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That cheap OBD2 scanner cost me $400 in misdiagnosed parts
Bought a $20 no-name scanner off Amazon last year and it kept giving me P0300 random misfire codes. Threw $400 at new coils, plugs, and injectors before a buddy brought his Snap-On scanner over and found it was just a cracked vacuum line on cylinder 3. Anyone else get burned by those cheap readers?
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samflores4mo ago
Man I feel your pain. Bought a $25 Bluetooth one off Amazon last year and it told me my O2 sensor was dead. Replaced it, still got the code, replaced the other one too for good measure. Ended up being a loose ground wire I found by accident while poking around the engine bay. That cheap thing cost me close to $300 in parts I didn't even need.
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claire_davis314mo ago
Wait, are you saying the scanner was wrong or that you just didn't know how to read it right? I mean, a loose ground wire can cause all kinds of weird voltage readings, so maybe the scanner was actually telling the truth and you just chased the wrong part of the problem. Seems like the real issue was jumping to buy parts instead of doing a quick check for bad connections first.
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