Donny Seyfer, Author at UnderhoodService
Using J2534 Programming Devices

How much money are you losing by not programming?

Why Reading The Manual Is Essential

What is “service-ready?” This phrase came from our friends at Toyota and, in a nutshell, it means you are equipped with the tools, knowledge and intellectual resources necessary to perform a repair prior to the vehicle arriving.

What Does The Customer Need?

What you repair, how often you perform maintenance, typical component failures and the motivating reason for owning a vehicle have already changed.

Overcoming Identity Crisis Means Equal Parts Art And Science

The automotive industry has suffered with an identity crisis for a number of years. Some of it is self-inflicted and some of it is due to public stigma which comes from a lack of understanding about what it takes to successfully move along with a large dose of commoditization in a race to the bottom.

Technology Corner: The Road To Great Technicians Starts With STEM

You are in 5th, 6th or 7th grade. You do not enjoy school because you find it hard to grasp what is being taught by listening to a teacher stand in front of the class, draw on a board and tell you to read a chapter. You are so happy when art or PE comes up because you can excel in one or both of those. At home, you can do all the technical things that Mom and Dad can’t by figuring them out. Odds are you are a tactile learner.

Gathering Clouds: We Can Either Hide From Or Prepare For The Coming Storm

Vehicle technology is running away with capabilities that make a car into an enabler or a weapon. Companies are designing tech so fast to be FIRST that they don’t ask themselves real world questions.

Technology Corner: Singing In The Wires

The large majority of techs in service bays right now did not have a ground-up automotive education, and many of those who did certainly did not get a ground-up electrical education. This is no indictment of anyone, just cold, hard facts.

Technology Corner: Artificial Intelligence

What is Artificial Intelligence? Simply put, it is the development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition and decision-making.

SAE J2534, Part II: How Much Money Are You Losing By Not Doing Vehicle Reflashing?

In Part I of this series, I talked about what J2534 was and a bit about how it works. I would like to use this followup article to lower the fear factor and tell you what to expect when setting up a computer to run a J2534-supported software program.

The Ins And Outs Of The SAE J2534 Vehicle Communication Interface

The ultimate goal of J2534 for 2018 model year and, in some cases, much earlier vehicles is for shops to be able to run OEM and aftermarket scan tool software and programming applications to include vehicle security over a common standardized Vehicle Communication Interface (VCI).

Virtual Test-Drives Expedite Autonomous Vehicle Platform Certification

While most people are intuitively cautious about new technology, others ask it to do things it was never intended to do. For example, Tesla drivers using the poorly named autopilot have learned a few lessons in asking a system that’s designed to assist – to be the driver.

Part 2: Creating A Roadmap Of A Technician’s Career

When you look at the staffing issues currently affecting repair shops in either the collision or service space, as if you were an emergency room physician dealing with a patient who is bleeding to death, it is apparent that two life-threatening hemorrhages exist right now that need our attention. Often, it is easy to look at a problem globally. So, we get overwhelmed by the big picture, rather than taking the triage approach of identifying the most pervasive issues. This is where ER doctors, nurses and great diagnostic technicians can be our models for fixing the ails of our industry.