Ford’s IDS scan tool may be one of the most powerful tools for working on Ford vehicles that you can own. There are some very good aftermarket tools, and as an independent shop you probably have one or more of them. Yet owning the factory tool still has advantages as they have capabilities for programming, calibrating and bi-directional control that your aftermarket tool likely does not. Making the decision to buy one of these tools is a business decision that only you can make.
Overview
For those of you who have the IDS or access to it on a regular basis, you know that Ford has brought out an updated interface called the VCM II. They have also gone to a subscription fee to use the tool to connect to a vehicle. Without a subscription you can still use the software to review a recorded session, but you can’t interface with a vehicle. As of this writing the cost to purchase a subscription is $699 per year per VCM or VCM II. The subscription does include programming and calibration files.
Much has been written and recorded about the basic use of this tool; therefore, we will only touch on that to get to the main topic of this piece and that is how to use it more efficiently. One more caveat —this tool changes regularly. Ford sends out a major revision of the tool software four times per year that adds functionality, additional information about calibrations and/or new testing procedures.
Some of these changes are driven by the increased capability of the onboard computer systems and their networks in the vehicles. Most of these tests are backwards compatible. I remember a revision sometime back when they changed the number of PIDs recorded in Freeze Frame. Going from the seven or so that were recorded to… well I’ve never bothered to count, and they are on more than one screen so you need to scroll to see them all.
Another revision that many don’t know exists is the way that Ford has remade its PTS website to interact with IDS. Ford has programed the tool to be accessed by their service information site PTS. You can subscribe to PTS through motorcraftservice.com. You will still need to have IDS installed on your computer with a valid subscription for the tool.
With access comes the ability to connect to the car and to the PTS website. You will need to be connected to the Internet during this procedure. When road testing the vehicle, you will need to use the IDS program that is on your computer or use the VCM II – CFR, Customer Flight Recorder.
When you connect to a vehicle via the PTS website, you will get information tailored specifically to the vehicle and the concerns of the one that is sitting in your bay. The OASIS report will come up and give you background information about outstanding campaigns that may be on the car. It will give you any Technical Service Bulletins (TSBs) or Special Service Messages specific to the vehicle and Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs) or concerns that you input.
Going to the TOOLBOX gives you the ability to see the vehicle’s network system and DTCs by module. What you will see is the network topography of the vehicle you’ve connected to. Modules that are on the network and responded to the IDS will show in green or yellow. Green is good; yellow indicates that the module has a DTC in memory.
Gray module indicators are modules that did not respond when they were pinged during initial connection to the vehicle. These modules are optional equipment modules and may be non-responsive or may not be equipped on the vehicle you’re working on. You will need to determine that on your own if you are working on a vehicle, and the concern may be related to one of these optional equipment modules.
It is important to note that IDS connects to the vehicle you’re working on. It does not simply connect to any and all 2012 Focuses, but the one in your bay. Both the web version of IDS and the installed version on your laptop connect to the unique vehicle in your bay.
If you review the network topography image, you can see that you get a listing of the DTCs and if you highlight the DTC you get the definition and some additional information about the code.
Select the next tab on the display: Part Number Summary. This brings up a screen that gives you whether or not the module responded, optional or not, DTCs, assembly part number and software part number. This may be valuable when talking to the Ford dealer parts department to help make sure they get the correct part for you.
Selecting the next tab on the screen, Network Monitor, opens a new window and will allow you to run a live network test on the vehicle. The website will ping the modules on the vehicle and as long as they respond, they will stay green. If they don’t respond, they will turn red and tell you how many pings were missed. You can deselect any optional modules that are not on the vehicle so you do not end up with a series of red boxes that don’t help you with analysis.
If you have a vehicle with a possible network concern, you can activate this network test and then do the traditional Ford Wiggle Test and see if any of the modules go offline or come online. Using this topography with the wiring diagrams may also help you narrow the concern and its location by knowing which modules can talk and which can’t.
Data display
While you are connected to PTS and to the vehicle, you have all of the same functionality of IDS available to you. The added features that are yours with IDS and PTS kick it up a notch. Let’s look at how.
When you open the Datalogger tab and go into any module, especially the Powertrain Control Module (PCM), the screen that comes up is a bewildering display of Ford acronyms and may require you to scroll to see them all. Some of them are dark gray and some are light gray. Those that are dark gray are preselected for you. I’m not sure who made those picks, sometimes I find them to be the ones I want, often I don’t.
