FORD GROVES ADDS NEW DIAGNOSTIC CENTER

Ford Groves, 1501 N. Kingshighway, has added a Service Bay Diagnostic System (SBDS) to its service department.

"This is a single piece of equipment that consolidates all the current electronic testing equipment into one machine," said Mike Backfisch,

"This is exclusive to Ford dealers and is hooked up directly with a link in Detroit," he added.

Tim Burke, Rick McIntyre and Ben Proffer have completed training on the machine and are certified technicians.

"The machine basically checks the entire electrical system, fuel system, computer system and the base engine," said Burke. "The machine is hooked up to Detroit through a telephone line."

One of the big advantages of the system is what Burke calls a "flight programmer."

"Say you have a hard-to-detect miss in the engine or a noise that appears to come and go," said Burke. "We can hook the computerized recorder to your car for a day or two.

"Once the miss or noise is heard, the driver presses a button on the recorder. It records every thing that happened 30 seconds before and a minute after the button was pressed.

"The car owner doesn't have to bring the car back in at that time," said Burke. "They can bring in the recorder. We hook the recorder into the SBDS and decipher what is wrong."

Burke cited one example of how the SBDS works.

"When we first placed it here, we selected a car off the lot," he said. "This was a T-Bird with 10,000 miles on it."

Going through the diagnostic system, it was revealed that plug number five was not functioning right. "You couldn't tell it by driving the car," said Burke. "But, when we pulled the plug, it was definitely ready for replacement. This made a believer out of me."

The approximate cost of the new machine is $40,000.