Tech Topics (@tech.topics)

Intermittent electrical faults can feel like ghosts. If you’ve got one that only shows up on the road and behaves perfectly in the bay, you’re not alone. A lot of the time it comes down to connectors or wiring. A good starting point is to monitor the circuit, then wiggle-test to see if you can recreate the dropout. What’s your go-to method for catching intermittents? #automotivediagnostics #wiggletest #training

70% of “oxygen sensor faults” aren’t the sensor. P0130 on the scan tool is the messenger, not the diagnosis. Remember the 4rights : measuring the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, with the right tool. If you want to stop guessing and start proving with a scope, the Oscilloscope Masterclass will level up your speed, confidence, and accuracy on real-world fault finding. #oscilloscope #automotivediagnostics #faultfinding #training #4rights

Firefighting every day is exhausting. Your service advisor is supposed to be the most effective person in the building but without a system or structure to manage processes, it turns into a problem even the Eisenhower Matrix can't fix. If you expect your service advisor to be highly effective, have you given them the tools to do so? #serviceadvisor #automotiveaftermarket

Rory Sutherland, boomwhackers and a watch covered in kidney beans. This was The Blend. Hearing Rory Sutherland and The Tyre Lady speak were real highlights. The boomwhackers came so out of left field but the whole room got into it. What stays with us most though, is the conversations in between. It was great to catch up with familiar faces and meet so many new ones. Here’s to the next one.

Course starts at 9, when does the group arrive? Are you an early worm or last minute man? #mastertech #automotivetraining #morningroutines

Spend the day at Tech Topics with our Master Techs. #mastertech #automotivetraining #ditl

Hey Siri, play flight of the bumblebee #morningroutines #automotivetraining

Most garages are so busy working in the business that there’s barely any time to work on it. At this year’s Garage Summit on Saturday 31st October, James will be sharing his thoughts on profitable diagnostics — because diagnostics isn’t just about finding the fault. It’s about protecting your book time, improving your first-time fix rate, and making sure your expertise earns its place on the invoice. If that matters to you, take a look at the Garage Summit. Details at the link below. 👇 https://www.the-car-nerd.co.uk/products/the-garage-summit-event #garage #northernireland #automotivediagnostics

If the finding gets filtered at the counter, the revenue gets filtered too. When advisors pre-judge what a customer can afford, what they’ll approve or what feels “too much” to mention, the conversation becomes edited before it ever reaches the customer. That’s why the 300% rule matters: 100% inspected, 100% estimated, 100% presented. Clear, concise communication gives the customer full autonomy — and gives your workshop the best chance of turning identified work into authorised work. When the explanation is clear, the customer keeps control of the decision — and the workshop stops losing work to silence. Train your service advisors to present the full picture clearly. #serviceadvisor #serviceadvisorproblems

Good marketing doesn't attract everyone. A common mistake is to think that a busy phone = demand. In reality, it's noise generation. Noise generation that priorities the work that's not for you, that has low margins and C type customers, when your A grade customers are sat ignored, at the back of the queue, either in your own garage or in someone else's. By showing who you are, what you do and who you're for, you filter. Filter in your ideal, A grade customers and graciously filter out the C + the D grade customers. Don't mistake the noise for demand.

Good diagnostics often looks easy because the hard work happened before the test. The value isn’t only in the time it takes to find the fault. It’s in the training, tooling, subscriptions, experience, pattern recognition, and judgement that get you to the right answer. It’s knowing where to start, what to rule out, and what not to replace. That’s what prevents wasted parts, comebacks, and lost customer confidence. Time matters. But it’s not the only measure of value. Don’t put a stopwatch on the save. #diagnostics #garage

One technician should not be your workshop’s emergency exit. If the awkward jobs always wait for the same person, you haven’t built capability. You’ve built a bottleneck. And bottlenecks don’t just slow jobs down. They burn hours, margin and customer trust. Training is how you spread the skill before the diary exposes the gap. Build the bench before the bench is empty. Ready to build the bench? Choose your course and book your Technical Topics training today. Check out the website in our bio

This isn't something you can teach yourself. There is no manual on what to do next. If you're reverting back to forum threads when the KTS throws a code you don't know, that's totally understandable. Forum threads are really useful for starting a wild goose chase. In your hands, you hold the answer you're scouring the internet for. You just need a tour guide. We're ready when you are. Bosch KTS Training - techtopics.co.uk. #bosch #kts590 #kts

Nothing shows commitment like training on your birthday. Happy Birthday to Master Tech Peter! @corbsdavid #automotivetraining

If your garage is taking the dealer’s battery pack diagnosis at face value, you may be handing away the most valuable part of the job. The pack isn't a part. It's a system in a box with parts inside that could be a repair. Accept the dealer’s pack price without challenging it, and you could be handing away valuable invoices your garage should have kept. You need a level 4 technician who can assess the evidence, make a diagnosis and carry out the repair in-house. The highest value EV jobs need judgement not more kit. Give your workshop the judgement to keep more EV work in-house. Get EV Level 4 at Tech Topics now.

