this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2026
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If you own a used car or is getting ready to purchase one, buy yourself an obd2 scanner. You can avoid making a bad purchase or getting scammed by a mechanic when it is something you can easily fix yourself.
And if you are truly broke, you can at least determine if the check engine is something you should addressed immediately or wait a couple weeks.
It never occurred to me I could just buy my own in lieu of the weekly trips to auto zone. Do you have any brand recommendations (only what to stay away from)?
Veepeak and obdlink are good generic ones in my experience, BimmerLink even recommends a specific obdlink one for example, think it has an STN2120 rather than the usual ELM327 clone chips and thus is a bit higher quality, but for most cars and most apps, the ELM based ones work.
If you use or might one day want to use IOS, get one with BT LE support and connect via app, not the Bluetooth menu. If you do, you'll have to restart the phone to get it to show up again, stupid iOS thing.
I bought a OBDLink Mx a long time ago and it has worked on every car i have had to diagnose. (Mercedes, Skoda, VW, SAAB, Porsche)
I've had a couple of these (with different branding): https://ebay.io/m/UJMLDM
Despite the name they're not that durable, the first one I had rattled apart after a few years, but at that price idgaf. It's Bluetooth so you need to install a companion app. It's only obd2 though, it won't read any fancy proprietary make-specific codes.
My car gets angery when I plug in my cheapo Bluetooth OBD2 thingy. Like "ESD service required" angery and I have to unplug the thingy and restart the car to clear it.
Totally fine after that.
Is my Bluetooth thingy too cheapo?
My previous car didn't care at all. It was older though and didn't have ESD and all that.
Edit for future travelers:
I looked it up and yes it looks like (especially) cheap ones can interfere. It seems the likelihood of it actually breaking something is low but bad quality wiring in cheap electronics can be a factor in these "ghost problems".
Or if your car is old enough, and you don’t mind investing some cash, you might find the official diagnostics equipment available on eBay.
With a bit of hacking about you can program new keys, train in new parts etc etc.