Fault reporting

For many years I was an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer, in later working years I was the manager responsible to the Technical Log system for my airline so I have considerable experience in reading defect reports and in creating coherent work packages to fix them.

If you want help a clear report of the symptoms makes it much easier to determine what is going on and how to fix it. Also remember that the responses may be in the form of questions so please don't expect a complete answer first time.

We had a watermark on our log pages to aid in the reporting of defects and it is relevant here.

What: What is the defect
Where: Where is the defect; front left, back right (this being an international forum Left and Right are more useful than drivers side, near side etc. as they are unambiguous). Report which side when looking to the front.
When: When does the problem occur; under acceleration, at a constant speed etc.
Extent: What is the extent of the problem; e.g. losing a litre of oil every 12,000 miles (19,000Km) or a litre every 1,000 miles (1,600 Km).
Remarks: What else do you have that might help; e.g. Only a problem when it is raining or doesn't happen in reverse.

If you think you have diagnosed the problem it might be better to put your diagnosis in a separate paragraph from the symptoms because others may come to a different conclusion and your diagnosis my create confusion. It might also be absolutely correct but it is best kept separate anyway.

Now I have annoyed all the long standing members by teaching them something they already know, please accept that this might just help someone new to get a quick fix on a really annoying problem.

I realise that members who do not have English as their first language may find this a little unnatural. However as this forum uses English as its common language please bear with me on this as it really does make the task of working out the cause of a problem easier.

We use American on this side of the pond. I understand there is a grammatical resemblance. :) Seriously, though, great points! "Be precise in your speech" - JBP.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Polestar

We use American on this side of the pond. I understand there is a grammatical resemblance. :) Seriously, though, great points! "Be precise in your speech" - JBP.

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Wow an american who admits that he doesn't speak English!:)

you will know as well as I do that the spoken language differs less than the written. I have spent many years learning Boeing, a variant of the language you speak but with subtle changes. I also speak Airbus a language that bears little resemblance to English but uses many of the same words.

Seriously, thanks for your comment.

As an addendum to this some additional information that always helps is:

1. Model Year of the car in question
2. Model designation e.g. Arc, Linear, Aero etc.
3. Market; what country was the car originally sold in, this makes quite a difference in wiring and equipment fit
4. Gearbox; manual or auto
5. Modifications, has it been remapped, had larger wheels fitted, do you use different spark plugs from the ones in the handbook?

It is also helpful to know if you are going to do the work or whether you plan on paying someone to do it for you.

Finally, irrespective of who is going to do any work, please download WIS and EPC http://saabworld.net/showthread.php?t=33310 you will need a Windows computer. With these tools you may be able to do the fault finding yourself. EPC will help with finding part numbers which in turn will enable parts suppliers to find those bits that they previously said were unavailable (yes we have seen exactly that).