Diagnostic Equipment.

[Tony Prodigy]

Just wanted to share my Autel MS906BT diagnostic tool. I purchased this late last year due to issues I was having with my other car and thought It would be a handy item to have on hand to diagnose that pesky "check engine" light. Makes life much easier being able to do it at your own leisure and not having to pay someone each time a fault pops up. It will pay for itself in time. 

This particular one, is a little more expensive than the entry level ones but is worth it. It has a wireless adapter so not being tethered by a cable allows much more freedom to be able to walk around the car with the device in your hand whilst observing the area you wish to check.

Comes beautifully packaged in a high quality blow moulded case and all the accessories you need to connect to cars of all makes.

You can read more about this particular model here:

https://www.autel.com/autelcms/Automotive Diagnostic& Analysi/549.jhtml

 

[campbeam]

2 hours ago, Tony Prodigy said:

Makes life much easier being able to do it at your own leisure and not having to pay someone each time a fault pops up. It will pay for itself in time. 

I think that SuperCheapAuto charges $15 to read the error code of a Check Engine Light.

Rather than pay, I ended up buying a basic Autel model which was probably $35 at that time. 

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/AU-Autel-AL539B-Engine-Car-OBD2-Diagnostic-Tool-Fault-Code-Reader-Scanner-Ford/333297455214?hash=item4d9a13906e:m:mMzoJB47f-VsCdTQ6XvibyQ

I have used this diagnostic tool so many times since finally getting one. Still kicking myself for not buying this tool many years ago. At $15 per reading, I have enough "savings" to justify buying an immediate replacement or upgraded model.  

[Tony Prodigy]

14 hours ago, campbeam said:

I think that SuperCheapAuto charges $15 to read the error code of a Check Engine Light.

Rather than pay, I ended up buying a basic Autel model which was probably $35 at that time.

That's not too bad a price to pay to have the codes read. I suspect the dealer would charge at least 0.5 hour labour unit for this, ( say $100 ?), and this still doesn't fix the issue. Having your own reader takes the hassle out of having the codes read and you can do it at your own convenience.

I remember back in the 90s, I had a '94 BMW 328i sedan and the airbag light needed resetting. I approached a local dealer and they wanted something stupid like $150 to reset the light, so I waited. Turns out I had an old school friend that worked at a BMW dealership who I happened to bump into when purchasing parts. He worked as a mechanic there and he scoffed at having me pay the money for the reset. He ushered me into the workshop, hooked up the computer and it was done in literally 5 seconds. I was very happy.

Back in those days, you couldn't get consumer level diagnostic tools. You had to go to the dealer and pay extortionate money for their monopoly.

Thank God, times have changed.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Tony Prodigy

[campbeam]

8 hours ago, Tony Prodigy said:

Thank God, times have changed.

Now we have the internet. Good information available for what the different error codes mean.

Plenty of YouTube videos show how to reset various warnings and CEL. Years ago I was looking at a Honda Accord with an airbag warning light. After reading up on how to reset this warning light which involved using a paperclip method, I decided to give it a miss rather than mistakingly having an airbag suddenly deploy.