car electrics

no?

markmotman I don't know you so with that in mind I don't know what you do or don't know about electricity. Assuming you are a beginner then some good advice above about going to college, however there is nothing worse than going on a training course waiting to be provided with information you know nothing about, then asked to do some basic stuff and you feel uncomfortable during the learning curve. There is nothing wrong with doing some background reading, a good starting point could be;

The Haynes Manual on...

Practical Electrical Systems Cars and Light Commercial Vehicles.

There are seven chapters available, they include;

1 / Basic Automotive electricity,

2 / Understanding wiring diagrams,

3 / Diagnosing and correcting circuit faults,

4 / Starting systems,

5 / Lighting systems,

6 / Indicator lights and gauges,

7 / Accessories.

and if you are a visual learner, watch this mans UTUBE electrical videos;

a basic multimeter will do most of what you need at your level(and I wouldn't rate myself too mush higher)but invest in a decent set of leads,voltage differences on cheapos can come back and bite ya,when you hit the limits of what itll do the leads can go on the replacement.i run a fluke 87 cat 3 which in our game is total overkill most of the time but its 20yrs old now....if you get far enuff to make it worth it then buy at a similar level but you should be fine with a 20quid job for most of the time.

was looking for summat similar myself a few years back and couldn't find any thing focussing purely on diagnostics,your best bet would be a college foundation in auto electrics and/or working with a local auto sparky,try and find a good one,standards are variable at best.keep in mind that modern diagnostics can get VERY involved,much of the time the electrics aint the issue,different systems interacting/software issues etc can form a large part of the problems.i also found the above mentioned multimeter tutorial very useful a year or two back,never got much of an education in this game so missed out on a lotta stuff that most folks consider basic

As Dynamo said earlier Haynes do a very good, basic book. I've still got a copy of Automobile Electrical And Electronic Systems. It might not still be in print but you'll find one on Ebay or somewhere. If you're really starting from scratch I would recommend not going on any courses until you know that book thoroughly. At that point you can start benefiting from courses (Bosch do some particularly good ones), then buy (in order) a good multi-meter, a good scan tool with in-depth general coverage (forget the cheapo Ebay stuff for these, but for a multi-meter not such a bad place to look) and then a good (at LEAST 2 channel) oscilloscope. If you then decide to specialise in one particular make there become other choices to make. The problem is if you DON'T specialise there are always going to be some jobs you just can't do. On top of that you'll find yourself often buying more tools, I never said this was going to be cheap!

It honestly does depend just how far you want to go. I've been doing car electronics for MANY years and I still meet people who are way ahead of me!

At the still fairly basic level Autodata gives some very useful information on most, but not all, systems. It does really only cover engine systems in any depth but that is probably most of what you're going to see. If you use their component data alongside the wiring diagrams and ECU pin maps then you can often make good progress. But be warned, I have found some errors in their data!