Complaints & Reviews- Snap-On VERUS

[scbird94]

Part of my job is to upgrade/replace/repair shop equipment and tools in our small dealership's shop.

We have had the Modis for quite some time, always found it quite useful. 6 months ago, being we were looking into j2534 reprogramming capabilitys, and we were about to uprgrade our modis to 10.4(?) i let the snap-on man talk me into upgrading to the VERUS

Very handy idea- tablet pc, repair info right at your lap, touch screen, onboard scope capabilitys, the list goes on.

What a bargain (LOL!) we were able to trade in our 5 year old modis, to purchase this... thing. For like 5 grand. Ouch. But gotta pay to play, right?

Unfortunatley, in our experience, this god-forsaken thing has been more of a headache than its worth.

1) Have sent it in twice since we have owned it, each time were givin a modis as loaner (guys LOVED having it back)

2) Three times in the last two weeks, it WILL NOT power on. Called regional tech support, they told me to send it in. Couldnt help. Local diagnostic tech support? 4 days away (maybe).
All of a sudden it turns on, and is fine. SO man shrugs and laughs, then trys to sell me a toolbox. We have had to tell 3 customers today that we cannot scan their car at this moment, our scanner is down.

3) SLOOOOWWW. Windows based. powering up takes a damn hour. Ethos, modis, and solus fire up like BAM. Reading live PIDs seems slower than they should be.

4) Freezes. You know how your HP laptop running windows freezes up and crashes? All of a sudden you cant do anything? ***** dont it. Imagine having a busy shop and waiting customers and your $10,000 6month old scanner locks up. And you need to restart it- twice. The other day it took me 15 mins to be able to get it fired up, restarted, fired up, then finally communicating with an impala to diagnose amisfire. 15 mins to get a p0301 out of a car. "the program is not responding" is not something i like to read while trying to make money.

5) Charging cord weak point. Our scanner lives down in a cabinet, and for some reason if you dont plug in the AC adaptor JUST RIGHT it will be completely dead when you need it next. Seriously. I dont know if its just ours, but it takes finesse to charge this thing. This problem leads to a dead scanner 1 our of every 5 times you reach for it.

Sorry for the rant. What have you guys experienced? I feel this technology is over-hyped and was maybe released to soon. Combine that with a HEFTY price tag, and i have some pretty mixed feelings.

Our snap-on man and his diagnostic guy SWEAR we are the only people having problems. I find that hard to beleive. He still has no solution as to why it refuses to power up for us, even with a full battery. Has yet to send it in for the 3rd time in 6 months. He comes by, after we somehow get it started, then shrugs and leaves.

His reasoning for the crappy charger connection is that we need to buy some $300 charging station. Great. We need to spend more money on this god-forsaken pile. Coulda maybe thrown that in with the deal?

My suggestions of filing a "unsatisfied customer" complaint and demanding our modis back, plus a refund on our supposed "upgrade" fall upon deaf ears. That apparently is NOT an option. Once they get your money, its THEIRS. Who cares if you are happy.

 

[wafrederick]

Never leave the battery in it when not in use,take it out and shut it off right.

 

[mkdive]

That's a lot of money to be that unhappy!

 

[scbird94]

Take the battery out every time we are not using it? what about charging it? I guess if this is what we need to do, then so be it. I feel, however for the price of this thing, that should not be necessary.

As far as shutting it down, we go through the start menu, just like any other computer. Only time it gets shut down improperly is when it locks up and we have no option.

 

[billymade]

Sounds like you need to get the district manager involved! I wonder if customer service can help; maybe the Snap-On guys here can give you some suggestions; it seems it has hardware problems or just a poor product! @ 10K they need to make it right or give you your money back! I also have a sneaking suspicion, that since this is a new product; they may have to work out some bugs in the hardware/software... getting stuck with the 1st gen. of computer tech can be a gamble!

 

[econoaddict]

Our Verus works great, fast and no charging issues.

