I just got my first computer controlled vehicle, a 2007 Volvo XC70. It’s fucking insane. The same code scanner equipment and software that the dealership has access to needs to be included with the car at purchase, and that equipment needs to be universal to all vehicles of that model, so it’s readily available on Ebay as cars go out of service. It’s the only solution I can think of to keep auto manufacturers from charging way to much for it like they do all of their parts/tools. You also should get all of the files that are relevant to the car with the car, in case you need to reprogram a module from another car. This stuff should also be available in some sort of database or something, maybe even government hosted, in case the files that came with the car get lost.
Instead, community members are left to reverse engineer and scrounge around to get tools working on their own. It’s genuinely insane how impossible it is to diagnose issues with modern vehicles as a home mechanic.
Sometimes you can’t fix something simply because you can’t replace a part with one from another car because it needs to be reprogrammed, but the dealership won’t reprogram it, and they also won’t give you the files so you can reprogram it yourself.
This is the comment that’s going to make me try it. I love my spreadsheet, so I’ll have to see if this does everything that my spreadsheet does.