Each year, vehicles keep coming out with new features that bring convenience to customers and possible headaches for technicians to keep them running. It might be more ADAS features for safety, additional emission control systems, or any number of things that technicians need to keep on top of, and VACC’s TechTalk can help.
VACC’s TechTalk is now in its 40th year of publication and will continue to be an asset to VACC members and VACC MotorTech subscribers. Many of the articles are based on the requests to the VACC’s TechAdvisory Service and follow a common format. First, it will provide an overview of the vehicle, the purpose, and the operation of the system or component that is the topic of the article. This provides the reader with context on why it is used and how it works. The articles could then continue with the procedures for diagnosing or replacing the troublesome component, using clear, easy-to-understand language and images or diagrams.
Other articles have been written to keep you up to date by providing overviews of new vehicles and systems, so if one comes to your workshop, you can understand what you are looking at. TechTalk can be used as a diagnostic aid to save you time and as a professional development resource for yourself or for training staff and apprentices.
Training Courses
One of the struggles of the automotive industry is charging for diagnostic time. It is even harder to tell the customer that you have never seen this or that particular system, so you will first need to find out what it is and how it works and then start diagnosing the problem. This is where additional investment in training on new vehicle systems is required for you and your staff. There are many excellent training sessions run by various organisations and RTOs around Australia to keep you up to date. There are also many online training resources available on a wide range of topics to help you stay on top of new technologies, systems, and diagnostic methods.
TechTalk comes to you
VACC’s TechTalk is delivered to your workshop as a hardcover magazine to place on your smoko room table, so all your technicians and apprentices can see which common issues have been identified by other industry members and stay up to date on what’s coming into the workshop. With a subscription to VACC MotorTech, your team can search back into the past 40 years’ worth of TechTalk, which might solve a problem you have been trying to solve.
So we recommend that you check out each new issue of TechTalk as a part of your strategy of continual improvement, along with hands-on training and other resources that are available to ensure that you and your team are as well-informed as possible, so you can justify and charge for the time it takes to diagnose and repair customers’ vehicles for the best results for all involved.
