Identifix celebrates 20th anniversary

When Bill Sauer decided to start a sales company that sold oscilloscopes, dynos, infra-reds and other test equipment, he wanted education to be a part of the package. That is, he wanted shop technicians to learn to use the equipment he sold well and properly, which inspired him to provide technicians with on-site shop training. Now, Sauer's brainchild — Identifix — is celebrating 20 years of service to independent repair shops and technicians.

As one of the nation's leading sources of online hotline and diagnostic and repair information, Identifix has evolved into a source of knowledge for what breaks on vehicles, what vehicles it breaks on, and how to fix those vehicles correctly. The company, which was incorporated in August 1987, and went live with a repair hotline on Jan. 2, 1988, started out with four employees. Now, its staff has grown to include 41 master technicians with more than 1,000 years of combined experience performing vehicle diagnostics, who receive up to 20,000 calls a month — nearly three million since the hotline made its debut.

Sauer was a service station dealer for eight years, then designed and built a diagnostic center that he sold after four years. He got the idea to start Identifix in the mid-1970's, when electronic ignition was a new technology and he discovered that the technicians had little knowledge of electronic ignition or ignition theory.

"I coined a saying back then 'You can't tell what is wrong, if you don't know what is right,'" Sauer says. "This, of course, holds so very true today. I strongly felt that techs should understand the theory of operation."

With the growth of the Internet and in response to the demand from service shops, Identifix released Direct-Hit, an online diagnostic product in February 2002.

Each month the most interesting diagnostic problems are written up by a master technician, who documents the vehicle problem or sypmtoms; supplies likely causes; and suggests useful tests and helpful hints that are then archived online. The document is available to technicians, who can print it out and use it to repair vehicles. With more than 1,000 new Hotline Archives added to Direct-Hit each week, this online feature represents a good source of continually updated diagnostic information and solutions for up-to-the-minute vehicle repair. In August, Identifix had over 10,000 subscribers use Direct-Hit, with those subscribers accessing information on over 200,000 different vehicles just in the last month.

According to Josh Clayton, general manager of H & H Mobile in East Lansing, Mich., Identifix places the correct options and proven solutions right at his technicians' fingertips, "Identifix is fantastic — the best upgrade in this shop in the last six months. We use it daily to solve problems on 75-80 percent of the vehicles that come in. It's very fast and informative. All of our technicians love it and find it easy to use. It saves us a lot of time so helps our profitability, too."

Sauer, while semi-retired, still remains active in the company and is the “go to” guy if someone needs a special piece of information, a personal contact or perhaps to fix an emission problem. Sauer himself holds 50 ASE certifications.

Commenting on the growth of the company over the years, Sauer states: "Our tremendous growth hasn't happened without help from a lot of believers. The key to our success is the quality and knowledge of the technicians on the phone, as well as the rest of many dedicated and talented employees."

For more information on Identifix, visit the company's Web site.