tongue in cheeck comment on one of Mark Rusonivich's diagnostic journeys.

[karlsnooks]

Mark had a problem and went thru all kinds of gyrations using his favorite diagnostic tools.

Once again the answer was actually almost staring him in the face (to which he has not admitted).

One chap published the following post in the relevant thread:

"Trying to drive his car home like many times before a driver suddenly noticed a dramatic loss of speed and steerability along with his car making strange noises. After first trying to ignore the problem for a while he finally lost his patience and decided to track down the problem. He got himself one of those high-tech car diagnostics units, plugged it in and took some test drives to get measurements. Reading through zillions of diagnostics messages, one cought his attraction which stated that there might be an unusually high difference in wheel speed between the front wheels. After much guessing and stabbing in the dark finally a message from the anti-lock-brake system cought his attrraction. Actually there wasn't anything wrong with the brake system, but the message brought to his mind the fact that his car had one at all, and for some reason, mostly intuition, he decided that he could have a look at its mechanical parts. Inspecting the front wheels he found that one had fallen off. He attached his reserve wheel and drove off, problem fixed. Beeing very delighted, he told the world about the usefulness of car diagnostics computers, and that everyone should get himself one and carry it all day."
Still unresolved remains the question why the wheel had fallen off...

Here is a link to the entire thread for those with a penchant for self-flagellation (and, yes-I read the entire thing so this is self-condemnation):
http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2012/07/02/3506849.aspx#3522800

 

[Wrench97]

Unfortunately I see it almost everyday, I like to call it "fear of the unknown".
We have 125 2012 Volvo's with 13L engines and no cartridge for the scan tool(125 out of about 9000 truck none based at my location it'll be a long time before we see a cartridge), so one shows up with 40,000 miles and a no power complaint, 2 mechanics shaking their heads we don't have a cartridge they tell me.........Is the check engine light on? ...........no ........well you've got a couple choices use the fuel pressure test gauge we used for the last 30 years before electronic engines and check the fuel pressure, visually look at the glass dome on the primary fuel filter to see if the fuel level is up the change filter line, or just change the $3 filter and take it for a ride...............$3 and 5 minutes later the truck runs good again but the head scratching and no cartridge discussion took 45 minutes.
Bottom line it's still all about the basics, knowing the PM schedule is 3 months or 45,000 miles and the truck had 40,000 on it, no power complaints without a fault light, smoke out the stack or a miss 99 times out of 100 is a fuel filter might as well start there..........................