Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

This course is designed for students with no previous industry experience and current working technicians looking to upgrade their skills. Students will develop the skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary to perform diagnosis and repairs on diesel powered vehicles. This course will prepare students for employment through the use of online training resources, classroom instruction and lab activities.

The broader purpose of this course is to provide students with authentic experience in basic diesel maintenance and repair needed to ensure their success on-the-job. These skills include scan tool use, service information, professionalism and responsible customer service.

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

• Perform diesel engine inspection, maintenance, diagnosis and repair.
• Communicate effectively with employers, customers and co-workers.
• Access and utilize diesel fuel system repair information in a rapidly changing technology.
• Develop and implement strategies and processes to solve diesel fuel system diagnosis and repair with limited or difficult to obtain service information.
• Perform diesel fuel system repair to industry standards.

To reach the outcomes, students will complete the following tasks:

• Perform online diesel specific interactive training including but not limited to videos, simulations and knowledge based tasks.
• Perform diesel specific maintenance and repair on customer and PCC owned vehicles to the highest professional and ethical standards.
• Diagnose diesel vehicles through the use of various aftermarket and manufacturer specific scan tools.
• Navigate successfully various electronic service information and obtain diagnostic, maintenance and repair information.
• Achieve minimum of 70% on written and practical exams.
• Meets minimum requirements for attendance and standard shop practices.

Critical to the effective diagnosis and repair of any automotive system is an understanding of how and why certain components work. On today’s automobile, this is often more useful for the technician than the ability to perform a particular adjustment or replacement. A technician must also have the ability to determine which repairs are in their own and customer's best interest. To develop this background understanding of automotive systems, students will explore the following concepts:

Health and safety:
•The importance of shop cleanliness.

Professional business and personal conduct:

•Customer safety
•Warranty repairs
•Communication with customers
•Customer satisfaction as business strategy
•Teamwork in the work place
•Cooperative problem solving
•Work absence and attendance

Physical laws:

•Energy transfer
•Electrical theory
•Hydraulic theory

Skills:

Students will build an inventory of the following skills to prepare for a career as a diesel technician.

•Service information navigation and usage.
•Repair order documentation and warranty repairs.
•Scan tool navigation and diagnostic strategies to solve vehicle system failures.