Patent ID: 8180517

Claim:
A diagnostic system for diagnosing a device in a vehicle control system during a plurality of diagnostic tests, comprising: a fault declaring module that selects one of a normal control mode, a temporary default action mode and a permanent default action mode for the vehicle based on the plurality of the diagnostic tests; and a counter module that tracks a first number of successive test samples, a second number of failed samples that occur during the successive test samples, a third number of successive failed samples, a fourth number of accumulated failed samples, and a fifth number of samples since a last failed sample; wherein the fault declaring module: transitions from the normal control mode to the temporary default action mode and takes a temporary default action when at least one of the third number of successive failed samples is greater than a first value and the fourth number of accumulated failed samples is greater than a second value; and transitions to the permanent default action mode and takes a permanent default action that is different than the temporary default action when the second number of failed samples is greater than a third value.