Ateq VT56 Reviews!

[TPMSProAlbert]

Anyone using an Ateq VT56 we would like your feedback.

Tell us how easy it is to use, features, coverage, and any issues...

133

[DruryTiresNZ]

Reposted here from survey thread

08/01/2014, Drury Tires in Auckland, New Zealand. I have had the Ateq VT56 for one full day now. I haven't had much time to play with it yet but I will share my impressions so far. The quality and feel of the tool, accessories and packaging is very good. The colour screen is clear and easy to view. Using the tool to read sensors on a real car was easy peasy. On a Ford Explorer it read 3 out of 4 sensors within seconds each but couldn't detect the fourth - not enough experience to know what the source of this error is yet but the vehicle comes in regularly so I should get a chance to re-test with the tyre off sometime. Printer is easy to operate. The cradle is designed to mount on a wall (good idea) as well as sitting on a bench but I am not sure if I would trust the cradle to hold the tool mounted vertically and I would hate it to fall out of the cradle onto the floor. Maybe an angled bracket (45 to 60 degrees). The charging adapter plug seems quite vulnerable to me as it is not shielded from any impacts. It could have been recessed more so only the cord trails out from the cradle. I will post more as I test.


08/20/2014Just tried out on a Hyundai Veloster 2014 with very little trouble. Easy to find make/model in menu and sensors read very quickly each (10-15 seconds total including walking). The pressures were not correctly displayed though. I am giving VT56 the benefit of the doubt and assuming it is the sensor that is sending incorrect data. 40psi showed 74 and 38psi showed 70. What are the forum members experiences with other sensor and tool combinations? VT56 showed a picture of where the OBDII socket was in the car and there is an LED inside the VT56 plug module to illuminate the socket as you are plugging in. Sensor data uploaded successfully in seconds. Job done except for the earlier question. Printout of data easy and effective but does not include the customer Name, licence plate number etc... that you might have entered.

WiFi is not super-easy to set up so I cannot give feedback on this yet.

I have sent Ateq a few requests for information so far, like why are some of the menu options like RF signal not available and I am still waiting for response so not a very fast customer service reaction.

Feel free to ask questions or request photo's, information etc...

[TPMSProAlbert]

We just received ours for review as well so we will compare your findings to ours...

[the tpms guy]

Yes! I will be posting an in-depth review asap!

[Wrenchman]

Reported from survey, here is my experience.

I had a tech400+ for a few years but it unfortunately went missing a couple months back. I should add that this tool always did the job and really was the only suitable option at the time.
I went to my distributor to get a replacement and was shown a vt56. My immediate impression was that it looked great and was told that it did everything that my old tool did and was "the next generation". I was ready to buy there and then but was told it wasn't available for a couple of week. I decided to wait and thought I could dig out my old tech300 in the meantime.

2 weeks past and nothing. I called the guy and explained my business was suffering and he assured me it would be here next week. This went on for two more weeks. Finally it arrived and I was immediately struck by the OBD adaptor which look poorly made also the OBD coverage was worse than my old tool. The color display was nice however so I gave it the benefit of the doubt thinking that I'd discover more gems as I used it. Indeed had some features like showing if a sensor was a duplicate and displayed relearn procedures after making vehicle selection, but my old tool had done this too. For the first few days I had no problem and was using it on every car that rolled in to try out my new toy, tpms light on or not. Then a GM came in and it failed to read two of the sensors but didn't say why. I got the old tech300 out and that read all 4. Feeling a little concerned I called the support line... Three times until someone answered. When I explained the problem I was told I wasn't using the tool right. I explained that I've been using tpms tools for years and that my old tech300 could read the sensors but they were unable to help and just suggested to try again, the car had long gone by then. Following that I came across two more vehicles it failed to read sensors on and wasn't able to get an answer on support and sent emails which were ignored.

I went back to the distributor who told me that he was sorry and was surprised that ATEQ was unable to help as they had a good rep for support.

I replaced it with a tech400sd. This is quite different from the 400 I had and took some getting used to the way it worked, but once I did it made perfect sense that you diagnose the fault before fixing it and get a report of before and after to show the customer. One nice surprise was the extra OBD support it came with and though the screen is still black and white it was improved and displayed perfectly in daylight. What is odd after reading this is that I was never shown a tech500 and now I'm wondering what else I might be missing...

So in conclusion, maybe I had a bad tool from ATEQ but if you've had a Bartec tool before, are used to it just working, being designed well, having regular updates and being supported very well you'd be foolish to try any other tool. I know I was.