ANCEL DS200 OBD2 Scanner, ABS SRS Tool

Every car sold in the last 30 years or so has a port under the driver’s side dash connected to the computer in the car. Your car delivers all of its parameters to this port where a mechanic can plug in a device like this and read the state of nearly every system in your vehicle instantly. Why auto manufacturers don’t include this software in the car itself at this point is a mystery to me. Instead of getting a ‘check engine’ light, you would be able to know exactly what is going wrong and either fix it yourself or let a mechanic know what to do. People’s lives would be much better! But they don’t build this into cars–or at least, I have never seen it.

This device remedies that omission and allows you, the car’s owner, to see what the mechanic sees. If a sensor is malfunctioning, your braking system is not working as it should or dozens of other systems in your car need to be looked at , you can easily do it with this device. The info is displayed directly on the screen specific to your year, make and model. You can view the data as graphs, as numbers or together in different ways.

The more comfortable you are with automobiles, the more some of the info may mean to you but for most issues, this will tell you in plain language what you need to be concerned about.

When I got my first one of these, I plugged it into each of my cars to see what it could tell me–and like most checkups, the news was good. BUt when the dash lights blink on, it is comforting to have this on board with me (especially on road trips) to lessen any anxiety and to give you the needed info should something go wrong. It will be hard for a mechanic to trick you and tell you that you need a brake job when your scanner tells you there is air in the brake line and all you need to do is bleed it.

This is a fully featured unit which has onboard power and its own screen. The seller offers free support and updates forever (they say) and there is enough help built in the device to answer most questions about how to use it. It is not cheap but it is less expensive than a true professional model which may not offer much more than this does and requires a paid subscription. There are very inexpensive models which use your cell phone and an app as the screen and simply have you plug a wireless sender into the OBD2 port–if you don’t have a commitment to this technology, you could start there.

BUt I think this is high quality and rugged. The seller has thought of everything and if you are not a mechanic, this levels the playing field should something go wrong.

This DS200 ABS SRS OBD2 Scanner by ANCEL, is a great diagnostic tool, that can do so many helpful things, with both strengths and weaknesses to think about. Here are some of the things I’ve learned while owning it and things to consider before buying.

I. Quality – It feels like a solidly built machine that should hold up well over time, assuming the electronics survive. I’d put it in the upper-middle level of the quality scale.
II. Performance – This is a great machine if you want to be able to access multiple vehicles with the same device. I picked it to be able to access all the cars at my house as well as to help family and friends, if needed. It offers over 15 reset services, 4 system diagnosis and live data graphs. It won’t go as deep or allow as much control on any single vehicle as if you get one specific for that vehicle, but this one will access a ton of different makes and models. It will also do most things that are needed and provides a lot of usability for diagnosis, testing, and recalibrating that you wouldn’t normally have access to. The connectivity has worked perfect, it offers 20 languages and a ton of other helpful abilities.
III. Updates – This model claims to offer free updates for life, which would be highly valuable if true, since many will charge a yearly fee for updates after the first few years.

Overall, this is a great device that has worked wonderful for my needs so far. With this device and my mechanical abilities, I can take care of most things at home if I choose to and that’s an amazing time and money saver. I’ll be sure to update this review, if I ever start to have problems with it.

You can trust that this review is simply my honest opinion that is attempting to provide you with helpful insight that I wish I had before I picked this product. Hopefully it was helpful in your decision.