Originally Posted by nemiro

The change over to VCI, STAR, and later Micropod began in 2003 with the introduction of the NGC1 PCM, moved further in 2005 as many of the MB based cars (think LX cars) moved to CAN, rather than the PCI (J1850) network the earlier cars had. By 2006, almost everything was on CAN, except Viper, Sprinter (diesel), a few BUX market minivans, and a couple of other oddballs in there, too, like Crossfire. VCI was the stopgap between DRBIII and and Micropod. It had the virtue of working well with the older cars, but still diagnosed the new ones fairly well. Over time, STAR came in, but while self-contained like DRBIII, it was expensive, and just not as popular as VCI. VCI was plagued with connector issues, and still lacked some compatibility, such as Sprinter and Crossfire. Micropod came along to solve this. I have owned all four tools at one point or another. My STAR and the DRBIII are both gone. I use the VCI for the NGC1, NGC3 cars, and some of the LX cars (up till around 2013). The Micropod works well on the rest. Fortunately for us, it is also the smallest of the tools, and easily portable.

However, Micropod is a compromise for the Crossfire, and there are functions that only the MB Star Diagnostic System (SDS) running with Xentry and DAS can do well. This makes sense, as this is the factory tool for the MBs. When I do work on Crossfires, I almost never reach for the Micropod, and pull up the SDS. Just like Micropod, there are a ton of Chinese offerings for the SDS C3 and C4 units. If you shop for those, get the C4. If you buy it turnkey, it is about $700-800. If you're good with PCs, there are cheaper options, keeping it all <$500. I picked up a really inexpensive Microsoft Surface 4 tablet PC on FB marketplace. I loaded Xentry/DAS onto it, and my son and I recently flew cross country to pick up a SRT6. The setup was in my backpack. (No TSA issues) Upon arrival, it had a the requisite CEL lit, and within 10 minutes with Xentry, I cleared a ton of codes throughout the car, the CEL turned off, and the car drove 10x better. We drove it nearly 1000 miles home. When the CEL came back on a few states later, a few minutes with Xentry targeted the problem, and we dealt with it. Great having the right tools! I do wish the C4 unit was smaller, like Micropod, but you can't have it all.

The benefit here is that you can now work on even late model MBs. The downside is that you will not be able to take care of every single issue with TPMS or a roadster top controller. The top controllers really don't give that much trouble. TPMS in Crossfires are a slowly dying thing, and fewer cars have it going all of the time. I stopped keeping up with the factory TPMS in my own cars, but I do know that others go through a lot to keep theirs going. The Micropod is the best tool for that, but even some of the aftermarket scan tools are starting to roll our very non-standard TPMS system in.

YMMV.