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Back in '98 at the Detroit auto show, I saw a tech use a laptop to talk to a car's computer for the first time.
That moment in the Ford booth, watching him pull codes without even popping the hood, made me realize my old set of wrenches wasn't going to be enough anymore, so what was the first scan tool you guys ever bought?
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simonl866mo ago
My first was a cheap OBD1 scanner for my 92 Civic. It was a gray box with a red LED display from a Harbor Freight flyer. Cost me maybe forty bucks and came with a little book of code definitions. It felt like space age stuff at the time, just being able to see that the computer was mad about the oxygen sensor. That basic tool saved me hours of guessing and showed me which way the trade was heading.
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jason1125mo ago
My first was a cheap OBD1 scanner too, but I had the total opposite takeaway. That gray box with the little book just proved to me the basics never really change. It told me the code for the oxygen sensor, sure, but I still had to get under the car with a wrench to fix it. The real skill is knowing why that sensor failed and how to test the new one. The tool just points, it doesn't fix. I kept my wrenches and just added the scanner to the box.
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