You should ask about trading it out for a replacement, we had to do this with our genisis.

 

[scbird94]

Our Verus works great, fast and no charging issues.

You should ask about trading it out for a replacement, we had to do this with our genisis.

Do you have the docking station? I was kinda under the impression that it was a gimmick. For me, i feel a cord plugged into the back of it is perfectly adaquite. I guess its like anything else, some accessories are basically manditory.

 

[jay50]

SO sales tried to get me to upgrade to that pile called Virus; no thanks.
Shop in town has one and it stays in for repairs most of the time.

I'm gradually switching over to OEM scanners. Love the AE Pro laptop scanner software.

 

[scbird94]

OE scanners are the way to go. We have a tech 2, and a drb 3. Nothing compares to the tech 2. Unfortunately, need to keep a accross the board scanner on hand for everything else

 

[mrholeshot]

I make it a habit never to buy anything electronic from Snap-On bigger that a test light. The horror stories are many the service is sorry. I kept my OTC Genisys updated and kept a lab scope on the side. Tough and dependable

 

[beelsr]

I wonder if your state has a lemon law for this...

 

[otis66]

Part of my job is to upgrade/replace/repair shop equipment and tools in our small dealership's shop.

We have had the Modis for quite some time, always found it quite useful. 6 months ago, being we were looking into j2534 reprogramming capabilitys, and we were about to uprgrade our modis to 10.4(?) i let the snap-on man talk me into upgrading to the VERUS

Very handy idea- tablet pc, repair info right at your lap, touch screen, onboard scope capabilitys, the list goes on.

What a bargain (LOL!) we were able to trade in our 5 year old modis, to purchase this... thing. For like 5 grand. Ouch. But gotta pay to play, right?

Unfortunatley, in our experience, this god-forsaken thing has been more of a headache than its worth.

1) Have sent it in twice since we have owned it, each time were givin a modis as loaner (guys LOVED having it back)

2) Three times in the last two weeks, it WILL NOT power on. Called regional tech support, they told me to send it in. Couldnt help. Local diagnostic tech support? 4 days away (maybe).
All of a sudden it turns on, and is fine. SO man shrugs and laughs, then trys to sell me a toolbox. We have had to tell 3 customers today that we cannot scan their car at this moment, our scanner is down.

3) SLOOOOWWW. Windows based. powering up takes a damn hour. Ethos, modis, and solus fire up like BAM. Reading live PIDs seems slower than they should be.

4) Freezes. You know how your HP laptop running windows freezes up and crashes? All of a sudden you cant do anything? ***** dont it. Imagine having a busy shop and waiting customers and your $10,000 6month old scanner locks up. And you need to restart it- twice. The other day it took me 15 mins to be able to get it fired up, restarted, fired up, then finally communicating with an impala to diagnose amisfire. 15 mins to get a p0301 out of a car. "the program is not responding" is not something i like to read while trying to make money.

5) Charging cord weak point. Our scanner lives down in a cabinet, and for some reason if you dont plug in the AC adaptor JUST RIGHT it will be completely dead when you need it next. Seriously. I dont know if its just ours, but it takes finesse to charge this thing. This problem leads to a dead scanner 1 our of every 5 times you reach for it.

Sorry for the rant. What have you guys experienced? I feel this technology is over-hyped and was maybe released to soon. Combine that with a HEFTY price tag, and i have some pretty mixed feelings.

Our snap-on man and his diagnostic guy SWEAR we are the only people having problems. I find that hard to beleive. He still has no solution as to why it refuses to power up for us, even with a full battery. Has yet to send it in for the 3rd time in 6 months. He comes by, after we somehow get it started, then shrugs and leaves.

His reasoning for the crappy charger connection is that we need to buy some $300 charging station. Great. We need to spend more money on this god-forsaken pile. Coulda maybe thrown that in with the deal?

