Pro tip: That $400 diagnostic scanner from Amazon is a total ripoff

Bought a fancy Autel scanner for $400 thinking it would save me time on those newer cars. Thing would not connect to a 2023 Chevy Silverado's modules no matter what I tried. Ended up borrowing a friend's $1200 Snap-On scanner and it worked first try. Anyone else been burned by those cheap entry level scan tools?

3 comments

3 Comments

noah_webb24d ago

Agreed completely. Bought one of those $400 Autel scanners and it couldn't even read the ABS codes on my 2018 F-150. Spent two days fighting with it before giving up and taking it to a buddy's shop where his Snap-On hooked up in five minutes. Really felt like I just threw that money away. What was the Silverado doing that the cheap scanner couldn't handle?

blairj5524d ago

that Silverado had a body control module that was throwing a code for a short in the rear lighting circuit. my cheap Innova 3150 just said "communication error" every time i tried to pull or clear it. swapped in a used BCM from the junkyard and it fired right up, no issues since. sometimes it really is just the module being dumb, not the scanner.

derek_ramirez24d ago

Ngl that's kind of wild. A junkyard BCM just fixed it like that? I've had cheap scanners give me trouble before but never that bad where it couldn't even talk to the module. Makes me wonder how many perfectly good trucks get scrapped because someone can't read a stupid code. Tbh sometimes the simplest fix is the one you'd never guess.