Patent ID: 8374747

Claim:
A failure diagnostic apparatus, comprising: a vehicle-condition diagnostic portion that examines the condition of a vehicle to detect a failure; a plurality of failure-information storage portions in which information about the failure detected by the vehicle-condition diagnostic portion is stored, the plurality of failure information storage portions including a non-volatile storage portion; a diagnostic-environment determination portion that determines whether the condition of the vehicle is examined when the vehicle is actually in use and whether the condition of the vehicle is examined either at a test that is conducted before the vehicle is shipped or for troubleshooting after the vehicle is shipped; a storage selection portion that selects at least one storage portion of the plurality of failure-information storage portions to store the information about the failure, based on a result of determination performed by the diagnostic-environment determination portion, so that information about the failure generated when it is determined that the condition of the vehicle is examined when the vehicle is actually in use, is stored in the non-volatile storage portion; and a diagnostic mode storage portion that stores, in the non-volatile storage portion, information about diagnostic modes including a factory-inspected mode indicating that the condition of the vehicle is examined at a factory or a repair shop, and a monitoring mode indicating that the condition of the vehicle is examined when the vehicle is actually in use, wherein the diagnostic-environment determination portion determines a diagnostic environment based on the information stored by the diagnostic mode storage portion.