My suggestions of filing a "unsatisfied customer" complaint and demanding our modis back, plus a refund on our supposed "upgrade" fall upon deaf ears. That apparently is NOT an option. Once they get your money, its THEIRS. Who cares if you are happy.

They want you to upgrade with the Modis

 

[Fubar]

I have a Verus and have been very happy with it. I can see if your guys are used to the Modis (had one of those before) they don't like the Verus, as the formatting is very different. They DO take a while to power up (this is one reason I have a Solus-Pro also), Mine I would say about one minute (I'm sure you're being sarcastic stating an hour) when the Solus comes up in ten seconds. But there is a ton of things that can be done with the Verus that can't with others (expert mode for instance).

I will say while I've had none of the issues that I would have to send it back for, I will say a few things...

They seem to be a little short on battery life...If I'm working for say two-three hours on something (I'm the boss so I get interrupted a lot) It runs out of battery. Just have to plug it in , but still (if it's connected to the car, then it runs of of the car battery so no issues there). I've had no issues with the charging, Operates correctly, and I actually would have bought the charging station, but I bought the scanner specialty cart JUST for them and don't you know you can't use the station in the cart as the lid won't close

As far as info streaming (fast-slow) I believe that has more to do with the vehicles PCM than anything. I've seen it lighting fast on some, and slow on others (both machines are like this) I always try to test (especially O2s) from the sensor anyways, But I know what you mean..

The data cord: BOTH of mine frayed at the scanner end (I got the Solus at basically the same time as the Verus on the brick trade-in deal) The Verus cord was first, then the Solus cord frayed too. As I stated, these live in their own specialty cart, and both my guy and I handle them carefully. My dealer states he hasn't seen that happen anywhere else yet, but I think it's a batch of bad cords...

Overall though, I'm happy. There's been many things that I couldn't have done, had I not had the Verus (latest was VW diesel timing where I had to take control of the PCM). I HOPE that at some point there will be downloads/flashes for vehicle security systems as that seems to be the pain in my side at present, but that's nether here nor there as far as SO goes. Hope you get it squared away, as I think you (and your guys) will like it once it operates properly (and they get used to it)

For what it's worth, the online training Snap-On has for the Verus is very helpful. I'm one of those guys who usually shuns things like that, preferring to mull though it myself but I did do a few of those and was glad I did.....

 

[mrholeshot]

One problem you may have is one that so many shops have and thats abuse of the tools. When 6+ Techs use the same tool anything can be tortured. I don't like Snap-On elecronics (MT2500 was the biggets POS I ever bought) but when a lot of people use the tools tools just get used roughly.Most people that didn't pay for them won't treat them as gently as those that did.

 

[ozzy214]

Personally I never demoed the Verus, but there is a ongoing complaint thread over at IATN in the Snapon thread about it. I guess Snapon corporate takes notice of anything in that forums and will take heed eventually.

One thing I can say though. It looks cool as **** if it works as intended. Wireless adapter with no keys...hot damn. I see the guy that runs the realfixesrealfast.com site been using it all the time with no complaints.


He posts videos on auto fixes all the time and he has a few up 8using the verus. One recent was demonstrating how to check amp ramp on faulty coils.

maybe ya got a lemon...who know. Its the same over at IATN. Someone people rave, others *****. Maybe demand a new one.

 

[econoaddict]

Do you have the docking station? I was kinda under the impression that it was a gimmick. For me, i feel a cord plugged into the back of it is perfectly adaquite. I guess its like anything else, some accessories are basically manditory.

No docking station.

There is only myself and my partner so tools get treated well.
Most of our past tool "break downs" were employees not caring because they didn't pay for the tools.

 

[tonydanzah]

wow no snap on guys posted yet

 

[jay50]

wow no snap on guys posted yet

nah, they won't because they get beat up all the time by the shops that they sold that pile to.
Snappy makes way too many promises it can not deliver and then bails out when the **** hits the fan.....

The old red brick was great for its time. SO rushes to market with a pile of **** that pisses shops off.

