Maximize Your ALLDATA Investment

Part Four: The Power of Technical Service Bulletins

For years, ALLDATA has been inviting the automotive repair industry to TAP THE POWER of ALLDATA information. As of this writing, more than 20,000 shop owners have accepted our invitation. For some, the power was in having instant access to diagnostic and repair information, for others it was the ability to create a professional estimate in seconds, and for others it was simply being able to find information quickly without having to sift through the condensed and generalized information found in the aftermarket books and CD versions of them. But the one information type that brought the most power to the independent repair shop was the one most technicians never had access to before ALLDATA. That power is the power of Technical Service Bulletins.

Why are Technical Service Bulletins (TSBs) powerful? The answer is deceptively simple. Technical Service Bulletins are powerful because they are the product of experience. You know experience counts when it comes to diagnosing and repairing cars. Just about anyone who has been fixing cars for any length of time has plenty of stories they can tell of nightmare vehicles.

Maybe it was the first time you encountered a clogged catalytic converter or the intermittent dying of an overheated ignition module, or... well, you probably have a few of your own stories you could insert here. The point this: having experienced one of these problems -- and perhaps agonizing over it for hours, or even days -- you never forget it. More importantly, once you have experienced the problem, the diagnosis and the fix, you can apply it to future occurrences of the same problem. This is what TSBs do for you -- only better. Why better? Because, used properly, Technical Service Bulletins allow you to piggyback on other peoples' experience, saving you the time, energy and aggravation of gaining the experience the hard way.

Generally speaking, Technical Service Bulletins serve as a method for the auto manufacturers to save on warranty repair expenditures and to increase customer satisfaction. When a particular problem recurs with some frequency, the car makers' engineers research the problem, identify symptoms, determine the best fix, and then put all this into a special communication (TSB) to their affiliate dealers' service departments. So, the next time Mrs. Jones complains of a certain "funny noise" that only happens "when I pull away from my daughter's bus stop", the dealership service tech may find just the fix in a bulletin he read about a "cold-engine acceleration whine" for that particular car. And, do this without investing extensive and expensive diagnostic time. With ALLDATA, you too can tap this power.

ALLDATA puts the power of hundreds of thousands of pages of Technical Service Bulletins at your fingertips, in a format that allows you to access them even faster than most dealership technicians can. And, as you'll see, our new Component Indexing data structure adds a new dimension to finding relevant bulletins on almost every car you work on.

If you're not using TSB's regularly in your business, there is a good chance you and your technicians are spending more time than needed on many diagnoses and repairs.