I occasionally get an interesting Bzz Campaign from BzzAgent, where I get to try new stuff in exchange for talking about said new stuff. This time, I joined the CarMD Bzz Campaign.
Now, I have an aging American vehicle. It's still in good shape, and with the exception of having to replace the camshaft timing sensor (which was a painful, miserable fix, but I did it myself for only a few dollars), it's been pretty trouble free. Of course, as I've mentioned, it's only got 70k miles on it and it's pushing 11 years old.
Still, even at relatively low mileage, things start dying simply due to age, and I don't have a ton of spare cash to throw at my car should she take an unexpected nosedive.
One thing that I've learned about cars is that knowledge is the best discount you can get on repairs.
I learned this with Delilah, my old '85 Buick Park Avenue. Now, SHE was high maintenance. I wish I had known more about Delilah. It would have been great to know exactly what was wrong with her, then at least know what it SHOULD cost to fix her at a mechanic, if not actually fix her myself. It would have saved me a lot of pain and anguish as a poor (female) college student with an aging, eccentric car.
That's where CarMD comes in. For $119, you get a car computer reader, something that you can get for a price as low as $27. Of course, $27 does not guarantee that it will work with your car. The model I found for $27 (plus shipping) stated that it may not work with a list of several vehicles, mostly imports. The CarMD reader will work on all OBDII vehicles--almost all gasoline-powered vehicles made since 1996.
The CarMD reader is easy to use, too. I plugged it into my car's reader port (under the dash on the Intrepid), and turned the key to the "on" (not "start") position, and waited for 4 quick beeps. It took about 30-45 seconds. Then, I turned the key to off, and unplugged the reader from my car. Analysis done.
A nice thing about the CarMD reader is that, once it's done reading, one of three LED lights will light up. A green light means that you can probably skip hooking up to your home computer because your car's computer is reporting no issues. A yellow light indicates that there is a pending problem or your car's diagnostic monitors have not run all of their tests--you might want to check into that. A red light means that your car requires service. Mine was green.
Here's the best part. For the $119 you spend on CarMD, you don't just get the reader. You get a plain English explanation of what the car codes that your car's computer reports to the reader means. The CarMD reader, once the software is installed on your computer, and the reader subsequently plugged in, will communicate the information to your home computer and the CarMD website. From there, you can find out what a code means, potentially diagnose the problem, find out what can be done to fix it, and get cost estimates for repair.
Or, use it to check a car before you buy it. You just need to have the VIN for any vehicle you want to get a diagnostic on (up to 3 cars can be registered for up to 6 monthly online diagnostics). Of course, if you get a green light, you don't actually have to run a diagnostic. Freebie!!
There is an additional option that you can subscribe to for just under $30 that gets you a few more things, including technical service bulletins for your registered cars.
You can read about CarMD on their website www.carmd.com. In addition, feel free to visit this website to get $30 off the CarMD system (limited time offer) http://www.carmd.com/bzz. Or, you can try to win a CarMD tool on the CarMD Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/carmd.
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