The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 09, 1998
Filed:
Oct. 18, 1996
Robert Bosch GmbH, Stuttgart, DE;
Abstract
The invention is directed to a method for detecting and documenting damage to a catalytic converter in a motor vehicle having a fuel tank and an internal combustion engine wherein combustion misfires can occur when the level of fuel in the tank drops below a critical level. The method includes: detecting the level of fuel in the tank utilizing a fill-level sensor device; utilizing a circuit arrangement to determine when the level in the tank reaches the critical level and switching on a warning lamp to indicate that the critical level has been reached; storing a value corresponding to the critical level and the operating state of the warning lamp in a memory as a first set of data; detecting misfires of the engine and storing information as to the misfires in the memory as a second set of data; and, logically combining the first and second sets of data when the misfires are present at the same time as the critical fill level so that a determination can be made in the context of a later read out of the logically coupled data as to whether the misfires are associated with a level of the fuel corresponding to the critical level.