Auto Repair Trouble Shooting with a Code Reader/Code Scanner

Has your check engine light ever came on while you are driving down the road? Chances are it may have at least once in your life time. What that means is the vehicle's on-board computer has picked up a problem that has occurred and will let you know by turning on that light. Most cars are equipped with a plug in under your dash board where a technician or maybe you can slide your code reader/scanner on to it and read the trouble code the computer has put out for you.

There are several types of code readers/code scanners out there on the market you can purchase. Basically the more money you pay the more you will be able to do with your code reader. For around forty bucks or so you can buy just a code reader and that's it. You could also erase the codes stored in your computers memory and reset the check engine light so it will turn off. There are much more expensive code readers out there that will do a lot more than just give you a code.

The more expensive models allows you to see real actual time what your computer is reading and doing. For instance a scanner will let you see the exact engines temperature from the coolant temperature sensor. If you are familiar with the newer car models this will aid you in finding a temperature related problem. If you were to disconnect the coolant temperature sensor you will get a reading on your scanner showing minus forty five degrees. At this point the vehicle would be blowing black smoke from the tail pipe because the computer is thinking that it is that cold outside.

There are so many other items you can monitor and check with this expensive code scanner. I will just be going over a few of them right now and more in my future articles. Ford's computer system allows the scanner to perform a cylinder power balance test. In short this allows the user to run this complete test killing each cylinder one at a time and will show you the results at the end. During this test if one or more cylinder is not up to par then the technician will go and explore and find out why these cylinders failed the test. It could be things such as a bad spark plug, spark plug wire, bad injector, or a low compression cylinder needing a wet and dry test performed to see where you are losing compression at.

For more car care information please visit my blog at, "Auto Repair Savings And My Special Links."