Your Own Personal Mechanic

If you own a car, you've seen your Check Engine Light come on. This is always very unsettling because you need to take the car to the shop just to figure out what is wrong. Even if you get the relieved feeling when you find out that the Check Engine Light came on for no apparent reason, you've still wasted your time and money.

Because cars have on board computers that diagnose every little thing with engine performance, it is much more difficult for the average "tinkerer" to figure out what the heck is wrong. Now there's a tool you can use called the Personal Mechanic that can help you with your car's on board computer. You simply plug the USB device into your car's OBDII port (usually right under the steering wheel) and it will read the engine error codes and store them. Take it out and plug it into your PC and you can decypher the codes by going to the Personal Mechanic website.

What a neat idea! Car repair for computer geeks! I simply have to get one of these. Now I can go to the mechanic and tell them what's wrong with my car. I can also avoid the mechanic altogether if my Check Engine Light went on for a silly reason (like the gas cap being loose).