I have been looking at improving my scanning/diagnostic capability on my trucks and have narrowed my shopping list down to Autoenginuity and Auterra.

I know many of you are running the AE product and I was wondering if you had any feedback, good or bad on it. The only negative thing I've really heard so far is that if your FICM voltage is below 40V it won't read it properly.

Thanks in advance.

 

Ive just started looking into these also! good thing the FICM is east to check voltage on manually I guess

 

wow ! I like this ..Auterra...and I have a palm pilot that needed something to do lol ,, does this one do the buzz test?

thanks for the tip on that scan tool

 

can we include prices also.

 

well one is just pc based but it can also include functionality upgrades the other is available as pc or handheld I think the PC based needs a palm pilot also ,, the prices vary drastically depending on what u want and how may cars u want it to read ,, I think starters for both is around 300$

 

I believe the both AE and Auterra offer a Palm platform, AE also offers a pocket PC platform as well.

Costing is as Zmann said, quite variable and dependent on how many vehicles you need to diagnose. I am looking at the domestic manufacturers as no one I know has an import for me to work on. I wish I could get away with just the Ford enhanced package but that's just not an option.

The people I know who have the Auterra really like it, however I do not believe it has all the bidirectional testing capabilities that AE offers. In fact from what I have read AE's 8.1 which is due for release in Jan. will offer substantially more bidirectional testing for the 6.0 (cylinder contribution testing etc).

Also Auterra does not seem to offer anything enhanced for the Dodge products, if you anticipate needing to work on them this may affect your purchasing decision.

 

That they do, but it is only generic support only. They pulled the enhanced support from those when it got to big for the platforms. In the case of the 6.0s, that would mean that all you get is 7 sensors, damn near all of them are related to the EGR.

AE does have a single domestic package if I do recall correctly. I needed 4 and they are all over the place. With only 1 domestic(can you guess which one?).

Version 8.0 is already pretty damn good.

 

Tex,

What is your overall opinion of the unit, is there anything you think it should do that it doesn't? Opinion of the interface, easy to use, gives you all the data you need etc?

Any reasons you can think of why one wouldn't want to own one?

For the 6.0 specifically are there any issues you've run into with it where it didn't do what you needed?

Thanks

 

There are some sensors that I wish it could do, but those are more due to the lack of support within the modules themselves, not a failing of the software. I do wish it could do more programs and testing, not in the way of perfomance programming, but in individual component programming and testing, I explain one example at the end.

It gives you a lot of data, it can be a little overwhelming depending on what you are trying to do. As to the phsyical interfacing, that's easy enough to do and straightforward. Now some of the programming, testing and switching between modules are a little strange at first(atleast for me), but a few times running it and it's easy enough. I run this gem on 7 vehicles(4 licenses) and after all that use it gets to be fairly easy.

Only if you budget doesn't allow for it. If you are a person that likes to do your own stuff, get it, even if all you ever do is code reading that'll pay for it in no time. Even if you just want to be in the "know" in case you are worried about your dealership hoodwinking you, in my opinion it's worth it.

At this point(now I haven't tried it yet with the 8.0 software yet, I need to pull codes tomorrow morning anyway, I need to see if I have any other codes other then the P0611 showing up(I think I'm going to be another poor soul of the dreaded FICM dying, although mine did last 4.5 yrs)) I have been unable to just turn on one injector at a time to test the injectors, instead I still have to do it physically one at a time. Other then that, that's about it.

It really is a good piece of software to have in your "toolbox".

 

Tex,

Thank you very much sir, this is exactly the kind of feedback I've been wanting to hear.

From what I understand I think you'll be very happy with upgrades coming in the 8.1 software in Jan. I believe they will allow you to do what you need.

Sorry to hear about the 611 code, I'm suffering the same issue right now, along with all eight cylinders showing low circuits. I suspect I'm in the same boat as you.

Hopefully others will chime in with their opinions of the unit as well.

 

I don't have the low circuit codes yet, but who knows, might show up this morning.

 

Are you guys going to try the FICM repair ? first two items in the tech folder ,, for those who haven't seen it
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/3...ch-folder.html

ps how do you do the manual buzz test? unplug all but 1 at a time and cycle the key??