZO" WEAVER to tell us to be more careful today than in years
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR past. I'm not so sure the grapevine has gotten this
After owning an automotive electrical story correct. Because, every shop that I know has
repair shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for always done some sort of pre-scan, as well as a
more than three decades, ASE Master
Tech Scott "Gonzo" Weaver now writes post-scan of the repairs they performed. We may
and teaches about the latest automo- not have called it that, but we did it just the same.
tive technology. As a storyteller, Weaver
So, what gives these days? What's the big concern
has hundreds of published humorous
with
it all? It comes down to how we are acquiring
and anecdotal stories that can be
found on his website, gonzostoolbox. this pre- and post-scan information and delivering
com. He is the author of the book, that information to our customers. With the changes
"Hey Look! I Found the Loose Nut."
in technology, the customer expects to be informed
Email Gonzo at gonzosae@aol.com.
on not only what was wrong and how you corrected
it, but they also want that information delivered as
quickly and precisely as possible. That's where the
technology plays a major role in how this is accomplished. First, let's take a nostalgic look at how it had
been accomplished in years past.

IN THE BEGINNING
Back in the day of the paper and pencil, a service
sheet was filled out and a technician would be
assigned to the task. The technician would then
diagnose the complaint and write up what they
found. Then, the service writer would inform the
customer of the results and a decision was made as
to when or how the repair would be handled. Eventually, the work order would be checked, initialed,
and OK'd by the customer, and that mere piece of
paper would be sent back to the technician to have
the actual work done. Upon completion of the repair,
it was customary to take the vehicle for a test drive,
noting anything odd or unusual, and then writing
that down on the repair order (RO).
Then came the computer age. Many of the duties
that involved passing the invoice back and forth
became electronic. As we all know, the electronic
age moves a lot faster than the pad and pencil days
44 Professional Distributor I June 2019 I VehicleServicePros.com

Photo courtesy of Bosch

did. Now it's the internet, smartphones, cloud-based
storage capabilities, endless information sources,
and immediate answers to nearly every conceivable problem.
Technology has certainly changed how we
handle the whole customer/repair situation. However, that is only part of the issue. We also have
to consider how the technology has changed the
automobile itself. With all the interaction between
different systems that are now interconnected, it's
hard to determine where one system begins and
another ends. This emphasizes the essential nature
of the pre- and post-scan in the repair process
rather than its previous designation as a courtesy to
the customer.
I asked Danijela Haskin, product manager of
diagnostics at Bosch, about the importance of full
health checks and pre/post scans on today's vehicles.
Haskin said, "Pre- and post-scanning has become a
very important topic, especially for body shops, over
the last 18 months. Our main approach [at Bosch] is to
ensure vehicle scans are, most importantly, thorough
and provide all the critical vehicle information

http://www.VehicleServicePros.com

Professional Distributor

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Professional Distributor