Monday, December 22, 2008

A $93 Computer Reboot

Recently I had a problem with the automatic locks on my car, they just wouldn't work. So I checked all the fuses and everything I could think of, but to no avail. Because I was going into the local Honda dealer anyway to get a new key made I figured I would have them look at it. So I took it in and they hooked it up to their computer and the car's computer was not responding properly. So they reset the on board computer and that fixed the problem. In other words they just hit the reset button on the computer, and then they charged me $93 for it.

So I wondering how they did that and if there is anyway for me to reboot my car's computer without having to take it into the Honda dealer to have them hit the reset button and then charge me $93. It seems like a fairly simple process and I am only impeded in carrying out my own trouble-shooting due to my lack of computer interface and know how. If a high school drop out, grease monkey can figure it out I think I could figure it out.

8 comments:

Euripides said...

Your Invoice:

Pushing the button to reboot the car's computer $1.00

Knowing where to reboot $92.00

Kristi said...

You can buy the computer assessment tool for around $200, which should give you diagnostic error codes. You should also be able to reboot the computer and do anything else you need to (except fix the car if there is a real problem).

James Tanner said...

I found the reader at j. c. whitney

jcwhitney.com

for 89.95. You might check around for a used one that works.

Euripides said...

Autozone lets you use their code reader for free.

Quantumleap42 said...

But can they hit the reset button as well, for free?

If this is the case then I will try that in the future first. I had no idea what was wrong with my car.

Jared said...

"But can they hit the reset button as well, for free?"

That'd certainly be a question to ask. They might do it if it really is just a computer reset or if you just need to clear the code.

Also, I'm not certain if all readers can reboot the computer or not. I'm not very familiar with them.

Jared said...

Update: Check this thread. It's pretty informative.

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=714190

Apparently you can get a nice scanner for around $70 (or cheap ones for less than $40, but they probably aren't worth it). Or, you can just use one at AutoZone like Euripides stated.

Andre Brennan said...

Well, it’s really not that simple at all. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you might end up messing up the computer even more. It would be better to just spend $93 to service your car rather than spending much more because you tried fixing it yourself and failed. Maybe you can ask the dealership how to avoid that kind of problem.