CarChip can help professional mechanics by providing information about a car’s performance under real-life conditions, helping to solve intermittent problems sooner and improving customer relations.

While the computerized engine-control systems found on today’s cars provide invaluable data for the professional mechanic, they have also made the inner workings of cars more mysterious for the average driver. Surveys of customer satisfaction paint such a dismal picture that it’s likely that all mechanics—no matter how competent and reliable they are—have been subject to a customer’s distress at one time or another. Intermittent problems can be especially frustrating for both mechanics and customers alike.

CarChip can help you trace intermittent problems by telling you things that your customer might not: When does the problem occur, and under what conditions? Is it when the engine is hot or cold? Does it happen immediately, or only after an extended drive?

When accelerating quickly, or braking hard? Unlike the costly scan tools designed to be used inside the shop or during a short test drive, CarChip is affordable enough that even small shops can loan units out to their customers. Designed to remain in the car continuously, CarChipE/X will store up to 300 hours of engine sensor data, collected under real-life conditions.

When your customer returns to the shop, you’ll be able to view graphs of engine load, coolant temperature, intake manifold pressure, air flow rate, or any other four out of the 23 possible engine parameters—information that can help you diagnose and solve the problem. CarChip will also tell you the car’s speed, the distance driven, and the accelerations and decelerations throughout each trip.

Getting the information you need to repair problems the first time, in a timely and effective manner, is the key to happy customers. You might want to consider stocking CarChip, too. Once your customers have experienced how helpful it can be, they might just want one for themselves.

• Consumers lose billions of dollars each year on unneeded or poorly done car repairs,1 and auto repair problems are consistently listed as one of the top five consumer complaints in the nation.

• American consumers spend about $115 billion per year on auto repair services, or almost 2% of their disposable income.

• Eighty percent of surveyed consumers say that they have been dissatisfied with their vehicle’s service or repair; 59% of them took their future business elsewhere.