CarMD [Review] Diagnostic Tool – Because You Don’t Know How to Speak Car

by not Sully on February 16, 2011


Price: Prices vary. Free S&H (at the time of this writing)

Back in the day when you took your car into the shop, the mechanic would check under the oil, check the fluids, look at the area where you thought you heard the funny sound coming from, and then give you a rough estimate as to what the issue could be and how long it will take to fix. Nowadays, before they do anything, they plug into your car’s onboard computer with their diagnostic computers and read the data before they do much anything else.

With CarMD, instead of paying mechanics $50 dollars to plug your car into a computer, you can get similar results yourself.

CarMD claims

According to CarMD.com, a CarMD can do the following, “in seconds:”

  • Find out why your check engine light is on
  • Know what repair costs should be before going to the shop
  • Uncover hidden problems before they become expensive repairs
  • Identify simple problems you can fix yourself
  • Learn if your vehicle will pass its emissions test
  • See if you have safety recalls and technical service bulletins for your vehicle
  • And much more…

How does CarMD do all this?

Most every car made since 1996 has computer ports on the driver’s side underneath the dash where it can be hooked up to a computer and have its data read. CarMD does the same thing for a fraction of the price. It doesn’t give everthing under the sun, but it does provide the essentials data and a little bit more than what most of use who don’t speak car would understand. But, don’t worry, the data is translated into English.

That car port is called OBD port 2 (if you’re using your auto manual to find the port).

Review – CarMD Complaints, Frauds, Rip-Offs, Scams…

At the time of this writing, the CarMD has received rave reviews. And the product’s been out awhile so that’s promising. Long-standing car website, carbible.com, says the only real “glitch” in the CarMD is that it won’t reset your car’s warning lights, but they say that’s by design. Why? Because in 99 out of 100 cases, those warning lights go off for a good reason and should be attended to.

Speaking of rave reviews, the LA chapter of the BBB gives their parent company a rating of A.

The only complaint I have about the CarMD is that it doesn’t fully explain what all comes with the CarMD, but a DVD, lifetime diagnostic reports, and instructional manual (I believe) are included.

Where to Find CarMD



Let us know your thoughts. We’d love to hear them.

  • Anonymous

    thanks  a lot for sharing this software to us …
    it’s very useful

  • Anonymous

    Wow! That will save me lots of time if my car has something wrong.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_6MXNLAWKOVBZGHOEEWWPLGQXCI Dustin

    That’s great but the codes (or DTC’s) that turn on a check engine light don’t ‘tell you’ what to replace. It still takes a trained and skilled Technician to interpret the codes and ‘diagnose’ your vehicle. yes I said technician and diagnose because cars are now little mobile computer networks and very sophisticated systems are involved as well. go ahead a buy one, your still gonna have to know what the hell your doing to use the information it’s giving you. you’ll save money in the long run paying someone that knows what there doing instead of just replacing parts.

    • http://twitter.com/AsSeenonTVLife As Seen on TV Life

      Nice. Have you used one yet?

  • http://best-reviews.org/ Brittany Halstead

    Mine happened to alert me to a recall notice my car had with the oil system which could lead to a fire.

    My car was only a 2007 model so I was not expecting it to do much, but it actually was pretty helpful.

    I can imagine it would be even more helpful if used while looking at used cars to purchase.

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