You can trim a sheep many times but you can only fleece it once. Misdiagnosed AdBlue faults sting. The customer's been back three times, they're waiting for you in reception and they want a refund. You've been burned. Tried your best but don't fix it right first time and can't deal with the aftermath. Ah it's alright, just get rid of the thing. You might think you'll never be found liable. All it takes is for NOx to be measured on the MOT. Get to know the system, understand what normal looks like and learn how to beat these faults. Do it properly, don't admit defeat. Get 5* AdBlue training at Technical Topics #adblue #adbluefix #adbluedelete

If you move the aim on a car with ADAS, you move the robot's eyes. There is no warning if a calibration is wrong. You send the customer off, both blissfully unaware that the camera is misaligned by 1mm. That's a whole metre off at 50 metres. You have to know which jobs trigger recalibration, what makes a calibration valid and how to prove it in 3 years time. Send your customers away knowing where the robot's eyes are pointing. Learn how to calibrate ADAS at Technical Topics. #adas #adascalibration #automotivetraining

“No” can be a perfectly good answer if the customer understands what they’re saying no to. It's the job of a service advisor to make sure the customer understands what has been found, what their options are and how much it'll cost. Trust is built through clear, honest advice — not pressure, preferred answers or limited-time tactics. If a customer says no after you’ve clearly explained their options, that can still be a successful outcome. They understand what they’re declining, the garage has protected trust and you may have avoided a future complaint from someone who didn't understand the work they were agreeing to. On your next health check, ask yourself: does the customer understand their options or are you just hoping for the sale? #serviceadvisor #garagebusiness

You’re only using the top drawer of ODIS, not the whole toolbox. With only a fraction of the information available, it’s easy to shut the laptop, reach for the generic tooland take a punt at the diagnosis because it feels like the quicker option. But the rest of the ODIS toolbox is where the real value is. Guided fault finding, test plans and repair information can help you make more accurate decisions, reduce wasted time, and avoid unnecessary guesswork. If you’re only using ODIS to read codes, you’re missing the parts that can actually speed up the diagnostic process. Learn how to use the whole ODIS toolbox and get quicker, more accurate fixes. Want the ODIS cheat codes? Start here: techtopics.co.uk #odis #vw #volkswagendiagnostics

This is electrochemical impedance spectroscopy on EV batteries. Wilf’s been working away on a new tool that takes a deeper and safer look into an EV battery. It’s been made for the Master Tech technical updates — the yearly session our alumni come back for to maintain their qualification. We’ll see you there. #evbattery #ev #mastertech

Here’s what nobody in this trade wants to say out loud… Fault codes are hearsay. Waveforms are evidence. A code tells you what one module thinks happened. A waveform shows you what actually happened. And that difference matters. Because you can’t confidently charge for a guess. You can charge for staged assessment, recorded findings, and a conclusion the customer can understand. If the scope is already in the workshop, the next step is learning how to use it as evidence. Send this to the person who signs off the training. We’re ready when you’re ready. #scopes #diagnostics #waveforms #automotivetraining

Garage Growth Event - Bravery in Business The hard bit about being a garage owner is that hard work isn't all it takes. It also takes bravery to look at the business in the cold light of truth. That's what the Garage Growth event is all about. Hosted by J.P. D'Arcy in Cork, it's made for independent garage owners, workshop managers and technicians who are ready to step out of their comfort zone and put in the work to get a more profitable and resilient business. The speakers: 📈 Andy Savva - The Garage Inspector - Finance principles & turning a busy workshop into a profitable one 📊Tina Drayson - CCM Garages - How processes and data changes how a workshop performs 🤝Michael Shaikly - Shaikly Motor Company - Practical lessons from a muti-award winning garage 🧠Martin Brady - Built to Lead - Mindset & leadership in business This a peer level, trade level, real world event. You'll want to be in the room for this. 22nd August - Little Island, Cork Tickets on eventbrite - search Garage Growth Event - Bravery in Business @jp.darcy.business

