The really cheap ones will still communicate, but the format of the responses aren’t as predictable.
Sounds like some of my projects when I2C or SPI decides to not work as expected. “Sent $0D, expected a four-byte response, got back twelve random bytes the first time, two the second, nine the third, and so on.”
For Bluetooth dongles, the cheapest that’s actually worth buying is the Bafx Products dongle for about $23 on Spamazon. Downsides are that it’s Android only and it’s fairly slow on big scanning tasks like live data streaming, but the upside is that it uses a real ELM327 OBD converter in it where the cheaper ones use a clone of an outdated version.
Avoid the really cheap (read: sub-$20) dongles, as they’re likely running a bootleg ELM327. Why this matters: the legit ELM327-based dongles just plain work for basic OBD-II on most vehicles, but the clones may or may not because they’re using a dumped copy of an old version of the chip’s firmware that hasn’t been maintained/updated and thus is buggy as all hell. The bootleg clones are notorious for misreporting, incomplete reporting, or just plain not working properly.
If you want to spend more in exchange for better, the OBDLink MX and BlueDriver are much faster, but cost much more ($70-100).
In all cases, these dongles require an app on the other end of the Bluetooth connection. If you want something oriented more toward making graphical gauges on a tablet than diagnosing your check-engine light, Torque is your best option. However, Torque isn’t well-suited to diagnostic use as it’s kludgy to use for that - if you want something for code reading and monitoring livestream data that isn’t trying to be a fancy customizable GUI, Scanmaster Pro is a better option.
(Source: I fix cars for a living and use the cheapie dongles for quick scans, and I have a few different ones so I know from actual real-world experience which ones are worth the money and which ones to avoid. I also have far more expensive scanners for when I need to get into more than just basic OBD-II, such as ABS. airbag/SRS, resetting EPB, programming TMPS, etc. etc. etc.)
My question is if a transmission flush is necessary for longevity, and what is a reasonable cost for that service?
Flush? No - either a drain and fill or a pan drop and new filter if it’s replaceable. Flushing has fallen out of favor for being overly expensive for the amount of benefits, and on some transmissions flushing is actually discouraged or even warned against.
Ford transmissions are notorious for having short lives if they’re not well cared for, which means staying on top of fluid replacement intervals.
My question is if a transmission flush is necessary for longevity, and what is a reasonable cost for that service?
Flush? No - either a drain and fill or a pan drop and new filter if it’s replaceable. Flushing has fallen out of favor for being overly expensive for the amount of benefits, and on some transmissions flushing is actually discouraged or even warned against.
Ford transmissions are notorious for having short lives if they’re not well cared for, which means staying on top of fluid replacement intervals.
As a general rule, no. Alternators aren’t really built for that degree of interchangeability. You might be able to play swap-the-insides on a a similarly-sized alternator for another Ford, but odds are not good that the Accord alt will have anything close to the same dimensions for its internals.
Test the radiator cap. A defective cap can actually pump coolant out of the system, and it’s a very easy item to overlook when chasing a coolant leak.
Short answer: desktop versions are tuned for application performance, especially foreground vs. background, while server versions are tuned for, well, being used as a server, multitasking being less performance-penalizing for background applications (like server daemons/servelets) and of course greater uptime.
There’s also much more bloat on the desktop side, as it’s targeting consumers and not IT.
“Domestic” doesn’t really have any meaning any more. Toyota and Hyundai make their North American market products in Alabama, and GM’s NA factories are in Canada and Mexico.
Nowadays it’s not about where it was built, it’s about where it was designed. The Asian automakers still design more reliable vehicles than either American or European automakers, although some Asian automakers have begun to “Americanize” their products for a greater emphasis on expedient manufacture versus reliability and ease of maintenance. (Toyota’s recent HVAC changes is an example here, as they’ve started to move away from easily accessible and replaceable evaporator cores in some of their cars in favor of a self-contained airbox that’s easier/faster to install during assembly. Instead of popping out the glovebox and blower assembly and accessing the evap core without having to remove the whole airbox assembly, they’re starting to require dash pulls.)