I ASK EVERYONE TO PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS POST so that I can forward it to the people that need to hear it, and that can hopefully help promote a much needed change.
As I am sure we are all aware of the situation regarding the material handling industry and each manufacturer having their own software and passwords, and if you are not aware of it you will be affected by it sooner rather than later probably. (Read below for a little more information regarding it, if you are unfamiliar).
I am in the process of puting this together so that I can bring it to MHEDA (Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association) and other associations I feel could help resolve this issue, to see if we can get a much needed change in our industry. Some may agree with this and some may not but the truth of the matter is that we all continue to hurt ourselves and probably the customer the most by the way we are doing things.
Currently, most, if not all manufacturers' have set up their own software programs, cables, handsets, cords, pass codes etc. to work on their machines, now some of them work on another make or model occasionally but for the most part they are specific to that manufacturer's machine. The problem with this way of doing things is that it is making it increasingly difficult for a customer to choose who they would like to work on their equipment. With most of the dealers in my area refusing to sell the handsets, software, give pass codes etc. I understand the need for making money and I understand the benefits of not giving that software/information to your competition/customer that may do their own repairs. But my bottom line is this: The customer should have the choice of who they want to have service/repair their equipment and should not feel like they are not given a choice of who they can use by only being able to use the dealer no matter what they charge, or what customer service experience they offer etc. I have personally spoken with several customers that do not want the dealer of their make/model of equipment on their property at all (even going as far as paying other people to do non software needed work on their machine when it is under warranty even though they could have gotten their machine fixed for free). Then there are others customers that have stated to me that right now they are struggling badly and cannot afford to have the dealer of their machine do the work because they are the most expensive in the state but cannot find anyone else that has the software etc. so they feel they have no choice. Even others that cannot afford the 3 or 4 day (or sometimes longer) wait time to have the dealer of their specific machines come to repair them.
There are a lot of ways/backdoors to get the software, cables, handsets, passwords etc. that you need but it isn't always possible and it wastes time and causes un-needed frustration. I've spoken with several dealers that are torn on this because in some of their locations it benefits them because they have the majority share of the market and in other locations it hurts them.
I am not saying there are not a lot of factors involved in the way things have been done so far: liability, legality etc. But there has to be a way that we can change this for the better (like the automobile industry has) I think the main difference between us and the automobile industry is that there are not 5 material handling dealers for the same machines (ex: Hyster, Toyota etc) within the same territory or just down the street from each other. There is typically only one Material Handling dealer per make per state/territory and if a company's corporate sends a certain make of machine or if you just like the quality of a certain machine better than the others and you do not like the dealer for that machine in your territory you should not feel that you have no choice but to use them.
Bottom line the automobile industry tried to keep the software and password proprietary in the beginning and it worked until people like all of us (small businesses, independents, customers, etc) stood up and said 'enough'. And now I am saying: 'enough.' Will this affect my business in a negative way... yes it will, will it affect my business in a positive way... yes it will, but the bottom line is the customer should have the ability to choose who is right for the repair of their machines. I shouldn't, as a dealer, get to choose and neither should any other dealer or manufacturer.
My entire goal for this, is for it to be a main topic that we can all get together about and find a better solution for all of us and for the customers.
Print and send this (or refer them to this posting) to as many people as you know (customers, mechanics, independents, dealers, etc.) so that everyone is aware and able to hopefully help make a change in our industry.
I appreciate your time and look forward to your responses, There is alot of people effected by this and if we come together we can make a change.
Showing items 61 - 80 of 93 results.
As an independant I was concerned 8 or 9 years ago that the end was near. My experience has been that after the initial EEC beginnings that the majority of manufacturers are building a very reliable system. It seems that most of the " check engine" light problems I have seen are the result of broken oxygen sensor wires or something similar.
On the couple of occasions that I pulled a dealership in to make a repair I made sure to be there watching and learning from the tech. I would then charge the customer for my cost for the service call (no charge for my labor).
It was mentioned earlier- but I will repeat it. About 95% of repairs have nothing to do with engine management. Hydraulic cylinders, brake jobs, water pumps- these are the money makers.