 

[GeorgiaHybrid]

Personally I never demoed the Verus, but there is a ongoing complaint thread over at IATN in the Snapon thread about it. I guess Snapon corporate takes notice of anything in that forums and will take heed eventually.

One thing I can say though. It looks cool as **** if it works as intended. Wireless adapter with no keys...hot damn. I see the guy that runs the realfixesrealfast.com site been using it all the time with no complaints.


He posts videos on auto fixes all the time and he has a few up 8using the verus. One recent was demonstrating how to check amp ramp on faulty coils.

maybe ya got a lemon...who know. Its the same over at IATN. Someone people rave, others *****. Maybe demand a new one.

ozzy,

You are thinking of the Verdict which is wireless and does not use keys but it only has a 2 channel lab scope (the Modis and Verus have a 4 channel scope) and it does not have an ignition scope (the other two mentioned have an ignition scope).

I have a Modis and do like the way it works but I am still thinking about upgrading to a Verus in the next 6 months or so. It has advantages and disadvantages over the other Snap-on scanners but for a DIY like me, I can live with the few items that have a downside.

 

[fomocoforrester]

This thing may not be all it's cracked up to be - see this review......

http://reviews.ebay.com/Snap-On-VER...ting-for-the-money_W0QQugidZ10000000013852189

 

[scbird94]

Finally got our issues resolved.... for the moment. Was pretty unhappy with snapons regional diagnostic guy.... he showed up... tuesday. (friday was our problems)

After i gave him a detailed list of the problems we are having, he suggested to me face to face that i call snap on diagnostic hotline and have them lead me through a harddrive reload or firmware boot or soemthing like that.

I laughed. I said i have cars to fix. Come see me when our scanner works. He set our verus on a workbench and proceeded to call the national hotline for scanner help- half hour later he approaches me and says its in the middle of a re-boot and should be good go after that, and leaves.

After the little progress bar reaches 100%, i reboot the machine and attempt to scan air bag on a 05 pilot. Little menu pops up that says "you need to purchase asian software to access this vehicles data"

WTF. We bought that. So i attempt to scan a chevy truck one of my guys is workin on- same message. Two days and several unreturned calls later, i finally convice our areas tool truck guy (original seller of unit) to come by, and he takes it with him- says he called regional diagnostic hotline and had to activate our subscription or something.

Almost a week without our primary scan tool, still not happy with the performance of this thing, although it does turn on and scan vehicles now.

What a freakin mess. Do not buy a verus unless you are a computer guru who can de-bug windows based computers. If your an average wrench like me, who is used to using OTC scan tools, and the modis, i dont recommend this verus at all.

 

[RWDragoon]

I bought the Verus as soon as it was released, and I think I have the 1st or 2nd one in Alberta, Canada. Compared to the Modis it sure seemed like a super powerful system, that could expand and grow as my new shop needed. Boy was I disappointed.

My shop usually works on Japanese cars of all sorts, with occasional domestic as well. I needed a scan tool with the capabilities of all so I could obtain my out-of-province inspection license even though I never work on Euro. I am a specialty shop that focus's on high performance street and race cars. We are not the average high volume shop. The 4 channel scope appealed to me as it would be useful when paired with my chassis dyno.

