Spent $400 on a fancy code reader and it just made my job harder

3 comments

3 Comments

Sounds like that fancy reader gave you a whole new set of problems to fix. My cheap one just says "code P0420" and leaves me to figure it out. What's the point of paying extra for more confusion?

juliaa651d ago

My old shop had a similar scanner that just gave us raw data without any context. It felt like paying for a headache.

the_robin1d ago

Totally get where you're coming from, but the good ones don't just add confusion. My fancy reader showed me the live data for the oxygen sensors before and after the cat. Seeing the second one flatline while the first one was swinging told me the cat was dead for sure, not just a bad sensor. That saved me from throwing a part at it. The cheap one just gives you the code and you're left guessing which part of the system actually failed.