I would love to be able to pull codes. I feel that it should be standardized. But until then, for myself, it never turned into a problem. I am always open with my customer when I am having a problem -and they seem to blame the manufacturer not me- for the problem.
I to have griped this issue in the past and was alerted by some that if I work on their lift it might kill someone. I was also supported and spoon feed by very skilled people. I work on several different makes. After the password is found in selected models repair is nothing more that it is in all models. You check here you check there. Information is the cause of this. I personally do not think anyone should be locked out of repairing a truck. You will find a trained or at least a person with some experience will still be the most viable option to repair said lift. By the way I am in the market for those auto-lube devices put me down for a hundred for the first order
He guys their maybe hope for us forklift guy by aligning with independent automotive repair shops, the have proposed legislation in massachusetts. they can be viewed at righttorepair.org
Think about it from the other end...it is almost impossible to start into this business due to the ability to not have information for most of the products you service...in the area I'm in you can't single yourself out with one manufacturer...I need to be able to fix everything, manual or not. It's very hard, I wish there was a standardized system...
Is it me or is all this talk going about this the wrong way. Aren`t we all told that all these refinement, tricks, gimmicks and add ons are all customer led or so we are led to believe so the answer is simple get the customer to ask for the standard system and no one will have a problem.
The fact remains guys that while the manufactures are playing at one upmanship none of this will change because they all want to be better than the next man.
From the original post "Bottom line the automobile industry tried to keep the software and password proprietary in the beginning and it worked until people like all of us (small businesses, independents, customers, etc) stood up and said 'enough'."
That is false - Like JKRIZIZKE mentioned above the only reason that OBDBII was instituted was to appease the EPA and by default California. They find it much easier to screw over the millions of car/truck owners who don't contribute $$$ to their re-election campaigns than to crack down on power plant emissions trading and other gross polluters.
ISZ
Does any one know of the right to repair act. I think this is a bill aftermarket automtive people tried to pass a few years ago. Also look at anti trust laws. Lets face it the EPA put a lot of this in place with emission controls. I do trurly belive that it is up to big brother to step in and say after a two year time limt dealers and OEMS have to sell this items and the can be copied. This may sound old school put call your congress man or women.
it greatly depends on the type of ecm/vcm on how to reset it. what type of unit (make model and serial numbers)
I have all the books i can get on the forklifts we have. I would have checked on this web sight first but found it afterwards. I didn't read in the books were you could get the vcm to reset w/out computer though. I got it to reset ounce by leaving the battery disconnected overnight. I'll check back from time to time to see if anyone has found out anything. I'll post something if i run into more problems. As of right now all the forklifts i got are running fine. Thanks.
still stinging. rub it in.
Forkliftservice, first please allow me to offer my apologies if you felt I was saying you are "trying to steal business", the point I had intended/hoped to make was that the argument needs to be based in fact, clear to understand, and not something that can be rejected out of hand, by those whose ears we hope to hear it.
It will be rejected unless it is concise, to the point, and does not sound to 'the powers that be' [tptb] like a "gimme".
Let me also point out that not only do I "feel your pain", I agree with your points. I would add that the pain is usually magnified by the failure of the "Expert service tech" to have the proper cables and software when they first show up, and so what should be a fifteen minute "clear the code and run learn" winds up being at least 2 trips for which i get charged.
This is not a new problem and something that (seems to me) has been growing worse over time, but I don't think the govco* will or could be the cure-all for it. I know I have gone toe to toe and nose to nose with the service manglers of both my employer and my local competition over how to correctly deal with this.
I remember that even Schwinn bicycles used to have a nut on the wheels that was a special size and using a 1/2 of 13 mm wrench would wring off the head.
I also remember the hours upon hours spent troubleshooting and adjusting on ev1 (and earlier systems) that were made unnecessary by having a handset.
I think they pain we are expressing is less one of how many software and cables and/or handset we need these days, and more of "what do you mean you won't allow me to purchase tools to fix my customers (or my own) anchors". With out the ability to see or reset the passwords, they might as well be anchors for some good size boats.
* I am impressed that Rick_C has been able to get past his own "less govco is better _always_" political view.
