Rav335uk wrote:sihooker wrote:The cheeky gits at Chandlers said my dad COULD be looking at an hours labour for diagnosis! I must admit that i dont really know what's involved,but if your mate can do it in 10mins...
Cheers Rav,i'll push my dad towards an independent for sure.He's not rich!
Ps. That's a lovely looking cabby..is it an original BM colour?
The daignosis only takes as long as the the machine takes, and if you state a certain problem, it has options to look at only this.
If they run a "Full" diagnosis, then that will take longer as each individual part is looked through.
Cheers, the cabs a French Turd colour
Providing that your fault is logged in a control unit. Thats the only way you can go straight to a fault.
Silhooker, the reason Chandlers have quoted an hours labour is because if after running a fault memory check they dont find a stored fault, they will need to investigate further into the problem, such as functionality of all the keys, remote radio frequency quality, is the remote being picked up by the aerial, is the diversity box sending a signal, is the c/unit reading a signal from the box, yadda, yadda, yadda...
So if some little backstreet garage charges you 40quid for a diagnosis check and nothing comes up, what happens next? Providing they have the correct ETM's or someone works there with a broad experience of vehicle electronics they may be able to find the fault for you, eventually. They work/charge by the hour as well mate!
Diagnosis doesnt stop at throwing a lead and a computer on a car and reading a code. In depth fault finding can take hours for an intermittent fault.
For what its worth, take the rear spoiler off the car yourself, it will only take 10mins. Be careful if you do this though, as once you have removed all the nuts from the underside, the spoiler must be lifted up just slightly to enable you to unplug a ribbon-cable plug connection. If you just pull it off, you'll snap the ribbon cable. Once the spoiler is off, see if theres a little black box roughly the size of a tobbaco tin saturated in water. This is a common problem on E46 tourings
You may think Chandlers are taking the p!ss, but there is a reason they tell you it MAY take an hour. If it takes them less, they will bill you for less and you can always ask for evidence to back up their costs.
Hope that helps
) dealers for a proper diagnosis.
