Honda rolls out cloud-based scanning to independent collision repairers

Feb. 9, 2021
In January 2020, CCC Information Services and American Honda announced the OEM is the first to integrate diagnostic cloud scanning into the CCC X™ connected data exchange and be passed seamlessly into CCC ONE.

In January 2020, CCC Information Services and American Honda announced the OEM is the first to integrate diagnostic cloud scanning into the CCC X™ connected data exchange and be passed seamlessly into CCC ONE. Now, after a yearlong beta-test and pilot in ProFirst Certified Repair Facilities, Honda Diagnostics Cloud will be available to any CCC ONE user, expected as early as this spring.

Collision repairers can use a Honda-approved J2534 device to connect to the Honda Diagnostics Cloud (HDC) through CCC Diagnostics, part of CCC ONE, to scan and calibrate non-ADAS systems of all 1996 and newer Honda and Acura vehicles. With the majority of collision repair shops already using CCC ONE, the platform gives Honda the ability to reach more users, said Terence Vance, manager of special tools for American Honda.

“For Honda, it’s all about a safer total repair of our customers’ vehicles,” he said. “What we’ve seen over the past few years – which culminated in the development of this product – is that not all cars were getting scanned, and many of those that were did not get a complete system scan, due to the limitations of the tool that was being used. The potential for many of the cars leaving the shop with unrepaired systems was too high, and this was unacceptable to us from a safety performance standpoint.”

The goal for HDC was to make scanning — and calibration of non-ADAS systems — easier and more accessible to the collision repair shop, and the pilot program proved those objectives were met, he said.

“The pilot affirmed a lot of our assumptions, that this is a whole lot easier to use than any other solution out there,” Vance said. “It reduces cycle time, it is an OE scan, a self-service scan, and there’s no software to maintain. So it was positive across the board. The feedback we’re getting back from the shops is great, because now they’re able to complete the repair in-house without having to wait for services from a remote diagnostic service provider, dealer, mobile technician, and so on.”

Vance described one “pain point” for shops often is not having the capital or the ability to learn the different software required of OEM scan tools.

“So our thoughts were, ‘How do we make this really easy for them?’ And the easiest thing that we can think of was to put it in the cloud and to have basically two buttons: ‘Scan,’ and ‘Clear.’ If you look at the user interface, it is really that simple. You might get a couple more buttons to perform the calibration functionality, but really, we made it simple enough for a non-technical user; somebody who is not a diagnostic technician, how can they run the scan?”

ProFirst shops are required to use OEM software but can choose to use either the new HDC or continue to use the i-HDS (Honda Diagnostic System) software suite. The challenge found in the pilot, Vance said, had been in asking those shops to deviate from their normal scanning process of using i-HDS, which may also be similar to how they scan other vehicle makes.

“But once the shops understand HDC’s capabilities, which includes everything from a complete scan integration with CCC ONE and the ability to do a non-ADAS calibration on the vehicles, then they see the merits of it.”

One user-friendly advantage over i-HDS is how the Honda Diagnostics Cloud is able to retrieve non-DTC data from different ECUs. As an example, Vance said, for late-model Honda and Acura vehicles, no diagnostic trouble code (DTC) will display for a deployed airbag or seat belt pretensioner, as their deployment is not technically a defect; they worked as designed.

“Within a scan tool, there’s a generic area called the data list, where you see all the different PIDS (parameter IDs) reported by a specific ECU. Then you can read live data. So we’re taking that data from the ECU, the PIDs that are collision-specific, from seat belt tensioner to airbag deployment to passenger weight sensor to driver seat position [information used in the deployment of advanced airbags]. We’re going into the VSA or EPS ECU to get a steering angle. We’re pulling this data out of the ECUs and putting it into the scan report so you don’t have to go into the data list for your different ECUs on your own. When you hit ‘scan’, not only does it give you all the DTCs, it will give you that data as well. And in this respect, it has way more functionality than i-HDS.”

Unlimited scanning per VIN helps ensure complete repairs

The pricing structure for HDC permits unlimited scans or calibrations for one vehicle (one VIN) for 30 days. Usage will be billed monthly by CCC, on behalf of American Honda. The reason for this per-VIN structure is simple, Vance said.

“The driver for American Honda is a complete scan for our customers to help ensure the complete, and thus safer, repair of our vehicles. We didn’t want the shop to be apprehensive about hitting the scan button again because they knew they were going to get charged for it. Use it as many times as you want until you’re confident the repair is complete. The bottom line is when it leaves your shop it needs to be 100% repaired. And the only way to do that is to use an OEM tool that will scan all the systems in the car. And we know it’s accurate, because we did it ourselves.”

