Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

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geordiepaul2001
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Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by geordiepaul2001 »

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Re: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by oneday »

we all start as a novice with cars you cant realy do any harm with a as long as you are sensible. it will also help on here with getting the correct diagnosis. if you get one make sure its a good one there are loads of cheap ones that dont seem to last long.
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Re: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

I have one, and I am (where it is concerned) definitely a novice. It has already helped me out, and I (currently) am only going into the diagnostics menus. I know that there is the possibility of updating the software on the car, and that this is the sort of place that, on old maps, "Here be Dragons" would be printed; in other words, take care 'cos this is where things can kill you (well, your car) if you are unprepared.

Make sure to get a good one. I have a Lexia from Easy Diagnostics, there is another provider who is supposed to be good, but some of the Chinese clones ain't so good.
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Re: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by miked »

geordiepaul2001 wrote:Opinions please....
Yes, get one.
geordiepaul2001 wrote:I am a complete novice at car maintenance
But if you can work a computer, a lexia will tell you why your car is beeping and throwing up cryptic messages.

I bought mine when my Xsara lost the ability to be locked with the key-fob's. £100 or so I could have spent at a garage fixing it but I still had the lexia.
Then our other car (Pug 807) threw up a DPF fault which, using the lexia I worked out it needed a new £30 differential pressure sensor.

However, I'm rambling again :) What makes you believe that 'Antipollution fault' indicates a fault with the DPF?
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Re: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by Mandrake »

"Anti-pollution fault" is a rather generic fault that can be caused by many different things, until the car is put on a Lexia there is no way to know for sure what type of fault it has.
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Re: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by john »

thats assuming he can get his lexia to work, i cant and im no noob on a 'puter.
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Re: Sv: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by Ford Prefect »

Remember - you need a computer with XP for Lexia to work...


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Re: Sv: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by john »

Ford Prefect wrote:Remember - you need a computer with XP for Lexia to work...


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Re: Sv: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by captaintau »

Ford Prefect wrote:Remember - you need a computer with XP for Lexia to work...
Doesn't work with Windows 7?
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Re: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by Mandrake »

It works with Windows Vista and Windows 7, but only the 32 bit editions.
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Re: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by captaintau »

Thanks
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Re: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by Chlorate »

Think about it this way, if you already have a laptop capable of running Diagbox/Lexia (and if you don't, old laptops often turn up for very little money) the additional hardware costs about as much as 2 hours' labour for a diagnostic session at a reasonably cheap garage.

If you're determined to mend your own car it's well worth getting one since it means the only time you need to take it somewhere else is when you need special tools you don't have (e.g. welding kit etc.), and the second time you use it, it has essentially paid for itself.
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Re: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by RustyUK »

Absolutely, I wouldn't own any PSA car now without one!

I am a bit disappointed though it doesn't give particularly real time running data, or graphs or anything useful like that. There's various live data readouts, but they update rather slowly. Unless I've been missing something profound.

There's a lot more meaningful close-to-real-time data to be seen on an OBD-II compliant car with a cheap OBD-II bluetooth interface (which are mostly all ELM327 clones) and a smartphone app like Torque! However only a Lexia will give you access to the all the other ECUs (BSI, suspension, alarm etc).
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Re: Sv: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by Old-Guy »

Ford Prefect wrote:Remember - you need a computer with XP for Lexia to work...
I've a couple of nice but old Toshiba Satellites (battery shot in both which is a pity) both with XP - one has 1G RAM and SP3, the other only has 512Mb and SP1. In my experience 512Mb isn't really enough for SP3 - will work OK, but there will be extensive swapping to the Page File making it painfully slow - I've got a collection of spare RAM modules, but of course not a pair of 512Mb of the right spec. - Sodde's Law!

Vista? I loath it with a passion for being slow and unreliable (even after complete Product Restores) :evil:
W7 (aka Vista SP3)? What Vista promised but didn't deliver.

Can anyone be a bit more specific on minimum (sensible) requirements for Lexia please?
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Re: Is it worth a novice buying a lexia?

Post by RustyUK »

Not sure of the actual minimum specs but I run it on an old neglected Pentium M 1.7 with 1GB RAM, under XP SP3. It works. It isn't really resource intensive. I'll probably create a VM for it on my Windows 7 laptop at some point (using virtualbox). I expect that to work just fine too. You shouldn't have to buy something old and clunky if there's a higher spec laptop available.
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