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This product does a lot more than everyone else is saying

First of all, my background is as an electronics technician and engineer. I have designed electronic control circuitry for textile mills that used the same principles found in automotive computers. I got fascinated by automotive computers when my local dealership was unable to fix a problem that caused the check engine light to repeatedly come on.

Before buying a scanner, I read everything I could get my hands on, about automotive computers and looked very closely at the different scanner choices available.

Nothing prepared me for what this scanner actually does. The main 3 automotive manufacturers all build some diagnostics into their computers.

This scanner will let you take advantage of any other onboard diagnostics that exists. If you own a Ford product, the onboard computer and this scanner will perform a very impressive range of diagnostics that nobody else has mentioned in their reviews, and product descriptions don’t describe, such as a ‘wiggle test’ to see if you have a bad connector between a sensor and the onboard computer, checking the spark plugs and spark plug wires and overall cylinder performance. It will activate individual solenoids, to diagnose that kind of problems. It will help diagnose air conditioning problems, overloading of the transmission, and many other situations that were much more than I was led to expect by reading the product descriptions and reviews. I must make it clear that Ford products seem to be the only ones listed as having such a wide range of diagnostics, although GM and Chrysler additional diagnostics were described. This Scanner seems to be able to work with whatever diagnostics are available.

I had planned to connect it to each of my vehicles and take sensor readings before I had problems, to help me spot anything out of range when a problem occurred. It turns out that I didn’t need to. It already has normal ranges for just about any make and model of car or light truck, including Asian or European.

I was blown away. Tell this scanner what make and model you are connecting it to, and already has a wide library of information available to compare with what you are seeing, tell you if anything is out of range, and make use of whatever onboard computer diagnostics are available.

Finally, the Amazon price seems to be the low price anywhere. You can easily pay $400 for this scanner, elsewhere. Also, I compared it with the Snap On $800 shop scanner and the only thing the Snap On does, which this doesn’t, is display very specific diagnostic steps necessary to pinpoint problems. That, however, is the same information you can get from other places, and much of it is for free.

This is an excellent choice for anyone.

Update (2/7/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen.

The featured review for this product, Actron CP9145 AutoScanner Diagnostic Code Scanner with Live, Record and Playback Data Capability for OBDII Vehicles Automotive, was written by H. Roberts.

The average rating for this item is 4.3 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.