Here are a few quick safety tips to keep in mind when you’re running on-board diagnostics using the CanOBD2:

• 

  Ventilation – In order for you to run diagnostics using the Equus CanOBD2, your car’s engine needs to be on. However, when a car is running, it produces Carbon Monoxide and other harmful chemicals. Make sure that your can is in a well ventilated area before running your diagnostics.

• Fire Safety – The vapors produced by the fuel and battery are highly flammable, and can result in a fire or even an explosion if ignited. It’s important that there are no open flames or anything that can cause a spark when you’re running diagnostics on the car. DO NOT smoke while running tests on your vehicle.
• 

  Parking – Make sure that your car is properly parked, with the transmission on “park” and the parking break engaged before working on your vehicle. Turn your wheels to face the curb if on a hill, and use parking blocks if necessary.

• Connection – Connecting and disconnecting the testing equipment while the vehicle is running can potentially damage the vehicle. Make sure that the Equus CanOBD2 is plugged in FIRST before starting your vehicle.
• Eye Protection – When working on a vehicle, there is always the possibility of small objects and hot liquids flying at you. Make sure to wear appropriate eye protection to protect your eyes from these dangers.
• 

  Moving Parts – When the engine is running, many of the parts of the vehicle move at rapid speeds, and can be harmful if you make contact with them. Make sure to keep your hands and other extremities away from any fast moving parts.

• Hot Parts – When the engine is running, many parts can heat up to dangerous temperatures. Avoid contact with any metal parts that may be hot, and wear safety gloves to keep yourself from getting burned.
• Loose Clothing – Avoid wearing loose clothing and any jewelry while working on your vehicle. Jewelry can fall into the machinery and damage it, or get caught in a pulley and cause you harm. Jewelry is also highly conductive, and can cause you burns if it makes contact with anything hot. Dress comfortably but safely when operating the Equus CanOBD2.

Finally, be sure to read the instruction manual that comes with the Equus CanOBD2 fully before operating the device. Even though the device is simple to use once you learn how to, it is always best to go over the instructions before operating something that can potentially cause the vehicle harm. With the proper precautions, and the right preparation, you will be using the Equus CanOBD2 to run diagnostics in no time.

-Takeshi, shopping blogger and on-board diagnostician

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If you’re like me, you’ve been in the unfortunate situation of having that mysterious yellow icon, known as the “check engine light”, flick on on your dashboard. This worrisome light means that your car’s on-board diagnostics (OBD) system has detected something wrong with your engine.

Problem is, it doesn’t tell you what’s wrong, so you don’t know if it’s just a small malfunction or something life threatening. To make things worse, if your check engine light is on, you won’t be able to get a smog check until it’s turned off again. The only way to get that annoying light flicked off is to pay a visit to an auto mechanic, which can cost a lot of money.

Enter the CanOBD2 CodeReader from Equus. This handy device, which is small enough to throw in your glove compartment, provides you with a quick and easy way to figure out what is going on with your on-board diagnostics. Just plug-in the Equus CanOBD2’s 6-foot long data link connector (DLC), and you’ll easily be able to retrieve the OBD II code and store it onto the device. Then just look up the code in the included manual, and you’ll quickly be able to decipher what’s going on with your car.

Made to work with all cars made after 1996 (including my trusty ‘96 Nissan Sentra), the Equus CanOBD2 is a handy tool to have around, that can save you a trip to the mechanic. If you find out the problem isn’t anything serious, the Equus CanOBD2 also has the ability to delete the OBD diagnostic code, and shut off that annoying check engine light once and for all.

Beyond just dealing with check engine lights, the Equus CanOBD2 can be used to analyze other diagnostic information about your car, so you can monitor your car’s operational health. The built-in LED display let’s you view up to 19 different pieces of information about your car at a time, so you can really get a handle of what’s going on inside your car’s engine.

Looking after your car’s health is important, since it looks after yours on the road. Don’t let a check engine light ruin you day, with the handy Equus CanOBD2.

-Takeshi, shopping blogger and canobd2er

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Tire Claw

Steering Wheel Lock

Car thieves are getting more and more sophisticated.  Gone are the days when they would simply bash in a window and drive off in your car.  Today thieves are just as likely to use a machine-tooled copy of the dealer’s keys or a SIM clone for your electronic locks.  Now, you can get a Tire Claw to protect your vehicle, or perhaps  a steering wheel lock.  But if you want to combine protection and convenience, how about a remote car-starter?  Then you could get a device that would allow you to unlock your doors from up to a thousand feet, and press a panic button if you are threatened to scare off all car thieves!

Remote Car-Starter

Keep safe and keep on trucking,

Will

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And now, to make things worse, Lexus is introducing a self-parking car. You just pull up ahead of the space, tell the car to park, adjust the arrows on the screen to show it where you actually hope to end up, and ride the brake into the space. It does all the hard work of actually knowing how to parallel park.

In 50 years, when no one knows how to feed themselves, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

(On a related note, has anyone seen Mike Judge’s Idiocracy? Sounds like Fox is doing their best to let it die on the vine. Bummer.)