For billing purposes, Vance said, Honda provides invoices to the shop for the pre-scan and post-repair scan. Vance said the pricing and reimbursement structure are similar to how scans and calibrations are currently sublet to mobile or remote diagnostic service providers, and the company expects shops to be able to charge for whatever labor was needed by their shop’s personnel to complete HDC scans and calibrations, as is conventional in the industry.

“If they’re getting a pre- and post-scan from a diagnostic service provider, they generally get invoices for pre- and post-, and then they add their sublet margin and shop labor on top of that. It’s the same way here, because the cloud is a solution they don’t own and they’re essentially subletting the work to the cloud. They’re able to take the same payment structure that they normally do with any other scan provider and use it the same way.”

How to get started scanning  

HDC requires a PC running CCC ONE, a high-speed internet connection, and an interface to connect the PC to the vehicle’s OBDII port. HDC currently supports four interfaces: the Denso DST-i, the same vehicle communication interface used by the dealer; the Honda Antares Capsule dongle; and one of two J2534 pass-through devices from Drew Technologies: the MongoosePro Honda or the CarDAQ-Plus®3. The Antares Capsule, which is available from Bright Star Engineering for $495, is provided at no charge to Pro First shops that maintain their certification status. Other J2534 pass-through devices may work, but the MongoosePro Honda and the CarDAQ-Plus®3 are the only two verified by Honda, Vance said.

“We know shops will love the functionality of the Antares Capsule, but it’s important to stress that the capsule is not required to use HDC. The ‘scan tool’ is HDC, not the interface. The interface just allows the car to talk to the cloud through the PC.”

The capability to calibrate non-ADAS systems: EPS, SRS, TPMS, and VSA, was added during the pilot. ADAS calibration will still need to be performed by other methods. Vance said early data has shown most collision repair cases can be covered by calibrating those four non-ADAS systems, which include inputs such as steering angle sensors and occupant-weight sensors.

Vance said “it is on the road map” to support ADAS calibration, but it will not be part of the initial nationwide release. For ADAS calibration, HDC users will need to sublet the repair to the dealer, take it to a calibration center, use a mobile technician, or by using i-HDS and OEM targets, as before.

“We’ve seen that even a lot of our ProFirst shops are just not equipped to do ADAS calibration. And when you look across the country, that seems to be the pattern. There are very few who have committed the overhead and the training to learn how to properly do ADAS calibration for every vehicle they want to repair. So it didn’t make a lot of sense to build in functionality for something that had such a low use case.”

WIFI scanning is latest enhancement, additional model year-coverage to come

At press time, an enhancement expected to be complete in February will be a firmware update that will turn on Wi-Fi functionality in the Antares Capsule.

“Now the Honda Antares Capsule interface and our cloud will talk to each other wirelessly through the internet,” he said. “So what this means is the device won’t communicate directly with the PC. The PC pretty much becomes a user interface with buttons, and the real magic happens between the capsule and the cloud. It’s pretty high-tech.

“It’s important to underscore the significance of this update; when you take the PC out of the equation, it opens up the possibility to other platforms like Android and iOS. Performing OE scans from your phone, using the Honda Antares Capsule, is something we’re taking a serious look at.”

The model years supported during the pilot were 2011 and newer, and for industry launch, coverage was expanded to as far back as the 1996 model year, Vance said. The company figures that year range will cover virtually 100 percent of the insurance-paid work likely to be seen at the shop.

“When it comes to diagnostics, being able to do older than 2011 posed some immediate challenges, just because those vehicles use older communication protocols. So we had to develop something quickly enough, and the quickest way was to draw the line at 2011. We thought that if we can support our vehicles from 2011 and forward, we can hit probably about 85 percent or so of the insurance-paid work. But we wanted to do our best to make sure that we have a tool that can be used for virtually any repair case that comes in the door, and for us it was worth the extra time and effort to go from 85 to 100-percent coverage.”

About the Author

Jay Sicht | Editor-in-Chief, FenderBender and ABRN

Jay Sicht is editor-in-chief of FenderBender and ABRN. He has worked in the automotive aftermarket for more than 29 years, including in a number of sales and technical support roles in paint/parts distribution and service/repair. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Central Missouri with a minor in aviation, and as a writer and editor, he has covered all segments of the automotive aftermarket for more than 20 of those years, including formerly serving as editor-in-chief of Motor Age and Aftermarket Business World. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

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