Patent ID: 7647146

Claim:
A vehicular diagnostic method, comprising: determining whether a failure has occurred in a device mounted in a vehicle; transmitting a first failure information that specifies the failure that is determined to have occurred, from the vehicle to a communications center; receiving the first failure information at the communications center, whereupon a first countermeasure information, which provides countermeasures for the failure specified in the first failure information, is prepared; transmitting the first countermeasure information from the communications center to the vehicle; receiving the first countermeasure information at the vehicle, whereupon the vehicle notifies a user of the vehicle of the countermeasures provided in the first countermeasure information and requests an ECU of the device that has the failure to provide details regarding the failure and proceeds to collect the details regarding the failure from the ECU of the device that has the failure for transmission in a second failure information which specifies the collected details regarding the failure; determining whether a data volume of the second failure information is equal to or larger than a predetermined information volume; dividing the second failure information into plural pieces of the information such that each piece has the predetermined information volume when the data volume of the second failure information is equal to or larger than the predetermined information volume; transmitting the second failure information from the vehicle to the communications center; receiving the second failure information at the communications center, whereupon the collected details regarding the failure specified in the second failure information, are checked and a second countermeasure information, which provides detailed countermeasures for the failure, is prepared; transmitting the second countermeasure information from the communications center to the vehicle; and receiving the second countermeasure information at the vehicle, whereupon the vehicle notifies the user of the detailed countermeasures provided in the second countermeasure information.