A self-learning diagnostic system provides diagnostics capabilities which may be applied to a population of networked machines or components and assemblies in a product. The self-learning diagnostic system uses both the components' own historical data and the data for an entire population of networked machines of a given product in the field as the training set to adjust critical threshold parameters for detection and diagnosis. The system includes a nominal diagnostic threshold setting module which sets initial thresholds and an adjustment module, which adjusts thresholds continuously based on machine performance data. A service records evaluation module checks service records periodically for correlations and an adjustment module adjust service strategies based on correlation data.