Does anyone having experience using the cheap vag-coms that you find on eBay?? For example if u go on eBay and look up item number 260803158822 there is a vag com for under $30!!! It seems legit any advice? I wanted one to test my instrument cluster and pull basic codes. I have a universal obd2 scan tool but wanted to buy this. I own a 96 a4. It has the normal 16 pin obd2 connector right??

 

bump for this. I was wondering the same myself.

 

I purchased this cable for less than $10.

After some initial struggles getting everything working correctly with my laptop, VCDS Lite has been great for checking/clearing codes.

 

I have a $25 cable and it has worked great with both the shareware and full versions of vagcom.

 

most auto parts stores will scan your car for free. I'm not sure how helpful that is or what else they can do? I don't know if they can clear codes or not?

 

Even the shareware vagcom is great to have - you can clear codes, reset fault lights (airbag, abs, etc), change some functional features of the car (recoding for auto lock/unlock, etc) and you'll have it on hand instead of having to go to a parts store every time. And at least in NY, it's a $10,000 fine for a store to clear codes, so they'll read them but won't clear them. Get vagcom.

 

If you plan on keeping the car for a while its just best to buy the real thing from Ross-tech.

 

I'm not sure how long I will keep the car since I have already dropped boat loads of money in it and it still has problems. So I purchased a stand alone vag-com scanner from flea-bay for $33.

 

I stand by my ebay cable i purchases from a china seller for 10.00 it does everything i need it to do for a fraction of the price.