BACKGROUND

Vehicle collisions are costly. For example, the Illinois Department of Transportation issued a report in 2015 indicating that there were 296,049 crashes involving motor vehicles in Illinois in 2014. That same report indicates that the total estimated cost of crashes in Illinois for 2014 was $5.8 billion. A substantial portion of those costs are associated with repairing the crashed vehicles (i.e., vehicles involved in a crash). In some instances, a crashed vehicle will display a malfunction indicator lamp (MIL) to indicate that a diagnostic trouble code (DTC) is currently set to an active status. The DTC can be indicative of a particular vehicle malfunction. Repairing a crashed vehicle can include repairing the vehicle malfunction so that the MIL is not illuminated when the vehicle owner drives the repaired vehicle away from the repair shop.

In many instances, an insurance company, such as the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, issues an insurance policy that covers at least some of the costs associated with repairing a policy holder's crashed vehicle. Many insurance policies do not cover the costs associated with repairing a vehicle malfunction that existed before a vehicle crash or a vehicle malfunction that arose while repairing the crashed vehicle.

Many insurance companies require or determine estimates for repairing a crashed vehicle. A problem in determining an estimate to repair a crashed vehicle is determining whether or not a DTC set to the active status within the crashed vehicle existed before the vehicle crash. Existing vehicle scan tools do not determine whether a DTC set in a vehicle is collision-related.

Furthermore, in many situations, a vehicle body repair person is skilled in repairing the body of a damaged vehicle, but is unskilled as to using a vehicle scan tool to diagnose or repair a vehicle because of the complexity of the scan tool. A diagnostic tool configured to determine if a DTC is collision-related and/or that is simpler to use would be useful to many vehicle body repair persons.

OVERVIEW

Several example implementations that relate to diagnosing or repairing a vehicle damaged during a collision are described herein. The implementations can include determining whether a DTC set in the vehicle is collision-related or non-collision related.

In a first implementation, a method is provided. The method includes: (i) determining, by one or more processors, a vehicle model associated with a first vehicle, (ii) determining, by the one or more processors, a first DTC set within a first electronic control unit (ECU) in the first vehicle, (iii) determining, by the one or more processors, a first damaged portion of the first vehicle, wherein the first damaged portion indicates where the first vehicle was damaged by a collision; (iv) determining, by the one or more processors, the first DTC is collision-related, wherein determining the first DTC is collision-related includes determining, by the one or more processors, the first damaged portion of the first vehicle matches a reference vehicle portion associated with both a component attributable to setting the first DTC and the vehicle model associated with the first vehicle, and (v) outputting, by the one or more processors, a collision report that indicates the first DTC is collision-related.

In a second implementation, a computing system is provided. The computing system includes (a) a computer-readable memory having stored thereon a reference vehicle portion associated with both a component attributable to setting a first DTC and a vehicle model associated with a first vehicle, and (b) one or more processors configured to refer to the computer-readable memory. The one or more processors is programmed to: (a) determine the vehicle model associated with the first vehicle; (b) determine the first DTC set within a first ECU in the first vehicle; (c) determine, a first damaged portion of the first vehicle, wherein the first damaged portion indicates where the first vehicle was damaged by a collision; (d) determine the first DTC is collision-related, wherein determining the first DTC is collision-related includes determining the first damaged portion of the first vehicle matches the reference vehicle portion associated with both the component attributable to setting the first DTC and the vehicle model associated with the first vehicle; and (e) output a collision report that indicates the first DTC is collision-related.

In a third implementation, a computer readable memory is provided. The computer readable memory has stored thereon instructions executable by one or more processors to cause a computing system to perform functions. The functions include (a) determining a vehicle model associated with a first vehicle; (b) determining a first DTC set within a first ECU in the first vehicle; (c) determining a first damaged portion of the first vehicle, wherein the first damaged portion indicates where the first vehicle was damaged by a collision; (d) determining the first DTC is collision-related, wherein determining the first DTC is collision-related includes determining, by the one or more processors, the first damaged portion of the first vehicle matches a reference vehicle portion associated with both a component attributable to setting the first DTC and the vehicle model associated with the first vehicle; and (e) outputting a collision report that indicates the first DTC is collision-related.

Other implementations will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art by reading the following detailed description, with reference where appropriate to the accompanying drawings.

