Engine diagnostics (ED) refers to a vehicle’s capability, due to on-board equipment, to self-assess problems and report them. With Synovia's ED equipment, you can receive fault code alerts, run fault code reports, compare miles per gallon (mpg) usage over time, run fuel economy reports, and receive information on thousands of engine parameters via API calls, as specified below.

Note: See Heavy Duty Versus Light Duty for the different types of hardware Synovia provides to perform engine diagnostics. See Engine Diagnostics >> Reports for the reports that are included with ED.

If your organization has purchased ED hardware, you can view the data received from it within the Synovia user interface (as well as via the API), using the Engine Diagnostics menu (). These are the available menu items:


  • OBDII - Light Duty: For ED customers using a light-duty solution (such as LMU-3030s). Provides general ED data (including VIN, odometer, battery voltage, fuel level, and tire pressure), indicator data, and emissions data. (See Viewing Engine Diagnostics Data for Light-Duty Vehicles for details.)
     
  • J1708/1939 - Heavy Duty: For ED customers using a heavy-duty solution (such as LMU-4225 series units with internal JPOD daughterboards). Provides data on the current engine status of the vehicles, including the number of current fault codes, MIL (malfunction indicator lamp) status, odometer, total engine hours, and battery voltage. (See Viewing Engine Diagnostics Data for Heavy-Duty Vehicles for details.)


The main categories of available engine parameters are as follows:


  • VIN: Provides a unique identifier to share data with third parties.
     
  • Odometer: Helps fleet mechanics with proactive maintenance by standardizing on odometer data from the engine control module.
     
  • Fuel used: Calculates miles per gallon used, which helps improve fuel economy by enabling you to chart mpg over time. Also can identify fuel card abuse by comparing gallons consumed against fuel card expenditure.
     
  • Fault codes: Provides necessary data for proactive maintenance by identifying and addressing vehicle engine problems as soon as possible. For an explanation of fault codes, see An Introduction to Fault Codes.