Michael, with all that amazing array of knowledge in your head, donchya think we can come up with some other way of diagnosing problems with the kidneys, shy of tasting the urine?

Well, I guess...but we are talking easy here. Want to know if you have an acid/base management issue? Well, guess what, it will taste, well...acidy. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

In a futile attempt to swing this back towards Isuzus, it is a lesson in complexity. Yes, we know how to diagnose a problem in a relative cheap manner (although, urine tasters may have unionized since the Roman empire). The question is HOW much do we really need to know? With the above method, we can diagnose Diabetes/No Diabetes and TypeI/TypeII. That is for diagnosis. Management is going to take a bit more, although, I bet that we could get pretty close to doing it without too much modern day intervention.

So, how does this apply to our trucks? Well, a lot of the magic of mechanics (like medicine) get lost in the complexity. How many mechanics have you run into that could not diagnose a problem unless the computer told them what was wrong? Or, they could not diagnose a problem, unless they followed the diagnostic procedure?

I had a car years ago that had a dead miss. I did what I could to remedy it and I finally passed it on to a shop that I thought was good. Well $600 later, I had it back. They looked at it, they listened to it, they scoped it, they drove it, and they scoped it again. At that point, the front desk monkey told me that the tech knew there was a miss, but not why. Well, come on guys, how much education and you can't tell me why there is a miss?

Final diagnosis, clogged injectors. Pretty simple, eh? You would think that if the ignition was good, the wiring to the injectors was good, fuel pressure was good that maybe it could be induced that it was an actual deliver problem between the rail and the cylinder? Of that $600, a bit over half was their simple, stupid diagnostics. Now, I understand that diagnostics are important. They cover a strict set of procedures to capture a problem. They also increase the cost of car repair because those who are trained to repair, are reduced to following directions and shops rake in the extra $$ from the extra procedures.

Sadly, this means that it is our responsibility to use our heads and a bit of common sense. Engines are basically just air pumps. We add air, fuel and light it all off. That is it. Your Trooper or someoneÆs G-wagon, all do that same thing. Now, some problems are more complicated, as they can be tricky or other issues mask them. But in the end, there is always a logical answer. Same goes for the ôToo good to be trueö stuff on Ebay. The bilge fan is a great example. On the surface, it sounds good to the average person. Digging deeper, shows that in addition to the electrical draw issues, there are flow, CFM and compression issues that show up too. The electric supercharger with the three motors addresses several of those problems, and I bet it works, as it is advertised. Expensive, but it will work for the limited amount of use it is designed for.

Next time you are at the Dr., I dare any body to tell them that your urine tasted a bit sweet that morning. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Watch them freak out.

Michael