Engine Diagnostics in Hackbridge | KITH Cars Garage, South London

A warning light means something in the engine management system has logged a fault. The light itself tells you nothing about the cause. It could be a loose fuel cap. It could be a failing catalytic converter. It could be an ABS sensor on its way out. You need the fault codes read by equipment that understands your specific vehicle. At KITH Cars Garage, that is what we use.

The plug-in report at £30+VAT connects to the OBD port under the dashboard and pulls every stored code, every pending code and the freeze-frame data captured when the fault was first triggered. We write it up in plain English and give it to you. That is the starting point for any warning light.

The mechanical diagnostic at £60+VAT covers situations where there is no light but something is clearly wrong. A knock from the engine. A vibration at certain speeds. Blue smoke that only appears on cold start. White smoke under load. These need physical investigation, a road test to replicate the symptom, and a scan to check for any unlighted codes. The picture that comes together from those three sources is usually enough to pinpoint the fault.

The complex diagnostic at £122+VAT is for the difficult stuff. Limp mode with no obvious cause. Intermittent misfires that have foxed other garages. Crank-no-start conditions. CAN bus communication faults where multiple warning lights appear together. Gearbox faults. These require live data streaming while the engine runs under load, component testing with a multimeter and oscilloscope where needed, and time. A full written report goes with the result.

The fee comes off the repair bill in full if you proceed with us. That is not a gimmick. Rushing into a repair without a proper diagnosis wastes money. A correct diagnosis means a correct repair estimate. The diagnostic cost pays for itself in avoiding unnecessary parts.

We read manufacturer-specific fault codes for BMW, Mercedes, Audi, VW, Ford, Vauxhall, Toyota, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Nissan and all other common makes. Generic OBD readers miss codes that are stored in manufacturer-specific modules. Our equipment does not.