Pre- and Post-Scanning / Calibration
Pre- and post-repair vehicle scans and post-repair calibrations are often required by vehicle manufacturers to ensure vehicle systems that impact driver and passenger safety, comfort and convenience are correctly diagnosed and repaired to work as intended by the vehicle manufacturer.
Pre- and Post-Repair Vehicle Scans
What: A scan is a digital readout showing a vehicle’s functional areas of concern. The areas of concern will need investigating to find out what are the root problems.
When: Scan should occur before any service maintenance or collision repair work is done on a vehicle and after work on a vehicle is completed.
How: A scan is performed using a scan tool connected to a vehicle to detect such concern areas. A pre-scan is comparable to initial medical tests used to understand if a person’s health is okay or if there are concerns to look into. A post-scan is comparable to medical tests run after health concerns have been addressed to understand if a person’s health has been restored.
Where: Scans can occur at any facility with a scan tool and supporting software. Most notably, dealerships and collision repair facilities, by trained technicians.
Why: Scans performed before work is done on a vehicle provide symptoms of areas that technicians need to look into and address to restore a vehicle’s systems to its full functioning capacity. Scans performed after a collision repair are a confirmation that areas detected during the pre-scan were addressed, that no new issues have surfaced, and that the vehicle’s systems are in full functional capacity.
Calibrations
Vehicles with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) have many individual sensors around the vehicle working in concert to ensure the vehicle performs optimally to automaker specifications. These sensors assist drivers in parking, adjusting vehicle speed, high-speed lane positioning, blind-spot monitoring, emergency autonomous braking and many other operations.
It is critical to have these sensors calibrated after damage has occurred to the sensors or surrounding areas, or if sensors are removed. Depending on the vehicle's equipment, calibration is also required after wheel alignments and windshield replacement. Failure to complete a proper calibration by qualified technicians may result in injury or death.
