Method and apparatus for testing vehicle emissions and engine controls using a self-service on-board diagnostics kiosk

A self-service OBD kiosk for testing vehicle emissions and engine controls comprising:

• a cabinet having at least a touch screen monitor for displaying information and a printer in operative communication with the touch screen monitor for printing documents, the cabinet including a network link for providing communication through one or more networks, the cabinet including a climate control system for controlling the climate inside the cabinet and an RFID reader for wirelessly capturing vehicle specific information from the RFID tag of a vehicle, wherein the vehicle specific information comprises vehicle information number (VIN), the cabinet further including an OBD reader adapted for operative communication with an OBD module of the vehicle for capturing OBD data from the vehicle;
• and
• a computer system included in the cabinet and being responsive to the touch screen monitor, the computer system having a processor in operative communication with the network link for downloading to the processor an application having testing instructions for testing a vehicle's engine and emission components which are executed by the processor, and the RFID reader to capture the VIN information obtained by the RFID tag and the OBD reader to capture the OBD data obtained from the OBD module of the vehicle, wherein the computer system generates a test report having test data based on at least one of the vehicle information number and the OBD data, and displays the results of the test report using at least one of the touch screen monitor and the printer.

A method for testing vehicle emissions and engine controls of a vehicle comprising:

• providing a self-service OBD kiosk for testing vehicle emissions and engine controls comprising:
• a cabinet having at least a touch screen monitor for displaying information, the cabinet including a network link for communicating data through one or more networks and the cabinet including a climate control system for controlling the climate inside the cabinet and an RFID reader for wirelessly capturing vehicle specific information from the RFID tag of a vehicle, wherein the vehicle specific information comprises vehicle information number (VIN), the cabinet further including an OBD reader adapted for operative communication with an OBD module of the vehicle for capturing OBD data from the vehicle;
• and
• a computer system included in the cabinet and being responsive to the touch screen monitor, the computer system having a processor in operative communication with a network link for providing data communication through one or more networks, the network link being in operative communication with the processor for receiving vehicle emissions test results transmitting a communication generated by the processor through the network link regarding the vehicle emissions test results, and the RFID reader to capture the VIN information obtained by the RFID tag and the OBD reader to capture the OBD data obtained from the OBD module of the vehicle, wherein the computer system generates a test report having test data based on at least one of the vehicle information number and the OBD data, and displays the results of the test report using at least one of the touch screen monitor and the printer.