Reading engine management light codes

jsmoke · 27 Mar 2019 at 12:40

Can you do this yourself, I see you can buy scanners etc for around £20, are they as good as what a mechanic would use. Is it as straightforward as getting the code then looking it up?

From what I can make out it may not be that simple?

jsmoke · 27 Mar 2019 at 12:43

Dis86 said:
Aye, a £20.00 scanner is as good as the ones costing £100s/£1000s that a mechanic would use.

Is that sarcastic, why would I know about this kind of stuff?

jsmoke · 27 Mar 2019 at 12:47

So something like this?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Torque-Pro...&pf_rd_p=2c00cff3-944d-5bb4-a4cb-89f3cf303857

jsmoke · 27 Mar 2019 at 13:18

Jez said:
I wouldn't be without one, but a generic code reader is only semi useful. Sadly they often will simply throw fairly generic fault codes which are no use on more complicated cars. Mercedes for example you will be lucky to really get much from a regular reader.

So what one do you have and why would you clear codes, surely you need to fix the problem first?