I think the first version I had was 8.4? It was brutal. Buttons were tiny and very difficult to press with the crappy touch screen. We had communication problems from day one with Subaru vehicles (One of the most common vehicle I work on) Tech support was useless and never solved a problem... ever. After using the unit for more then a year, and pretty dissatisfied with the $14,000 unit (had to upgrade to Euro/Asian, COP adapters, and a few other accessories) I then tried to bleed a transmission on a Mitsubishi Evolution X we had in the shop. No such menu's to do so. I phoned tech support and walked through exactly what I was trying to do, and I had a factory Service manual for the car I was working on. My question was simple, with a software upgrade does this allow or enable the ability to service the transmission on the Evo X? Tech support went through the available options and menu's and said no it wasn't supported, but perhaps in a future release it would be. Again I'm dissatisfied with my very expensive purchase, and cant even upgrade it to perform a simple task. Randomly a friend of mine from another shop stopped by and was using my dyno on his car, and he brought along his own Verus to do some monitoring. His was a newer version then mine 10.something I borrowed it for 2 minutes and went through the menu's and sure enough it clearly listed the ability to bleed Evo X transmission(my Tech support phone call was the same week!) Now I am pretty pissed off and called my local dealer, who conveniently had a conference in town with the "head guy" that handles sales, questions related to diagnostic equipment. I went to the conference and they were explaining the release of the new wireless version without personality keys. After it was over I had a good discussion with the diagnostics guy, explaining that I am not the most typical shop, I dont use it more then 10 times a month, but when I try and use it, often it just doesn't work or communicate. He tells me that my problem is my software is very old and out dated, that many fixes have been applied, and the machine in general will run much faster! All for the low price of $1200cad with no satisfaction guarantee.

I bite the bullet and go for it, spend the money and they update my tool. My local dealer picked it up and returned it in 1 or 2 days updated. It blue screened of death the first time the dealer tried to show me how great it was. The second boot up it seemed to work ok.

It was a pretty large improvement, the buttons were large so you could usually click on what you intended, it used scrolling similar to an Iphone (but not nearly as smooth or good) and the menu's were cleaner. I dont think it really was any faster, except you didn't waste as much time clicking on the wrong menu's!

8 months ago the head diagnostics rep stops by my shop as my dealer has asked him to, due to my dissatisfaction. The rep listens to all my complaints and problems, we have normal 2008+ Subaru's at the shop it doesn't work in front of him, he suggest something wrong with the cable or key, we borrow one, same exact problem. It doesn't work on any of the new Nissan GTR's, 2008+ Subarus, and most other cars we work on. The rep doesn't care, doesn't do anything to help, doesn't even try to scam me into trading in on the new hardware.... nothing

It's now 3 years since I bought it brand new, I'm running version 11.2 and I cant communicate with any Subaru's 2008 or newer it just endlessly wont connect. I have borrowed new cables, keys, everything and it never works. If I use OBDII Generic it works ok, with bare minimum support. It has the ability to work a little bit better with Evolutions and is able to bleed the transmission and reset TPMS. Tried it this week to connect to a 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee with a CEL on, doesn't work, cant connect. Generic mode, works fine.

All in all I think its a pretty crappy product, not what I would expect from the "Legendary Snap-On" Poor product, poor support, poor choice to buy

I'm located in Calgary, Alberta and if anyone would like to try it out I invite it. Dont make the same mistake as me! ryan at vexperformance.com

 

[greasemonkey44]

hmm weird
i use one whenever there is a boogerbear of a car that just wont place nice
it takes forever to boot but for a generic scan tool i couldnt ask for more; the bidirectional controls and scope are very capable
did do a ram upgrade and made it survivable; never had any problems of crashing and not rebooting though
i use a solus ultra at work; it got rave reviews, i tried it on the truck. found all the capabilities i wanted and bought it. This thing is everthing the verus isnt, boots fast, quick buttons for everthing. NO KEYS, life is good.
imo the verus tries to do too much, it tries to be a scope, and a factory scan tool. but it just cant do that many things, as a scan tool it is good, as a scope its good. As a be all end all diagnostic solution it fails!
if you expect it to be a factory scan tool, its not

 

[CharlieBrown]

Verus....*****

 

[tcsalvage]

not a good time to find out but i just bought a verus a month ago and have yet to hook it to a car. not that i haven't tried but it would come to the first screen then crash. had the truck reprogram it and tried again, same thing first screen then crash. rep reprogramed again and tried to open it and it crashed. been in california for three weeks getting new hard drive and possibly ram upgrade. good thing my help bought my old solus pro or i would be SOL. if not back next week i think the truck gets it back and i'll look elsewhere for my next scan tool.