After spending a couple hours researching the forum, putting together my new LED & switch code flasher, pulling the cover off the 38pin diag. plug, printing pictures of diag. plug and pin identification charts, I finally try to read whatever code has brought on the check engine lite, and car is running poorly.

The diag. connector on my car has empty holes on #1, #3, #19, #10 along with most of the other supposed female 'pins' of the diag conector. Is this because this is an OBDII car?

Do I need to buy one of the $80-$100 OBDII code readers from Advance Auto?

What are the chances of it actually retrieving the DTC on my car?

Background info:

1996 SL320, 100k miles, very well maintained, second owner from 40k to present.
It was running perfectly when my wife shut engine off at the bank, when she returned and cranked up, CEL came on, engine began running roughly.
I have pulled airbox and checked filter, and MAF visually, look like new. Visually inspected all the vac lines and hoses I could find, no problem found.

Thanks for any insight,

THE 1996 USA cars will need a ODB2 scanner to diagnose the check engine lamp.

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If you have an Auto Zone near you, they'll let you use an OBD2 tester for free. (My local store has an Actron CP9135, which pulled 2 codes from my 96 E300D.)