The days of getting grease on my hands may be over, but for many, forgoing the service drive at the dealership for an afternoon in the garage with the hood up is still a valuable, time-honored (and for some, necessary) tradition. I still have a chain embedded in the limb of a large shade tree behind my garage for such mechanical endeavors.

For you import shadetree mechanics/tuners – Toyota/Lexus/Scion specifically – advanced help is on the way.

This month at SEMA, Toyota announced their new diagnostic solution, Techstream Lite.

Techstream Lite combines the Drew Tech J2534 Mongoose MFC USB cable and a Toyota Techstream subscription to give independent repair shops the same tools that Toyota dealerships use every day to diagnose and repair Toyota vehicles.

Purchase the Mongoose MFC for $482.63, then subscribe to Toyota’s factory-level Techstream software to run on your PC. Subscriptions are currently available from Toyota for two days ($55) or a full year ($995).

You get access to:
* Complete factory-level diagnostics software
* ECU reprogramming calibrations
* Repair data
* Wiring diagrams
* TSBs
* Identifix Direct-hit service

Toyota is the first company in automotive history to use the open J2534 standard to make their complete factory/dealer diagnostics tool available to the entire repair industry.

Related posts:

1. Wednesday Walkaround: 2009 General Motors Collection
2. 2009 North American Car and Truck of the Year Winners Announced
3. 2009 Toyota Highlander Hybrid
4. Wednesday Walkaround: 2009 Toyota Venza
5. Wednesday Walkaround: Most capable 2009 Ford F-150