Originally Posted by borgward
Whats cheap? I bought ScanTool 427201 OBDLink LX Bluetooth: Professional OBD-II Scan Tool for Android & Windows from Amazon. $62.99. It's not one of the $10 or $12 ones. Any suggestions. The usual culprit is the throttle position sensor in the throttle body. Usually it is a matter of moisture getting in and corroding the contacts.The Fiesta is the only ford that the sensor is not replaceable. You have to buy a new throttle body for $600.
The funny thing is that I can turn the ignition off and then restart and the wrench icon, "Engine Malfunction Service Now" message, and the symptom all disappear. That's like if you had a fever, took you temperature, removed the thermometer and all of a sudden you have no fever.
I have read that there are Ford proprietary codes. What are proprietary codes? are they the OBDII engine malfunction codes? What do you need to read them?
$60 bucks is cheap, $200 bucks is also cheap. You just won't get any good amount of functionality until you spend $400+. I that price point you will get enough capibility to read all codes including manufacterer specific and do a few bidirectional tests and read most live data parameters. In other words, you can do more troubleshooting. A simple code reader, to me, is really worthless. You can get a nice innova scanner that will read all modules and has excellent live data and can reset service lights and oil change lights. I have OEM scanners that cost thousands and will do everything but rely on the innova pro because its smaller and works fast. I paid $350 for it....and harbor frieght has the same one under thier Zurick brand name for coupon price of like $329 or so. The few hundred you spend will pay for itself if you do your own work!!
