Trucks Get Mandatory On-Board Diagnostics

By Dan Leone

Technicians will have to deal with more diagnostic fault codes with the introduction of new on-board diagnostic systems.

Truck technicians next year will have to deal with a pronounced increase in engine fault codes because of the onboard diagnostics systems added to 2010 and later model engines, engine makers said.

“In the past, the technician effectively had two fault codes that he could work with on a sensor,” said Andrew Plant, manager of support system development for Detroit Diesel Corp. “Now with OBD, that same sensor doesn’t have two codes; it has five codes.”

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations require 2010- and later model-year engines to be bundled with diagnostics that use an array of sensors to police emission-control systems.

If a truck’s emissions of nitrogen oxides or particulate matter exceed certain thresholds, the OBD system must alert the driver via an in-cab light.

Additional fault codes appear because OBD systems monitor emission performance, a condition to which technicians “were effectively blind” before EPA’s mandate, Plant said.

The upside for technicians is that no new equipment is required to read and interpret the new fault codes that OBD systems will generate when an emission level drifts out of compliance, Plant said.

“The technician’s job hasn’t changed pre-OBD and post-OBD,” Plant pointed out. “He uses the same voltmeter, the same troubleshooting guide and the same laptop computer” to process fault codes.

Nevertheless, technicians at Detroit Diesel’s distributors and dealerships will need more training to deal with the additional complexities OBD brings to the table, Plant said.

To that end, Detroit Diesel, which has about 22,000 technicians in the field, crafted a Web-based training module that it will require all of its technicians to complete.

Besides the Web-based module, one technician from each Detroit Diesel service facility will be required to attend a second level of training.

“We ask every location to have ‘one doctor in the house,’ one expert,” Plant said. “We process those people. We bring them into the class with the instructor.”

Plant said Detroit Diesel hopes to have 60% of its technicians trained “before the product is issued to the field.”

Detroit Diesel is part of Daimler Trucks North America. The company makes engines for Daimler’s Freightliner and Western Star trucks.

Navistar Inc.,

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