V-Scope tool

 

Automotive On-board diagnostic systems of these days have gone a long way toward helping you locate a problem. But those systems aren't perfect and they don't cover everything (most glitches and intermittent). So the real challenge that befuddles most automotive technicians is diagnosing "no-code" trouble. On-board diagnostic systems are engineered with fairly wide set limits for sensors, actuators, connectors and terminals. When a component exceeds its limit consistently, a trouble code is generated. But to keep warranty costs in line, tolerances aren't set to catch all transients, even though they can cause some of your worst headaches. As a result, technicians are finding more and more uses for the oscilloscope - next to the multimeter, the most common troubleshooting tool.