Autel MaxiScan MS409 Great Scan Tool for a Great Price!

Autel MaxiScan MS409 Great Scan Tool for a Great Price!
I'm staring this review with a ***WARNING*** Do NOT update the software in this unit to the Ver. 1.13 posted at Autel's web site!!!! It will cause the display to become corrupted and unreadable! Anyone who has done the update and now has an unreadable display CHEER UP!

Google MS409Fix for a page I have posted which gives instructions on how to restore the original factory software.

Now that I've hopefully saved the day for some people I'll get on with my review.

I have a 1998 Chevy Venture minivan that has been showing an SES light on and off for a while. It runs smooth and has plenty of acceleration so I haven't been too concerned. Now that the gas prices have gone back up I figure I'll check things and see if there are any fuel system issues involved with this SES thing. I shopped around Amazon looking at code readers and such. I didn't want anything too cheap but I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg either.

When I came across this MaxiScan MS409 I liked a few things right off, especially the back lit 8 line display. It does more than just read and delete codes. It does an initial diagnostic and shows the ststus of the major parts of your engine control systems, shows I/M readiness status of emission controls, displays not only the actual trouble codes, both generic and many manufacturer specific, but tells you what they mean and shows 'Freeze Frame' data giving you more info about what the problem is. Of course it's good to have a factory service manual available if you want to do the repairs yourself.

This unit is worth over $100 and for this price on Amazon you just can't beat it.

One other issue, I found that it's better to have the engine running when you first hook it up because it will give a link error if you just have the ignition turned on, at lease on my vehicle it did.

All in all I like this scan tool and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to save the money that a repair shop will charge you just to read and clear the trouble codes in a vehicle's computer or if they want to do their own repairs.

I've downgraded my rating to 4 stars because the Autel Product Support Department takes forever to respond to emails and has not yet acted on my suggestion to remove the faulty firmware update from their web site.