Buying star diagnostics

Topple

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Hi,

I'm thinking of buying star, after reading various discussions it seems to be a bit hit an miss where to purchase from. Would like to hear recommendations on good sellers, reliable kit etc to narrow down my choices.

Thanks.
 

Miffy

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Only reliable source is from Mercedes, anything else is hit and miss
 

SteveX

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Miffy is spot on.

There is a chap called 'Norbert' doing the rounds on ebay, gumtree and the like. His units are Chinese clowns, (great typo I think I will leave it).

He does all sorts of packages including laptops, extra cables etc for anything up to 1k. From what I found out, they are no better and come with no more guarantee than the cheap ones you can import from any other Chinese diagnostic company (IE nothing).

I've been keeping my eye on ebay for a while, and all the ones I have seen have been varying copies from the far east. I've also contacted several of the companies I found outside of ebay regarding their units and functionality, some never replied, and the ones that did wouldn't give any guarantee it would do what I wanted it to.

It was a bit of a mine field, and so I wasn't prepared to potentially waste £400-500, so in the end I went with some Autel kit that came with a guarantee from a place in the UK I know fairly well.

I've gambled before with chinese clones, and in some cases have had superb results, such as the PIWIS kit I got for the Porsche, saved me 1000's, in others I have had poor results. I'd be willing to gamble a couple of hundred and I'm not a gambling man, but when we are talking 4-500, well, I'm just not sure.

I haven't seen anyone come forward on this forum that has bought a 'cheapy' version of Star.
 

mersum1es

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Usually these fart east product are basically ok, they only need some fine tuning to get them working. This can be done if you know someone who has wrestled with these before, and who is familiar overall laptop/windows geeking. I wonder there is a forum somewhere which is dedicated to these problems :)

Of course the quality of the multiplexer is a big issue, there has been reported been very poor units, full of soldering debris, loosen nuts etc. but some are very good ACTIA clones. Just there is no way of knowing.

I have bought one (these is a thread somewhere in the forum where i 'reviewed' it), it cost 300$ + laptop. I know couple of Finnish forum members which are selling full pakages with guarantee they work, but price is around 1k€.
 

Steve@Avantgarde

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I have one of Norberts Laptop based star machines and I have to say its excellent. Has never let me down and for a copy does everything a main dealer STAR will do apart from SCN coding. I think he charges about £700 for a laptop, plexer and all the leads.

JJ diagnostics also provide very good copy machines, they do a STAR with SD connect which works as well as a compact 4 STAR touch screen, the SD connect is about £1500 with a laptop.

I have just invested in a MB STAR and at £7K+VAT its an expensive upgrade but well needed these days.
 
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Comand

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Hi,

I'm thinking of buying star, after reading various discussions it seems to be a bit hit an miss where to purchase from. Would like to hear recommendations on good sellers, reliable kit etc to narrow down my choices.

Thanks.

We have bought two STAR systems and yes they are expensive but they are reliable and of course you can work just about any car however new.

I have seen (and used) clones in the past. There are some very very good looking ones which seem to work okay. But if you want to work on anything newer these days you are best of with a genuine machine.

There is in fact a genuine 'Pay as you go' Xentry system available for around 700 euros. Mercedes dont advertise this though.
 

NW_Merc

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One of my cars is a 1994 w202 the other a 1999, so these 'copy' machines would be ok for them?
 
OP
T

Topple

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Thanks for the replays, the consensus is that it's a bit of a minefield as I thought. I don't mind gambling a couple of hundred, but when it gets to the 700 mark its a different story, and a certainly couldn't justify the cost of a genuine version.

I was also looking at the autoenginuity full mercedes diagnostic package for around 400, which although not star appears to give good functionality, coupled with access to epc and wis through mb club, it could provide a viable guaranteed alternative.
 

Pathfinder

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I bought an Autel code reader (middle range, £70) and it is spot on for engine code faults. It does not do gearbox codes.
 

SteveX

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I bought an Autel code reader (middle range, £70) and it is spot on for engine code faults. It does not do gearbox codes.

Yup I got an Autel EU702 I think it is.

Does quite a bit for the money including SRS and ESP, as well as monitoring real time data, really pleased with it for the money.
 

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