Sept. 23, 2014—The International Automotive Technicians Network (iATN) announced on Monday that it has added a new search platform to its website that allow premium users to search a backlog of information and discussions dating back to iATN’s launch in 1995.
The key new features of the search engine include:
- Search Related Vehicles. The system automatically groups all vehicles equipped with the same engine platform, eliminating the need to define a specific model year range. If the user is performing research on systems that are not limited to a specific engine, they can quickly include all vehicles equipped with any of the available engines, or even expand their search to other related vehicles, all with a single click.
- Smart Vehicle Builder. Not only will the search box accept a VIN for quick decoding, but the user can define a vehicle using natural language. Rather than selecting from a series of drop-down selections to build a vehicle, a user can simply type the vehicle just like they talk about it in the repair bay, for example, "07 F250" will immediately produce a list of 2007 Ford F-250 models to choose from.
- Related DTCs. When initiating a search, the user will begin to see a dynamic list of related items along the left pane, including a DTC list where the top ten related DTCs appear. If a DTC is included in a search, the list automatically updates to show the number of records that have that DTC along with other DTCs reported.
- Supercharged Search® technology is provided courtesy of iATN’s sister company, Identifix, and enables the search engine to adapt to misspellings and find documents based on auto terminology similar to the words typed by the user. For example, "misfire" will also match "misfires," "miss," "missing," "misses," "skipping," and similar terms.
“Being able to quickly define a vehicle is a major time-saver. With a few keystrokes, a vehicle can be quickly defined, then, one can simply type in a DTC, symptom, component, signal, etc. or select from any of the dynamically displayed attributes in the left pane. Since this search interface spans across all of iATN simultaneously, it increases the chances that you’ll find something relevant to your interest,” said iATN President, Scott Brown.
iATN has more than 80,000 active members from 161 countries, making it the largest online community of automotive technicians, repair shop owners and other allied service professionals in the world.
To try the search engine today, visit search.iatn.net. To learn more about the many features in the new search engine, visit search.iatn.net/about. To watch a short video that highlights many of the search engine’s new features, visit iatn.me/7Mr.