The only way any changes will occur concerning this issue will be up to the people and companies buying the product. Take a national account deal for example. Imagine a 200 unit deal falling thru because the purchasing agent is made aware of the ball and chain concerning the local dealership. If they know that they cannot maintain this equipment 100% of the time with their own techs, and that they will at some point in time have to rely on that service provider, this is the only driving factor for change. Saying no thank you on a million dollar truck deal over servicability sends one heck of a message to the factory via the national account dealership. If you take the profit out of the pockets of the factory on these types of units, things will change real quick. The problem is most people and companies spending money on fleet purchases have no clue about what we are discussing here. And like I mentioned below, the salesmen are very adept at downplaying and hiding this very issue to the companies they sell this equipment to. The sooner the buyer is well informed, the better for all of us.
holy fajitas dude (forkliftservice) that's pretty strong but i agree that some end users could be more involved. unfortunately PRICE PRICE PRICE gets in the way and in some cases even for end users the stuff is proprietary. this may be the ONLY time you ever see this from me , but the gggggovernment (awe man that hurt) does need to get involved here. yes it's whining but i buy my own tools and even when this stuff is available it's too expensive to "hide from my wife".
In response to several of the statements here:
1. I am not saying that our industry copy cats the automotive industry at all, obviously we are a completely different industry. What I am saying is that we tend to follow behind them (which makes sense due to the volume differences that there is between ours and theirs) but we "typically" still end up being held to the same standards (usually because of the government) such as emissions control etc. so what I mean is that it is almost inevitable that some day someone will cause a big enough stink because of a lawsuit or that the manufacturer has gone out of business and there is no longer support for or whatever reason that we will end up adopting the same "universal" type of diagnostic plug as the automotive industry.
2. You can say all day long that you do not need the diagnostic software, cables etc. to repair 95% of certain manufacturers machines and in some cases that is true but I am not talking about just the software I am talking about going to that make/model of machines dealer/manufacturer and attempting to purchase whatever "equipment" is necessary to repair/diagnose that machine and them telling you they won't release it for whatever reason they think sounds good that day. Here is an example: for the veracitor series you do not need a computer, cables or whatever to do 95% of the needed repairs, but I would like to see you fix it at all without the password or if you can fix it you usually cannot reset the codes so you go to the dealer and they say that they will not give you the passwords and they will not sell you any of the software etc. needed. That is what I am talking about I don't care one bit how a manufacturer sets it up as long as they make it available to anyone for a reasonable price.
3. To clear things up I am not an independent "trying to steal business" I am actually a dealer for multiple manufacturers and I currently have the software, passcodes, handsets, cables etc for 95% of the manufacturers out there but that isn't the point, the point is that I have had to waste countless hours and who knows how many thousands upon thousands of dollars to acquire these items.
4. You would like me to state exactly what I want our industry to do with this, and I say the entire point of this is to come to an agreement as a whole (or at least the majority is satisfied) I am not in a position to say what exactly this industry has to do or anything like that I believe that no one here should be able to decide that by themselves. But if you read my posts above you will see that what I do want out of this is for it to be fairer to the end user and to us as dealers/independents etc. As I stated in previous posts I am getting this topic going because I think that no one dealer/manufacturer should be able to tell anyone that they can or cannot work on their machine because they decide they will not sell the needed "equipment" to do so and that they have to use them for whatever reason they decide.
5. You say that the end user should be purchasing more of the equipment that is not held captive and I agree if our industry will not make a change the problem is that most end users are not as up-to-date as we are on the complications they are going to have when purchasing any make/model of equipment and we all know that typically most salesman of that make are not going to advertise "hey this is a great truck but if you ever feel like we are not treating you fairly, that is probably too bad because we are the only person in this entire territory that can fix it, so you are stuck paying whatever we decide is fair and being treated however we decide you should be, and waiting as long as we decide you should to get your machine repaired."
As I stated before I want this to be something that is at the front page of the industry so that we can all come together and everyone will "play by the same rules", If you can honestly say that you think the way we are doing things is the best way to do them then I question what you are doing in this industry or what rock you have been hiding under or what customers are you afraid you are going to loose because of the change.
