WHAT’S IN A NAME? EVERYTHING! A TOOL & EQUIPMENT REALITY CHECK – PART TWO

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WHAT’S IN A NAME? EVERYTHING!

A TOOL & EQUIPMENT REALITY CHECK - PART TWO

These days, you can pretty much generate a diagnostic trouble code (DTC) for a vehicle just by looking at it.

With even seemingly innocuous repairs setting off DTCs in the vast majority of today’s makes and models, having the best scan tools for the job is an absolute necessity. However, the marketplace for such products suffers from the same mischaracterizations and inconsistent use of terminology that currently plague the parts side. What are the true differences between “OEM” and “aftermarket” scan tools? Are there shades of grey in both categories? It’s time for some real answers.

Five Steps to Clarity

Finding a coherent definition for just about anything in the automotive repair and service worlds can be a daunting task. (Need proof? Ask five random people in the inter-industry to explain what “Opt OE” parts are.) Josh McFarlin, executive vice president of operations for AirPro Diagnostics, has developed a five-level list that finally provides industry members with desperately needed direction in regard to what’s available – and what should be avoided – in the scan tool market. “The benefit in doing this is it starts to clarify terminology,” he says. “People talk about ‘factory,’ ‘dealer’ and ‘OE’ and use those terms interchangeably. But in the purest sense of those words, they are not really interchangeable – they do have different applications. ‘Aftermarket’ can mean an awful lot of things, too.” Level 1: This is the truest example of a “factory” scan tool, as the factory is likely the only place you’ll find one. Not created for diagnostic purposes, tools at this level are used on the OEM assembly line to essentially help a vehicle’s various options and systems come alive through programming. “The factory scan tool, in this case, is effectively what’s giving the vehicle its identity,” McFarlin explains. “At some point, as the assembly line is putting all the pieces together, it needs to tell the vehicle what it is and how it operates so that all the different systems can work. For example, blind-spot monitoring isn’t going to work if it doesn’t know that the rear bumper is nine feet behind the mirror. You need to tell it all these things in order for it to start off in life.”

It is not uncommon to see a tool of this nature built by an outside party (Bosch, Hickok, etc.) that has received the specs by an OEM. According to McFarlin, these tools are not found at dealerships or utilized by service technicians except for extremely rare circumstances.

Level 2: Unlike Level 1 tools, which are designed to ensure a vehicle’s functionality, Level 2 tools are designed for dealers to use for diagnostics and calibrations once that vehicle has left the factory and hit the road.

“It’s meant for a technician to use to diagnose and repair a vehicle,” McFarlin says. “It’s still very much an OE tool, but it’s an entirely different use case.”

Level 3: This is where non-dealership repair/ service facilities enter the picture. As a result of various Right to Repair efforts over the past decade-plus, OEMs take software found in the hardware at the dealer level and make it available to shops and vehicle owners for download through automaker websites. However, McFarlin notes that these downloads aren’t free, and shops could easily find themselves having to pay various subscription fees for the makes and models they repair.

“The cost varies wildly from one manufacturer and subscription/license model to the next.”

Although the information available to shops and the motoring public via Level 3 may be similar to what dealerships have, it’s not always identical. For example, the ability to program keys is typically restricted to Level 2 tools. It is worth noting that level 3 tools are most likely manufactured by the same suppliers that make Level 1 and Level 2 tools.

Level 4: This is where scan tools enter the “one-size-fits-all” aftermarket realm. In order for non-OEM scan tool manufacturers to access the necessary source code from the OEMs (who have been compelled to supply them via Right to Repair), they sign up with the Equipment and Tool Institute (ETI), which McFarlin describes as “a clearing house for the OEM diagnostic tool software code that is accessible to the different aftermarket tool developers that are ETI members.”

ETI members use the Institute’s TEK-NET library to access the information necessary to build an aftermarket scan tool using OEM source code. An aftermarket tool developer often gets maximum value from its ETI investment by using the information to create multiple scanners ranging from far-reaching (all domestic makes and models, for example) to very specific (TPMS).

While Level 4 tools provide users with an opportunity to theoretically scan more vehicles for less investment, problems can arise if the OEM-generated information available through ETI is not updated as frequently as is needed.

As McFarlin explains, “When you hear somebody out in the industry talking about an aftermarket scan tool that doesn’t display or give you the right information, that’s generally because it’s not updated for the latest release or is not updated based on a new command that’s been generated by the OEM and then passed along – because the OEM has to – back to ETI. So, it’s either out of date or the technician doesn’t understand how to use the tool.”

Level 5: The last resort for options. When an aftermarket scan tool company elects not to pay ETI for access to the OEM source code and instead attempts to reverse engineer higher-level tools to create its own, whatever it puts out in the marketplace falls into this category. While there is a cost incentive to use a Level 5 tool, shops and technicians need to be aware that they get what they pay for.

“I don’t believe there are as many Level 5 tools in the marketplace as there once were,” McFarlin observes. “I think there are a lot more people playing in the Level 4 sandbox than Level 5. Level 4 is still what’s required for part of Right to Repair – auto manufacturers making things available for the aftermarket so they can make tools that are one size fits all.”

McFarlin notes that technicians need to be aware that any scan tool out there – regardless of its level – is simply a sender of a command to a vehicle and not a mechanism to run a diagnostic routine; those operations actually reside within the modules in the vehicle, and the scan tool is triggering the operation.

“A scan tool in and of itself is just sending a command and displaying the results. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about the dealer-level tool, the Level 3 tool you can license from an OEM website or a Level 4 tool you can build through ETI – it’s the same string of ones and zeroes that, for example, a 2020 Ford F-150 engine control module needs to see in order to display DTCs.”

With that said, the biggest difference between OEM scan tools and those available in the aftermarket can be found in the frequency of information updates.

“Let’s say you have an Apple keyboard and an aftermarket keyboard. In either case, when you press the ‘k’ button, a ‘k’ is going to be displayed on a screen because it has a specific command that it sends to the word pressing program so that the program knows to display a ‘k.’ Now, if Apple comes along and updates its commands, could you end up with a keyboard that’s out of date and no longer sends a right command? You could, but if you have an up-to-date tool and a technician who knows how to use it, you’re likely not doing the wrong thing. If you have an out-of-date tool or a technician who doesn’t have experience using that tool, it’s entirely possible that you’re doing the wrong thing and getting the wrong result.”

The Right Tools for the Right Techs

Of course, simply knowing the differences between scan tools isn’t the same as actually ensuring that the right technician is using the right one on the shop floor. WMABA/ Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) member Barry Dorn (Dorn’s Body & Paint; Mechanicsville, VA) sees this disparity playing out at facilities across the country – and feels it’s time for a reality check. “I know shops that have the $39 scanner