Engineers love their flow charts

So we went to a college visit/tour with my daughter this morning. The tour guide was talking about engineers and made that comment "engineers love their flow charts." I couldn't help but say"and technicians hate them"lol So at lunch I told my daughter if she decides to be an engineer and ever writes a diagnostic flowchart that she needed to call whatever technicians that might use it to get their input

:lol: Good advise, sir! No one wants to write flow charts than end up wasting time and money, right?

Ahh... flowcharts, gotta love em...

I like to think flowcharts are designed with a monkey in mind. That way I can feel better about the engineer that wrote it... I think they're just designed so that the most amount of people, inexperienced techs included, can come to the right answer as often as possible. They're definitely not designed with speed in mind. Plus they're manufacturer flow charts so they're designed for dealerships and vehicles newer than 5 years or so. The sorta thing where wiring integrity is usually solid.

If I'm working on a system I'm not too familiar with then I like to glance over the flowcharts. Sometimes there's good description of operation info sprinkled in them. Otherwise I go straight to the wiring diagram. I like to get a feel for the whole system and see what all is on the circuit. Case in point I had a buddy that worked at a dealership. Can't remember if it was Chevy or Chrysler as I can't remember what vehicle it was. Early 2000s pickup I think. The vehicle wouldn't crank or nothing. He followed the flowchart and found out it had no 5v ref. He checked everything in the flowchart and it was still dead so he put a new computer in it. Computer didn't fix it so he called their tech hotline. The hotline guy said they goofed on the flowchart. The flowchart was missing the tranny temp sensor that also used the 5v ref. And of course that's what the problem was. A shorted sensor. It was omitted in the flowchart but he would have seen it if he checked the wiring diagram. Then his boss wouldn't have gotten mad at him for putting a computer in it that wasn't needed. And he wouldn't have had to hear me give him flack about it!

ecwurban wrote:
If I'm working on a system I'm not too familiar with then I like to glance over the flowcharts. Sometimes there's good description of operation info sprinkled in them. Otherwise I go straight to the wiring diagram. I like to get a feel for the whole system and see what all is on the circuit.

That's much the way I go about troubleshooting. If you keep the symptom in mind and If you've got a reliable diagram, you can come up with a pretty efficient plan of attack before you ever even make it out to the car.

Of course, sometimes you get to the car and that all goes out the window...

ecwurban wrote: Ahh... flowcharts, gotta love em...

I like to think flowcharts are designed with a monkey in mind. That way I can feel better about the engineer that wrote it... I think they're just designed so that the most amount of people, inexperienced techs included, can come to the right answer as often as possible. They're definitely not designed with speed in mind. Plus they're manufacturer flow charts so they're designed for dealerships and vehicles newer than 5 years or so. The sorta thing where wiring integrity is usually solid.

If I'm working on a system I'm not too familiar with then I like to glance over the flowcharts. Sometimes there's good description of operation info sprinkled in them. Otherwise I go straight to the wiring diagram. I like to get a feel for the whole system and see what all is on the circuit. Case in point I had a buddy that worked at a dealership. Can't remember if it was Chevy or Chrysler as I can't remember what vehicle it was. Early 2000s pickup I think. The vehicle wouldn't crank or nothing. He followed the flowchart and found out it had no 5v ref. He checked everything in the flowchart and it was still dead so he put a new computer in it. Computer didn't fix it so he called their tech hotline. The hotline guy said they goofed on the flowchart. The flowchart was missing the tranny temp sensor that also used the 5v ref. And of course that's what the problem was. A shorted sensor. It was omitted in the flowchart but he would have seen it if he checked the wiring diagram. Then his boss wouldn't have gotten mad at him for putting a computer in it that wasn't needed. And he wouldn't have had to hear me give him flack about it!

Lol I hope he gets the diagram out now