Laser 5990 Automotive Multi Meter CAT II, Black, Red

after a year or so the screen just shows faded numbers and is unusable. the most irritating thing for an automotive tester is the voltage display. When working on most cars, you only need to know what the voltage is to one dec place really, but what annoys me is when you plonk across a connection to see what it's getting, it shows loads of numbers and you think...what? have I got 10v here, no wait, 5v, no 500v....FFS, stop showing me mv, I'm not interested in mv! just a simple 8v or 10v or whatever, not the 500mv flashing up. The mv display is so small that you have no idea what you are looking when laying under a dash and shouting blue murder at the crap display. My 20 year old maplin tester is faaaaar better for this job, what's the point of spending near on £100 for such a crap product. 0/10 for the display, 0/10 for usability. It has a lot of other features are useful of course, but the display just lets it down straight out of the box. It needs to be modifiable a bit more to show what you want. Even sat here with nothing connected it shows -31.9mv, but you have idea if that is 33v or 33mv unless you stare at the screen at a certain angle to confirm...utter crap.

A robust automotive meter with a large LCD display and a yellow protective sleeve which includes clips to store the probes at the rear. On the plus side, the functionality is good with AC and DC voltage and current, continuity, resistance, diode test, ignition dwell angle, duty cycle and RPM. There's also a thermocouple for reading temperatures up to 250C. On the downside, there are no alligator clips on the probes for connecting to a distributor and the audible continuity alarm is a bit quiet for use in a workshop environment. I gave it 4 stars rather than 5 as I think the price is a bit steep and you do need to be patient as delivery took 9 days.

Volt reading setting would not zero did set one out of ten times but it fluctuated all the time and just about impossible to get an accurate reading someone's got their circuits crossed. Still using my old gunson circa year 2000 volt meter it zeros in 3 seconds. I dare not use this Laser in a workshop environment its to embarrassing makes you look incompetent because of the time it takes you to complete simple tasks . Is this still in the proto type stage with its no voltage variation setting on the switch hmmm ? It went straight back into the box. I'll send it back to Laser when I get round to it. The worst review that's been written about this multi meter is the exact description of this 5990,maybe he bought it from the same place. A question about quality control or sub standard machines hitting the market. Ebay

It was extremely easy to use. The dwell meter wires were equipped with probes. Alligator clips would make it easier for one person to set the dwell. It took 2 of us to complete the task. I had to hold the probes in place while a friend made the necessary adjustments.