QOTD: Do You Use an OBD Reader?

by Tim Healey

Published: August 5th, 2024

On our podcast last week, Matthew Guy and I discussed OBD readers. Guy also wrote about them this morning. I started wondering how many of y'all use them when working on your own cars?

OBD readers are a bit different than most of the products we feature on the podcast's "Stuff We Use" segment. Most of the products we feature are items that any shadetree-mechanic will have at home. Wrenches, jack stands, and the like.

Other products are the opposite -- only the most dedicated hobbyists will bother.

OBD readers are in between. They're not necessarily expensive, but I've found that some at-home mechanics choose to live without them anyway.

On the other hand, having one in hand can make repairs easier -- or simply let you know when you should probably take your car to a pro.

I've personally never owned an OBD reader, though I used them a bit as a service writer. I am also old enough to have bent a paper clip and stuck it into the OBD port on a 1988 GMC Sierra, counting the CEL flashes to try to read a code. I'd have preferred to used a reader.

Back to you -- if you work on your own cars, do you have an OBD reader? Do you keep one around just to see if you can guide the pros when you take your car to the shop?

Sound off below.

[Image: BLKstudio/Shutterstock.com]

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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2 of 25 comments

TCowner on Aug 07, 2024
I find my cheap OBDII port reader and Dash Command app extremely useful. It has helped diagnose everything from "no-big-deal" codes on my daughters Focus to letting me know our 2016 Edge had a coolant intrusion issue and we would be getting a new engine (thank you CarMax warranty for the $7K repair). I've had it for 10 years and used it on everything. My Town Cars never seem to throw a code.

2 Reply
Miguel Perrito on Sep 05, 2024
you can get a cool bidirectional scantool for a few hundred now. used to be thousands not long ago. great for actually checking if things turn on and off when theyre supposed to

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