Published July 8, 2026 at 14:21
Friday afternoon at Svenssons Bil in Bromma. A customer has dropped off their four-year-old Volvo XC90 with the description ”won’t start, flashing red, skips on the third attempt.” The customer needs the car back by Sunday to drive up north to Norrland. The mechanic pops the hood, checks the alternator, the battery, the wiring harness — everything looks normal. No visible damage. The battery voltage is 12.3 V, bordering on needing replacement, but not critical. Continuity testing on the vehicle’s wiring harness takes 45 minutes and reveals nothing suspicious.
Then the mechanic picks up a FLIR TG275 from the workbench. Powers on the camera. Scans the engine bay. On the 2.4-inch display, an unexpected hot spot appears — not where you would expect the engine to be warm (cylinder head, intake manifold), but around the starter motor solenoid, which should be completely cold after sitting under the hood for 40 minutes without the engine running. The solenoid reads 47 °C compared to an ambient temperature of 22 °C. There is only one explanation: an internal short circuit is continuously drawing current even with the ignition turned off. The car is draining the battery overnight. The battery looks charged when the workshop tests it in the morning, but is depleted when the customer tries to start the car.
Diagnosis: the solenoid is faulty and must be replaced. Replacement part cost: 2,500 SEK. Labor: 45 minutes. The customer can pick up the car at 16:00 and make their trip. Without the TG275, troubleshooting would have taken all day and might never have pinpointed the issue before the car had its alternator or starter motor unnecessarily replaced for 15,000–25,000 SEK.
It is precisely these kinds of scenarios — where a faulty system LOOKS normal but is ELECTRICALLY leaking energy as heat — that represent the entire raison d’être of the TG275.
What the TG275 is Designed to Do
The FLIR TG275 is not a general-purpose thermal imaging camera. It is specifically developed for automotive workshops and heavy vehicle diagnostics. Key questions the camera answers:
Which bearing is about to fail? Bearings subjected to vibration in vehicles (differential, transmission, wheel bearings) heat up before they fail completely. Bearing diagnostics using thermography 3–4 months prior to failure is standard practice at premium workshops.
Where are loose electrical connections located? Loose connections create high-resistance micro-currents that generate heat. A cable connection that should be 25 °C but measures 55 °C has a poor contact long before the system fails entirely.
Which cylinder is misfiring? In the event of improper compression or a malfunctioning injector, ONE cylinder runs noticeably cooler than the others at idle. Thermography on the exhaust manifold runners instantly reveals which cylinder is causing the issue.
Where is the catalytic converter overheating? A clogged catalytic converter reaches red-hot temperatures and can melt the exhaust system. Thermography during routine servicing detects early blockages months before symptoms appear.
What is causing a connection to overheat? Simple baseline testing of HV batteries in hybrid and electric vehicles. Thermographic scanning of the battery module and terminal connections reveals failing cells before complete breakdown.
MSX® — The Feature That Makes the TG275 So Practical
MSX (Multi-Spectral Dynamic Imaging) is FLIR’s patented technology that embosses sharp visual details (edges, text, numbers) ON TOP of the thermal image’s color pattern. The problem it solves: a raw thermal image is typically blurry and lacks surface markers. The operator sees a hot and a cold spot, but cannot tell WHERE on the engine they are located.
With MSX, the camera overlays sharp visual edges in real time. A thermal image of an engine suddenly becomes a detailed engine photo with thermal color mapping on top. The result: ”here is the solenoid with a 47 °C hot spot” instead of ”here is a hot spot somewhere.”
Without MSX, the operator must take a standard photo and a thermal image separately and mentally correlate the two. With MSX, all the information is on a single screen simultaneously. Time saved per diagnosis: 5–10 minutes.
Practical Workshop Use
19,200 pixels (160×120) and a temperature range up to 550 °C are exactly what an automotive workshop needs. Engine components do not exceed 500 °C even under the most demanding conditions. An IP54 rating means the camera withstands the oil, dust, and coolant spray inherent to the workshop environment. A 1.8-meter drop rating according to the manufacturer’s drop test is realistic for everyday handling around workbenches and under vehicles.
Image storage on a micro-SD card (included) allows for documentation of every diagnostic procedure — critical for customer reports and warranty claims. Saved images are standard JPEGs with embedded thermal data that can be opened in FLIR’s free analysis software for post-inspection reporting.
Battery life is typically 5–6 hours of continuous use. For a mechanic scanning 8–12 cars a day, this is more than enough for a full workday without needing to recharge.
Investment and Return on Investment
10,273 SEK is the instrument’s price point. In a workshop handling 15–20 cars a day, the camera pays for itself through:
Faster diagnostics: 15–30 minutes saved per diagnostic case × ~5 relevant thermography cases per week = 3–5 hours saved per week. At an 800 SEK/hour shop labor rate, that represents 12,000–16,000 SEK/month in freed-up billing capacity.
Fewer ”unresolved” repairs: the mechanic can clearly state ”here is the problem” instead of guessing. Repairs become more targeted, customer satisfaction improves, and warranty disputes become far less frequent.
Additional service revenue: when the mechanic can show the customer a thermal image of their overheated wheel bearing that has NOT failed yet but soon will, the customer is far more inclined to approve preventative maintenance.
In practice, the instrument pays for itself within 2–3 months for the average workshop.
Learn more: FLIR TG275 thermal camera in the store →
