I'll admit: I have a history of owning cars with problems, many of which required expensive trips to the mechanic to fix. There's a piece of auto repair wisdom out there about how you should go in to have your car repaired when you have a group of small problems (or one major problem) instead of going in for every little thing, because mechanics charge for work by the hour, no matter how small the problem. The thing is, how do you know when those smaller problems are threatning to boil over into something larger? The CarMD, the only product from the CarMd.com Corporation, purports to tell you just that, along with information about whether or not you'll pass an emissions test, get screwed by your mechanic or buy a lemon from a used car dealer. How so? The CarMD is a palm-sized gadget that hooks into the computer of any car made in the past ten years. Plug it in and a green, yellow or red light will light up, telling you immediately if there's a problem and giving you a code to enter into CarMD.com's database, where you can learn more about the specific problems your car reported.

For $90, the CarMD isn't cheap, but if you view it as a tool for prevention and practical decision making, it might be worth the investment, especially if you find that fuel line leak before it becomes a major hazard and a major headache.

Via FortWayne.com