Ahead of the game, The Land Rover SDD Diagnostic System

The Land Rover Symptom Driven Diagnostic (SDD) is being introduced to improve the diagnostic capability. SDD represents a leap forward in diagnostic technology for current vehicles, combining the ease of use and familiarity of previous diagnostic systems with an up to date and enhanced software.

SDD has replaced the previous diagnostic system IDS (integrated diagnostic system), although it may still be used to perform diagnostic routines on earlier vehicles.

This course provided an introduction to SDD and is intended for technicians who are familiar with current IDS system.

• Identify the new Diagnostic software.
• Identify symbols and tabs
• Navigate system in order to select a desired procedure
• Use SDD to carry out Diagnostic procedures
• Read and clear Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs)

The reason for changing from IDS (integrated diagnostic system) to SDS (symptom driven diagnostics) is that the systems on the vehicle have become more complicated. The IDS core architecture dates from 2005 where as vehicle technology and variants has grown. Current vehicles systems support up to 4,000 different trouble codes which had increased complexity of diagnostics, we now need to diagnose systems, not individual components. In 2004 when the IDS diagnostic system was launched there were 2 vehicles supported with an average of 3 modules per vehicle. In 2010 there are 9 vehicles supported with an average of 40 modules per vehicle. In 2012 there will be in excess of 90 modules per vehicle supported.

Feedback data from Land Rover dealerships and independent workshops shows inconsistent methods of fault diagnosis with under utilisation of IDS. This has lead to increase time vehicle is off the road and difficulty in first time fix.

This has lead to technicians losing some confidence in the IDS when, faced with up to 40 DTCs at the start of a session and no strategy for a repair process. The result was a low right first time fix & high no fault found repair rates.

Les Potts commented, the new SDS diagnostic system is a massive step forward in Land Rover diagnostics. Our senior Land Rover technicians Dominic Bland  and Robert Charlton has carried out the SDD training at the Land Rover Technical Academy 1 Bird Road, Warwick, CV346TB and cascaded the information to all our other technicians through our in house training program to ensure that all technicians are up to speed with developments.