23. Shortcut

Electrical problems can take hours to diagnose. Once the problem is discovered, The repair (usually) does not take a lot of time. I have found that it saves time to approach the diagnosis logically. To that end, I use a flow chart to speed up the process. If the problem is really complex, I diagnose the most obvious symptom first.

 When the lights would not turn on, I sat down and made the following flowchart:   

  

 

On the fourth step, the headlights turned on. What was different? The ignition was turned on in step two.

I was expecting an all day thrash, but the total time including making the flowchart was just over an hour.