Guys,

I was watching Pine Hollow Auto Diagnostic and Ivan was talking about those Black Friday special deals yada yada.

Anyway, I notice Autel MK808 because of it being an old model, the non blue tooth one aka OBD via wire can be as cheap as US$400 for Prime members in Amazon.
Autel 808 family is bi-directional and was once a powerful unit. One has to read properly the unit alphabetic code before and after the 808 numeric which means its capability will be a bit different.

Better than buying iCarSoft specific to MB, the Autel 808 family can be a much better scanner overall and multi car models capable too.


I personally is quite itchy to get a TopDon Phoenix Plus likes the one below, but I am quite worried if this unit maybe not the same capability wise with those sold thru USA official channels.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...+plus&_sacat=0

I already have the Autel MS906BT and paid dearly from a local distributor in Aug 2021 at US$1,400ish with 2 years free update.
Now this model only US$900 at Ebay with 1 year free update and was under special promo in Indonesia for US$1,000 there about in Aug 2022.


Happy shopping..............

How far is your model from European models?
Having roots in Poland, I bought Maxi-Ecu, who require laptop for use, but that is what I like as it allows me seeing lot of things.
Relatively cheap scanner does advanced testing and adaptations.
Since it is European-made, I found that lot of US modules take long time to be supported, yet it works on my cars just fine.
Than for monitoring, what is especially important for diesel owners, ScanGague released model III, with excellent reviews. I am sending the suggestion to my sons, as having model II already, on top of 6 other scanners, I can't excuse myself to another $300 expense.

Xentry define my car as REST OF THE WORLD.

Wow, the Maxi-ECU seems nice. Thanks K

ADD:
I took a closer look at Maxi-ECu, it does have my engine on the list for ECM...dang.
Its bi-directional capability like turning off camshaft phasors for M276 3.5L is not stated.
No Front or Rear SAM in the system list , that is odd.
Have you ever do any bi-directional test with Maxi-ECU for front and rear SAM , assuming you can read the modules ?

I am software-shy so I don't do any deep software digging, meaning I am not hooking up the scanner unless I have a problem and for last 3 years I am driving trouble-free. (knock on the wood). Last time I used it few months ago for resetting oil change as after AEM, the old cluster button procedure didn't work anymore. ME still did the job.
I bought my ME for $80 few years back, so got my money worth on couple of uses for sure. Good part is that you have free upgrades for life and they did requests as well.
Meaning even if your module is not supported now, chances are it will be next year upgrade.

Have you looked at the Autel AP200? I think there's a few ads that say it's basically a cheaper version of the MK808 and basically limited to one car line instead of all of them. I had a Launch X431 for a while but it stopped working after a few updates. Also had a Thinkcar Pro but couldn't get it working, gave up and just got the Autel.

Hi C,

I never tried Autel AP200.

You wrote:
I had a Launch X431 for a while but it stopped working after a few updates. Also had a Thinkcar Pro but couldn't get it working

Supposedly the ThinkTool and TopDon family uses Launch engine/software.
Can you explain X431 and Thinkcar Pro stop working as in electronically the device died or they lock you out of Mercedes menu ?
There are some scanner I heard where certain difficult/premium cars, MB among them , will no more work once the update/subcription expires but for other simpler cars it will work.

I believe my autel MS906BT will not lock me out of MB menu, but its higher-end model which can do coding ( mine can't) will only allow user to connect to Autel server with
valid subscription.

I had the Launch X431 EasyDiag which was $30 years ago when I first bought it on Aliexpress. Worked for a few years and scanned all subsystems. Upgraded my phone a few times and the software got updated a few times. Last time I was able to use it, it wouldn't let me load the latest version of the software as it had been over a year but it let me load up an older version of the software and it still worked. Changed phones and the software wouldn't work afterwards. Got the new Thinkcar Pro, a couple years ago but didn't need it for a while but by the time I tried it, it didn't work. Customer service was ok, but didn't have time to jump through hoops to make it work. Got the Autel instead. Worked fine initially but after a few months it stopped working. But I managed to figure it out, deleted the software/cache and that didn't do it but deleting the bluetooth pairing and redoing it got it working again. Maybe that was what was needed with those older packages. I think firmware/andoid updates might also be responsible for breaking them. Basically when they didn't work, it wouldn't connect to scan the car or the software wouldn't load. Never really needed anything coded, just need it scanned to tell me error codes.

Aha.... I see, your units are all dongle based and needed our own tablet or smartphone.
Compatibility issue can come up when our phone gets new firmware or different android OS or iOS..... something like that.
Thanks for the information

In theory the software gets update to work on the latest version of Android. But I think the problem with Thinkcar Pro/Launch is that they just give you one year on the software. You can still keep using it until it stops working due to a hardware or software update which I guess is why you can find it for $40 or so. Better than dropping $400-$600 on a dedicated system.

I think you are right. I saw explanation in Utube where some OBD dongle based units are sold at low cost on purpose but when the licence/subscription expires it stop working.
So in the long run if one keep maintaining the licence/subscription, we the user probably will not save much compared to tablet based system.

In theory, you should be able to use the old software. Got a few years out of the old one. Autel says you get lifetime use of the AP200 with one car brand but the other ones are just one year. But even if you just use it once, probably still cheaper than going to the dealer who will charge you $100+ just to scan the car.