New For Car Geeks

Yesterday I was at the grocery store with both girls. I got out of the truck, loaded the girls into a “truck” cart they could “drive” and locked the truck. And remembered something I wanted to grab. But the doors wouldn’t unlock with the fob. So I tried the key- and it wouldn’t turn. It worked fine after I finished shopping. I could only figure the computer had gotten hung up for a few minutes.

With computers at the base of our cars it’s difficult to tell what is really going on with them unless you take it in to a mechanic. Take the Check Engine Light, for example. It can be something minor like not getting the gas cap on tightly enough or it can be something serious like a head gasket. And you just never know because you can’t access the car’s computer.

Well, you couldn’t… Now there is a great little gadget called CarCheckup. It plugs into your car’s computer system and gets info. Then you plug it into your computer, log onto the CarCheckup website, download the data and vóila! All the info you would pay a mechanic to find out.

This is pretty cool. And great for any “backyard mechanics” who can do anything- except access the car’s computer.