Aram

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These days I’m mostly to be found underneath or bent over it, cursing, banging, swallowing the odd bit of fluid, and generally taking two steps back for every step forward. The other day, it tried to kill me by having the brakes fail as I eased it into the driveway. (OK, it would have hit the side of my house about about 3 mph. More of a cry for help than actual Christine-worthy behavior.) But hey, it’s old enough to be my mother; this is to be expected. (Not that I expect my mother to kill me. Moving on…)

I’ll not bore you with the details (unless you ask) but I will pass on one key thing I’ve learned. It can be worth it to buy parts online, but unless you’re buying a simple commodity product or some crazy performance thing, it will save you time and heartache to buy from a dealer that has a store near you. That way, when they ship you the complete wrong master cylinder or don’t include the gasket with the water pump (to pick two examples out of, oh, you know, the blue) you can drop by the store and deal directly with them, rather than having to ship it back, wait a few more days, and hope.

That means I mostly buy from Kragen (which you may know as Checker or Schucks, depending on where you live–it’s all partsamerica.com, as it turns out.) They’ve had their share of hiccups (see above), but they’ve had their act together more than other online-only stores I’ve dealt with.

Happy wrenching,

Aram

P.S. I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to Brian at HotAutoWeb who hooked me up with the car to begin with. Friendly, honest guy, sweet rides–Go Spudman!

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Wired has an interesting story about the difference in popularity of diesels between the US and Europe. (Actually, it seems to be from Forbes, but I can’t seem to find it on the Forbes site. Media consolidation confuses me.) Half of Europe’s new car sales are diesels–who knew? I wouldn’t normally have paid much attention to the story, since my main memory of diesels is of my grandmother’s old Mercedes, which belched smoke like a factory, shook like a Magic Fingers bed and was routinely trounced off the line by Volkswagen Beetles, Yugos, and assorted turtles.

Last week, though, I had occasion to ride in a modern diesel (in Seattle, since most of them don’t meet California’s emissions standards), and I was pretty impressed. It was a Jeep Liberty, and I wasn’t even entirely sure it was a diesel until I got out and saw CRD on the back. It was quiet, smooth, and seemed to have a fairly broad power band–not just the low-end grunt that makes diesel engines popular in large trucks.

Diesels definitely face an uphill battle in the States–like I did, most people still think of the old, underpowered Mercedes and Volkswagen engines, or Oldsmobile’s explodingly inept entries–but a diesel engine has moved from “Pshaw!” to “Hmm…” in my book.

Aram

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With the cost of gas averaging $3.31 here in California, my wallet is starting to feel the effects of my weekly fill up. I’ve been trying to economize, but it doesn’t help that I’m planning to drive cross country this summer. I’ve found that Gas Buddy helps me find the cheapest gas stations, along with AAA’s Fuel Calculator to help calculate the cost of my trip. Or maybe it’s time that I trade in my faithful Saturn for a car that can run on biodiesel. What’s not to love about a car that smells like donuts and french fries?

Mercedes

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A less scrupulous person would have added the car to his policy and then reported the damage. But I chose the honest route, figuring that an agent with whom my family had been doing business for 40 years would show me the same good faith.

Two months later, I still didn’t have a driver’s side mirror, and my trunk was starting to rust around the dent. They hadn’t paid the claim, but they hadn’t denied it, either. They had simply given me the full benefit of what they learned in Customer Indifference 101. I couldn’t believe these guys. My agent would tell me one thing, the adjuster would tell me another–once I actually had to get them on a conference call myself so that they would stop failing to talk to each other.

The problem was that my agent wanted to pay the claim (or so he said), but the company’s bureaucracy wouldn’t let him do it. It was apparent that the adjusters had no interest in approving my claim since their job was not to keep me happy, but to watch the bottom line. From the outside, I could see that the company was at cross-purposes with itself, and no one seemed to want (or be able) to fix it.

Well, someone had to care, right? Surely, someone had to see the big picture. Acting on advice from my dad (who once settled a health care claim this way), I went straight to the top. A couple of minutes of online research got me the number of the CEO. I didn’t get him, but I got one of his assistants.

And you know what? After two months of jerking me around, they paid the claim within 24 hours.

Aram

*Who shall remain nameless, except to say that I didn’t feel like they were very good neighbors

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My love affair with RVs began as a child, with trips in my grandparents’ motorhome along the California coast. But they never took the Winnebago right INTO the California coast, and that’s where the gloriously over-the-top Cool Amphibious Manufacturers International comes into it.

Man, do I want one of these. You can drive this baby right into the water and just keep going. Think about it. With enough food and about a 3000-gallon fuel tank–or one of those refueling tankers that they use to keep planes in the air forever–you could traverse the circumference of the earth without ever stopping. Phineas Fogg and Steve Fossett would have nothing on you, and would certainly envy your onboard 42-inch plasma TV (to say nothing of your bathroom).

Dude. Sweet. Now all I need is $1.2 million.

(Hat tip, Neatorama)
Aram

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