Skills developed in isolation have a ceiling. Being the best tech in the workshop means you get good at solving problems, but you can't develop the discipline, structure or operations of a master on your own. Just like a samurai doesn't train alone, neither should you. On the Master Tech programme, you'll be surrounded by others that share your level and ambition, going through the same experience. You'll sharpen each other's skills, hold each other to account, and challenge each other in a way you won't have been before. Stop being the best kept secret in your workshop, train with people who make you better. Find out more at techtopics.co.uk #mastertechnician #automotivetraining

Show this to your boss if you're still doing plug-ins. A code scanner is not a cheaper diagnosis; it's a cheaper product which delivers more uncertainty. The scan gives you a clue but no direction. Diagnosis with no direction = uncertainty and immediately, you're on the back foot. Swap the plug-ins for a chargeable diagnostic assessment. It's costed to allow you time to confirm the plan, look at the evidence and scope the complexity of the job, then letting the customer judge whether it's worth it or not. Staged assessments cost more but deliver more. They turn diagnostics from unpaid confusion into priced next steps. Let us know, are you doing plug-ins or diagnostic assessments? #diagnosticassessment #plugin #garageowners #ukgarage

Customers don't call because they love the sound of your voice. They call because they're uncertain. Here's three ways to stop the endless update loop: 1. Give the customer an update time - call even if there's no update. 2. Tell them what decision you're waiting on. 3. What's their next progress milestone? Certainty is a process, not a personality trait. Stop getting held hostage by the phone. Come on the Highly Effective Service Advisor course. Find out more at techtopics.co.uk What triggers most of your inbound calls? Tell us in the comments 👇 #serviceadvisorproblems #serviceadvisor #ukgarage

Ever looked at book time and thought, "how am I going to make money on that?" Book times were made in labs with pristine conditions, not in real workshops with real people and real variables. When your process and profit are anchored to the book time, you can be booked and busy but see no profit. That's because book time isn't a measure of value, it's cost control. Your customers don't pay for book time, they pay for the right not to worry, for clean answers and for a relationship built on trust. Stop letting someone else's cost control set your price. Know your worth and charge for it. #ukgarage #garagebusiness #garageowners

One of the most expensive traps in diagnostics is thinking “I know enough to have a go” — especially with SCR/AdBlue. Because it’s rarely “a code and a part”… it’s an integrated system: NOx control, dosing strategy, inducement cycles, SCR efficiency logic — and data that only makes sense when you truly know what normal looks like. When that understanding isn’t there, parts changing becomes the default behaviour. And that’s not diagnostics — it’s a costly guessing game. The fix isn’t magic tricks. It’s structure: what to test, when to test it, what the results should look like, and how to separate a failed component from a failed process. Check out the course at techtopics.co.uk #adblue #scr #automotivetraining #diagnostics

In wiggly lines we trust 🫡 With the scope, intermittent is obvious through integrity. The three quick steps: 1. Back probe the sensor signal 2. Choose a time base where you can see the pattern 3. Introduce a fault related variable Healthy signals are consistent in amplitude, spacing and shape. Wiring connector faults show up as the opposite. Your bias brain wants the simple story, which scan tool data can give you. The scope wiggly lines reveal the root cause. If you want to become confident in reading waveforms under real fault conditions, come on our 2 day Oscilloscope Masterclass. Details at techtopics.co.uk #oscilloscope #scope #training

Here at TTHQ, special is the standard. Expert training gives you judgement. Judgement is what gets the first-time fix, protects your margin and stops a £90 diagnosis turn into a £900 mistake. We take pride in our trainers being people who understand real faults, real workshops and the real pressure technicians face on the daily. You need training that makes you special in the way you fix cars. We're always happy to talk training. Send us a DM or email at [email protected] to start the conversation. #automotivetraining

There are two versions of you this autumn. Future A: You've got the same workload, the same pressure and no system you can trust under strain. Mystery faults that have become your problem, hoping they disappear and it's your responsibility to defend the guesswork when it inevitably comes back. Future B: You've got a process, diagnostic confidence and evidence to back every diagnosis. The rest of the team back your call and you become the go-to tech for tricky jobs and you nail them. The difference isn't talent or hard work; it's standards, thinking and training. This is what our Master Tech program is built for. Send us a DM or an email at [email protected] to talk about your future today. #mastertechnician #mastertech #training