I don’t know about you, but over the past year my car has not been used to the extent that it was Pre-Covid-19.
In fact, there were weeks when it never left my garage. This had some financial benefits of course, but it also comes with some caveats. Prolonged un-use of an automobile can also bring some issues with seals drying out, fuel becoming unstable and so on.
But, it looks like we will soon be be doing more driving as we start to return to a more open society.
That got me to thinking about the inevitable trouble light warnings that will come as I start to use the car more, so I did some research on what might be available to help me interpret any warnings that might come up.
It turns out that there are any number of diagnostic tools available that make use of the car’s OBD-II port. OBD-II is an on-board computer that monitors emissions, mileage, speed, and other data about your car. It’s connected to the Check Engine light and perhaps other warning lights, which light up when the computer detects a problem. You access it by locating the socket, usually under the dashboard. Mechanics use it to plug in a diagnostic tool to determine the problem.
In the past, they were very expensive and so usually only available to repair shops. Not any more! Since we all carry around portable computers more powerful than the ones used to send men to the Moon, it was only a matter of time until some folks came up with something for the rest of us that would make use of the computers in our phones!
Enter FIXD. From the FIXD website we learn this about the company: “FIXD is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, and proud to be an American-owned company. Founded by John Gattuso, Julian Knight, and Frederick Grimm, 3 Georgia Tech grads who were sick of seeing friends and family get ripped off at the repair shop, FIXD has sold over 2 million sensors to drivers across America. They want to empower car owners everywhere to save time, save money, and simplify car care.”
With their device, you simply plug it in and read, on your phone, what the problem you car is having. The trouble codes are written in plain English, not car mechanic lingo so you can understand them, and the app will tell you about the severity of the issue, i.e. will it be to keep driving.
The app is available on your phone, both iPhone and Android, The gizmo that plugs into your OBD-II port is currently on sale for $59.00. But they also offer a Premium version of the app which offers a whole lot of additional information. You can get the gizmo, AND one year’s worth of the Premium App for the same $59.00. That seemed like a good option to me, so I went for it.
They call the gizmo a dongle and mine arrived yesterday, so I tried it out this morning. You plug it in to car, start the app on your phone, start the engine and follow a few simple steps to pair the dongle with your app. Once that’s done, press the scan button on the phone app to get a ton of info about how your car is doing.
Knowing that I am going to be driving more, as is my wife with her car (You can use one dongle with multiple cars) this was a good purchase in my opinion.
You don’t need to be a techie, or a mechanic to get value from this. You just need to be a cautious consumer of car repairs! Go to http://www.fixd.com to learn more.
