Spent $180 on a fancy scan tool that just confused me more

Picked up a high-end Autel scanner from a guy on Craigslist for 180 bucks. Thought it would make diagnosing a misfire on my neighbor's 2010 Camry a breeze. It gave me a bunch of codes and live data I couldn't make heads or tails of. Eventually I just checked the spark plugs like a normal person and found a cracked one. Has anyone else overpaid for a tool and then gone back to the simple way?

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1 Comment

shane_perry294h ago

oh man, tell me about it. i did the exact same thing last year. found a gently used snap-on verus on facebook marketplace for like 500 bucks. thought i was getting a steal, you know? brought it home and hooked it up to my old jeep that had a check engine light on for a lean code. it gave me all this live data and graphs and i was like "okay great... now what?" spent hours scrolling through menus and watching youtube tutorials. ended up just cleaning the maf sensor with some brake cleaner and the code went away. that simple. sometimes all this fancy technology just gets in the way of actually using your brain and your hands.