OpenAuto is built for the eighty-percent case first: VIN decoding, trouble-code explanations, factory maintenance timing, recall lookup, repair cost framing and AI symptom diagnosis — all in the browser, with no hardware required.
Browsers
Chrome · Edge · Safari
Latency
‹ 90 ms
Login
Optional
Hardware
Not required
Every tool in the book works before you touch hardware. The scanner route is an upgrade, not a gate.
Year, make, model, engine and trim from any valid VIN.
Plain-language cause, fix and severity for every trouble code.
Factory schedules indexed by year, make and model.
Live NHTSA recall lookup with remedy and campaign detail.
Part-and-labour framing to sanity-check a shop quote.
Conversational triage from "what's that noise" to a plan.
Multi-vehicle profiles with notes, photographs and history.
Every scan, every service, every mile — on a single page.
Each tier has standalone value. You can stop at any level and still carry away something genuinely useful.
Run it in any browser. No account, no cable, no card on file.
Save vehicles. Carry the context across every tool in the book.
Live OBD-II telemetry when you bring your own adapter.
"The scanner is optional. The insight isn't."
Most diagnostic tools assume you own hardware before you extract any value. OpenAuto inverts that assumption: the browser-only tier is genuinely useful on its own. Garage context layers on top. Scanner hardware layers on top of that. Each layer compounds the one below it, but none are required to reach the door.
No login. No hardware. No friction. Try the public workshop first — the scanner bench is always there when you want deeper context.