If you are taking care of your customers they will stay, and if someone out there is better than you and takes them, well... then I guess you better step up your game!
Killer idea Ed, Im working on the grease tube design as we speak!!! Funny stuff!!!
As we all may have heard, "the devil is in the details", and your analogy about IBM is not all that detail correct.
The ISA bus in PC computers (which is now obsolete, because it was an 8 bit and later expanded into a 16 bit) was the spec that IBM allowed to be "released into the wild" after IBM had moved to the "microchannel" bus which was indeed propitiatory to IBM PCs and was a 16 bit (later 32bit) bus.
It was the failure to follow the rest of the industry into EISA, and an attempt to "force" the market to use only IBM add in components on IBM PC computers that allowed Compaq and others to gain the market share that was taken away from IBM.
Almost none of the loss IBM's market had very much to do with the technical end of this, as this was primarily of importance to really geeky people (like the kind of folks that like to know all about electric powered forklift controls) and people playing games on their PCs (who were the ones wanting to upgrade whatever computer they had so they could play the next great game, something I also call "big hard drive envy" :-) ).
IBM lost market share because of marketing (advertising) and [mainly] pricing.
I am a very big advocate for "open standards" which is what I think we are leading this discussion towards clarifying what it is we are wishing for, and we already have considerable "open standards" and even a "standards body" (the industrial truck standards development foundation= ITSDF, can be found at itsdf.org).
Perhaps a real answer would be to petition iITSDF to push for an OBD2-E (or OBD4-E) inclusion in the next update of b56.1.
I would personally like to see it be a wireless IPV6 ieee802.11n compatible standard myself, and I bet that a bunch of people in the "supply chain management" and "fleet management" [in other words; the end users of newer machines] IT functions might think the capabilities included in such a standard would make who ever adopts it very attractive selling point.
The biggest problem I foresee with that is that it makes it only a 1/2 baby step towards not requiring operators, (and where would -we- be without damaged forklifts) and about 1/4 baby step towards not requiring any sort of diagnostic ability to fix forklifts. Next up, automatic oil changes and lubrication that only requires insertion of a grease tube into a holder 1 time a year.
excelent point on the IBM reference however i do think that (big bro) will step in and standardize the data aquisition / interpretation of the emmision systems in the lift truck industry (at least the IC side) and for the exact same reasons as the auto side. a good example of why is the TUSK dilema. what happens to adherance to federal emmision standards when the manufacturer is defunct. i know that Tusk will continue to have support for the short run but it is a lead pipe cinch that some of the current manufacturers will go away. even though in my opinion global warming is a huge scam it has a hysterically insane following and they will ensure that emission standards get more restrictive every year.
IBM created the PC where everything was standardized. You could go down to the local computer shop and find parts to fit in the box and work. Look what happened to IBM. Don't look for the manufacturers to spend their R and D money to build a lift make it so anyone can work on it. It isn't going to happen. The only reason parts and service info on cars is so readily available is because the government makes them do this. Specifically, the EPA makes sure anyone can fix an emission problem on a car and mandates that the manufacturers make the service info availalbe to fix the car (at a price).
Forklifts and a piece of industrial equipment. The manufacturers are not going to give away the info to fix them any more than the manufacturers of a printing press, a stamping machine, or a CNC mill. They want return on their millions spent on R and D.
Not that I would not favor some standardization so I can fix all brands of trucks. I am just saying it will not happen.
Mr Forkliftservice, I don't believe you are correct in saying that techs like us made the automobiles serviceable by everyone. I think that if the government did not mandate the auto manufacturers to make service info available, you could not get the info. It would be just like working on a forklift. I believe there are regulations about making part specs available for cars. This is why 10 to 20 % of the aftermarket stuff I put on forklifts does not fit. Most everything I buy aftermarket for my cars fit. It may be of questionable quality, but it fits.
Forkliftaction accepts no responsibility for forum content and requires forum participants to adhere to our rules of conduct. Click here for more information.
If you are having trouble using the Discussion Forums, please contact us for help.