When you click on a Parameter Identifier (PID) its definition shows up in the box at the bottom of the screen. These screens of PIDs are often where you will find the changes that come with the updates to the tool. You get more of them. Of course we are in danger of data overload, but I’d rather have trouble deciding what not to look at than wish I had more options to choose from.
Because IDS is PC based, you have many options for the way you display your data and how much data can be displayed. There is a limit to the number of PIDs you can display and when you hit that limit, IDS will turn the selection screen red.
You can also modify the way IDS displays data. It can display it as a histogram that leaves a trace wherever it has been. It can display it as a bar graph. It can display it as a digital meter, and it can display it as XY plot.
Some PIDS may not have all of the options, as they may not be suitable for certain types of displays, or rather you may not want to use certain display functions.
PIDs that have the # symbol with them are bi-directional controls or Output State Controls, as Ford calls it. These PIDs may be selected and allow you to control certain functions to assist with analysis of concerns.
You can also set parameters on PIDs that will alert you to when their values go beyond preset limits. For example, you may have concerns of the system voltage going low. You may select the VBAT PID and place a limit value on it. If the voltage drops below, goes above or goes outside your parameters, the IDS will do one of two things — it will make a recording or it will beep at you.
PIDs that have limits set on them also change color. They will be green when they are operating within the limits you put on them, and they will change to red when they exceed those limits.
What does all this mean to you?
I don’t know about you, but the closest I’ve come to getting in an accident while road testing is watching the scan tool while driving. I prefer to watch and have another drive, but that doesn’t always work out. People think texting and driving is a problem; technicians and scan tools are even more disengaged. So what to do? Using this preset option allows you to drive and then stop and see if you have any recordings. If you don’t, the values did not exceed or go below what you were concerned about, and you can look at other concerns or different sets of PIDs.
Of course, all of this takes time, and whenever I talk to technicians they are always worried about time. Whether or not you should be is the topic of another article, and I don’t want to suggest that doing things in a timely fashion is not important.
Wouldn’t it be nice, then, if you could simply click on an icon and select a set of PIDs that you had already modified? The answer is a definitive YES! With IDS you can.
We all know that for most common concerns there are certain PIDs that we monitor to try and confirm our hypothesis of what might be wrong. For driveability concerns, Ford has a list of recommended PIDs based on the symptom. These are found under Pinpoint Test Z, and I wrote a previous article (Finding intermittent faults on Fords, June 2014) http://www.searchautoparts.com/motorage/drivability/finding-intermittent-faults-fords talking about how to use Pinpoint Test Z to find intermittent concerns that you may reference for help.
All of the PID displays in IDS are preset in one of four ways. These have been determined by the software designers and often have then set in ways that don’t really help much. Fuel Trim is often default scaled to +35 percent to -35 percent. Seeing a 5 percent or 10 percent change barely makes the XY plot move.
None of the PIDs are preset to take recordings, yet all can be. As mentioned above, most PID selection screens have more PIDs than can be viewed at one time and have certain ones preselected. These are the things that have certain IDS users talking about how it is not an easy tool to use and the less familiar you are with it the more difficult navigating through these screens is. It is getting familiar with the tool that changes this. I have the same concern when I go to GM’s new PC-based scanner.
How to customize your PIDs
This will take some time initially to set up, but once you’ve done it, you will be able to go into Datalogger and click on an icon, pull up a list of presets, select the one you want and then head for the highway and road test away! Here’s how this works.
First take your computer, the VCM II and find a Ford. Begin an IDS session and go into Datalogger. You may wish to have Section 6 of Ford’s PCED (Powertrain Control Emissions Diagnosis) manual open for help with PID selection.
Using the symptom chart and Section Six select the PIDs you would want to view for any particular concern. If there are more PIDs than you can select for a given session, then you will need to make two sets: “Rough Run 1” and “Rough Run 2,” for example.
Next rearrange the PIDs and the way they are displayed to the way you want them to be. Set up any parameters that will flag or record datastream. Select the Save to folder icon and name your setup. “Rough run cold” perhaps, or “Hesitation on accel,” and then give it a description.
Keep in mind that you can do this in any one of the Datalogger tabs, Engine, Transmission, etc. You can pull selective PIDs from the PCM and create an A/C heading. You may wish to create transmission ones for each of the Ford transmissions/transaxles.
One set that I would have would be “Intermittent Misfire” with the up and downstream O2s and related PIDs for current with the wide-band sensors, and long and short fuel trims and fuel system status (Loop).
There are other ways to personalize this tool as well, each one giving you the ability to be the shop IDS guru and to go from tool startup to analysis efficiently every time.
