Diagnostic tools which one and why personal experience required ?

[8YA335TDI1STED]

hi all been here a cpl of months and thanks to all for the much appreciated help ive recieved so far. So now only half way through giving the s3 a full service I now realise it is futile to not have some form of diagnostic kit , no way im buying a vag 5051 or whatever number it is so the options as i see it are

1) Ross tech vagcom
2) liquid
3) ebay gamble

now i appreciate everyone has their own opinion and what u get is what you pays yer moneys for so would love to hear what all you guys with personal experience of using these items has to say about them before i take the plunge ie what are the differences between them pros and cons kinda thing

also please dont post any links on here for such software for sale as per forum rules , im running windows 7 home premium 64 bit but also have a vista home premium 32 bit with limited memory as the memory port is defective and can only use one memory stick currently loaded with a defective copy of elsawin which has no current flow help available

oh the joys

 

[<tuffty/>]

VAGCOM all day long....

<tuffty/>

 

[alijames]

I've got a serial eBay cable which works fine with the old vagcom 409.1, and it seems to do everything I need at the moment. I had a couple of the USB jobbies, but none worked for me. Got the serial one (my laptop has a serial port!!) and worked out of the box.

If/When i come up against something that needs features I can't get with the free version, I'll fork out the £250 for the pukka kit.

Cheers,

 

[Imteyaz]

Another vote for VAGCOM (VCDS).

 

[jojo]

VAGCOM(VCDS) for me, only because I own more than one VAG vehicle I can use it on, and I can see myself owning future VAG models too, and I presume VCDS is future proof with the constant updates you get off Ross-tech.

 

[Westy]

VCDS vote from me too. It has saved me more than the £300ish I paid for it 2 years agon.

 

[Welly]

VCDS every day of the week, and twice on sunday.

Liquid isn't a diagnostics tool as such, not in the sense that VCDS is.

 

[leshkin]

Definitely VCDS

ebay stuff is a bit of a gamble as you say and liquid is more of a toy and a gauge, so if you are serious about diagnostics and logging then VCDS is the way to go.