I am unsure how controversial (or not) this will be but I was looking at the various subscription fees for Topix and let's get this out of the way first. Absolutely expensive, no question about it. However, I try to put it into perspective here. If you buy a whole year for a specific VIN, it is $756. At first blush, it makes one blush, in fact. It is hard number, but then I got to thinking...Most of us here, not all, but most are pretty DIY focused. Which certainly means we want to avoid the dealership at all costs and a lot of indy shops that are decent are hard to come by and, if they are decent, they mostly aren't exactly cheap either. A single trip to the dealer, even for mere diagnosis, could cost as much as a yearly sub and then some..a lot more some. Perhaps it is the fact you have to pay all at once that is difficult. I get that. If it was $63 a month, it may seem more worth it, especially if you have a project you are working on, which I do, and will be doing for at least a year so it def. makes sense for me. For those small jobs here and there, I don't think the weekly or daily, or whatever is that outrageous of a cost either.

The fact that they even make access relatively easy for us DIY'ers is a bit of support of right to repair, isn't it? Sure, it is greed in a way because us repairing our own cars is not moving their service profit needle in any way. but it could always be worse. They could lock this down and basically say, no - you must have an indy business in order to have access to this wealth of information...and still pay for it.

So, for me, it is one of those grin and bear it deals. Considering the utter lack of any substantive information in "paper" form of videos online I consider this a pretty valuable resource. With value comes some level of cost.

 

I hear you. Those Topix subscription fees are no joke—$756 a year is a lot, especially when you’ve got to pay it all upfront. But think about it this way: just one trip to the dealer for a diagnosis can easily hit that amount, or even more. If you’re like most of us here, who prefer to do things ourselves and skip the dealership costs, it might actually save you some money over time.

I do appreciate that they make this info available to us DIY folks. It’s not perfect, and yeah, they’re still making a buck, but it’s way better than shutting us out completely. The info you get from Topix is pretty valuable, especially since it’s not something you’ll easily find in a manual or on YouTube.

If you’ve got a project car or regularly work on your own vehicle, the subscription could pay for itself. If you're only doing the occasional job, those weekly or daily fees might be a smarter move. At the end of the day, it all depends on how much you’re planning to use it. Sometimes, you just have to suck it up and go for it because the info is worth the cost, even if it’s a bit painful on the wallet.

Ryan
https://gpstrackershop.com