Launch Tech USA 301050037 Crecorder Scan Tool

For the price, this is the only device I saw that logs all the available sensors at 2 minute intervals. You don't have to chose what sensors you want to record -- it picks them all up. Useful for taking a baseline when everything is normal, to compare against when you start to have drivability issues. I have used this on 5 different cars and it captured data on all of them.It would be nice to be able to export the raw data to excel for additional process. You currently have to use the software package, which is a bit quirky but manegable.

I liked the idea of putting plugging it in and driving around for until an intermittent fault recurred. In theory this seemed to be right on the money for an medium level of DIYer like myself.A few examples that make it less useful are:-Sample rate is too "long" to catch an intermittent spike something like a Throttle Position Sensor-The software is a major shortcoming as I can't change the scales on the plots to zero in on a particular portion of the data reported-Support is poor; my emails to LAUNCH have so far gone unanswered on basic questions such as help on how to update the firmware...The only thing I have really found it useful for is to check on my newly licensed teenager's driving habits in terms of speed....That is great because I had the device in her car for a week. And noted that she never exceeded 30 mph which makes sense since she never went on the highway that week....So it is useful for that....I am afraid I can only rate it a 2 star for the somewhat serious DIYer....for others it will provide some interesting plots but unless the problem is "gross" i.e. occurs across multiple sample cycles you are not going to be able to get to the bottom of what ails your vehicle....This would be a 5 star deal for under $20 but not for what I paid for it around $60-70

bought it to plug into customer cars for drivability issues - those that need to "catch it happening"waiting for return visits now

I purchased the Crecorder in order to keep tabs on our 3 vehicles. After receiving the Crecorder I followed instructions on loading software. After that you are required to load a copy of Chinese firmwear. This is where things go south quickly. The firmware plays hell with many other applications. For me the big problem was that I could not send attachments on my e-mails. Nobody can open them when first processed by the Chinese firmware. Tried contacting the US offices to ge some help. The reply was "We are not aware of any problems" So, the Crecorder is a total bust. What initially looked like a great piece of equipment is a great big ZERO Bad, evil, ugly software and firmware. I wish I had never heard of these people.

the reason I gave it four stars is you can buy this thing online for less than $70. it is not perfect but for the price it is a great deal. This is coming from someone that spends thousands on scan-tools. It takes data snapshots every two seconds not every two minutes like another reviewer said. The number of different sensors values/PID's can very greatly from car to car, they all display the general few that any crappy generic scan tool will(rpm, coolant temp, calculated load, tps,ect). Some cars display much more. My Jetta diesel displayed only the basic few, but for some reason would pull codes from the TCM which normally takes a high-end scan tool to read transmission codes from a European vehicle. Now on a friends mazda 3 I used it on I got egt temp, canister purge duty cycle, egr duty cylce and even fuel level(on the graph you could see the tank all over the place going to near zero when I was digging in the turns hard). yes like another reviewer say it would be nice if snap-on gave it full PID viewing abiltity and a better interface, but if they did It would probably cost about $2000(somehow). Now onto the software, yeah its cheasy, cartoonish chinese trash, but hey, it works for the most part. I downloaded the software and installed it(win7) and plugged it in. open the program and use the format device option. It says done, and now its ready to go, plug it into a car. Drive it, bring it back and plug it in and hit upload. It does log/graph speed, distance traveled, start and end time of trips, ect so if you're trying to be sneaky and spy on someone you may want to wrap this thing in black tape or something because it has a bright blue LED that blinks like crazy all the time when you're driving, I find it very annoying at night. I bought this mainly for those pesky neighbors/family/customer people that have cars that only mess-up when I'm not around, plug it in and tell them to write down the time/dates when the problem occurs and you can go back and see generally what is going on. I find it also very usefull for graphing coolant temp for those pesky "coolant temp too low" codes that are usually bad thermostats, that way I can drive the car instead of almost wrecking it balancing a laptop with one hand and constantly looking at it instead of the road. Buy it, try it, play with it, if you dont like it, send it back.