Things to Come

With all of our resources, we are able to keep on top of all of the latest technologies. Unfortunately due to the conflicts with the auto manufacturers there may be situations in which we are limited as to what we can do to the vehicles onboard computer. The computer systems in the newer cars are very sophisticated and can be programmed. There are many times that a manufacture will find a glitch in their vehicle's computer program that can be simply corrected with a software update. During the warranty period these upgrades are done for free, however, after the warranty expires they are not. This puts us in the position of being able to diagnose that your car needs the upgrade, but unable to perform the upgrade at this time. Naturally when the car is returned to the dealer they will have to check everything again and will charge you to diagnose the condition before they perform the upgrade.

This above mentioned situation is soon to be a thing of the past. Within the next year, we will have the ability to perform reprogramming on most cars. There is currently a debate in New York State regarding the mandating of automobile manufacturers to release and make available all of the information.

Additionally the New York State Inspection program is changing. Very soon the machine that used to check your tailpipe emissions will be interfacing with the computer on the car. If the "check engine" light, "service engine soon" or a yellow light with a picture of an engine is illuminated on your dash, the car may fail inspection. Turning the light off will not fix the problem. In all cars built after 1996, when you turn off the light or disconnect the battery, a new trouble code sets in the computer and in some cars it takes a month to make the code clear, even, reprogramming will not fix this problem.