Diagnosic tool
Safety Car
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 4,549
Likes: 343
From: Glastonbury CT
Owning a 93 i have owned the nova etc. I have found nothing really tells you much. Buy the service manual and that will be a plus. Other wise under your left knee there is an area were you can read codes for free but you will need the two book service manual to troubleshoot and a paper clip . Good Luck!
Le Mans Master
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 5,621
Likes: 206
From: Orlando FL
Owning a 93 i have owned the nova etc. I have found nothing really tells you much. Buy the service manual and that will be a plus. Other wise under your left knee there is an area were you can read codes for free but you will need the two book service manual to troubleshoot and a paper clip . Good Luck!
By using the on board diagnostics it will read the CCM, ECM and EBTCM and some others too. It's free and it works great.
To buy a Tech 1 today will be hard to find and not cheap. And a Tech 2 is thousands a lot for a consumer.
I have a Tech 1 (for 12 years) and you can do more with them than just scan. They are a great tool if you can find one with the proper software.
There are some scanners that will read OBD1 and you will get some of those answers on the Forum. But they will only read the ECM and not all the other modules the built in diagnostics will do.
Team Owner
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 28,475
Likes: 3,291
From: Hartford WI
I'm using an Auto Xray and it does give some data from the ECM. So does ALDL Scan with a 3120 Electronics bluetooth unit. Paperclip gives me about what I paid for, information wise. The ECM is crude, relatively speaking and it takes quite a bit to get outside of the plausible values where a code is thrown.
Le Mans Master
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,706
Likes: 485
From: Everett WA
C4 of Year Finalist (appearance mods) 2019
You can recover the codes by following the steps here:
http://www.neilkline.com/Tech%20Tips/obdcodes.htm
then you can use the search function to find a list of the code translations for your year.
http://www.neilkline.com/Tech%20Tips/obdcodes.htm
then you can use the search function to find a list of the code translations for your year.
