Because FUCK YOU. That's why.

Car companies want you to go back to the dealership to have codes read. They had to be sued into releasing the code's meanings so independent shops and owners could do their own repairs.

Even though most car owners are knuckle draggers who don't understand oil changes or air filter changes, they don't want to make it any easier to do repairs outside of dealerships. I know someone who swears by dealerships and was very confused when I asked if he ever changed the air filter to improve fuel economy. For some reason, he thought his car didn't have one.

If they wanted you to have that info, the software that powers the code reader would already be in the cars computer and would show human readable errors.

They don't

The sad answer is that those displays exist to cut costs, not to make your ownership experience better.

Also the dealers want you to come to them for that CEL, and the companies don’t want to piss off the dealers.

Why don't all computers have everything digital ever made? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_scarcity

The same reason they won't let you buy the dealership scan software for under 10k. Almost every maker has an in house scanner and due to standards they only need to provide certain data to non dealer level tools and I believe the standard only exists for gas powered vehicles that need to provide OBD2 data. Plenty of makers (BMW is horrible about this) stuff away data where a normal obd scanner just won't access and it's gotten much worse with the overuse of CANBus (I sure love when my trunk lid sensor prevents my fucking car from starting).

Thats where your snapon and other third party scanners start bringing a gap, but even those are extremely pricey and need to be updated constantly and even those usually won't do EVERYTHING.

Fwiw the cheapest and best way I've found is basically to pirate the dealer software and get a compatible knockoff scanner (vxdiag for example). I have Ford IDS and a couple others this way but assume that the software is gonna install something malicious and dedicate an old Thinkpad or something to it.

Depending on the age of your vehicle something like Torque Pro is extremely useful. I have mine monitoring transmission temp, long and short term fuel trims, O2 sensor signals, voltage, mass air speed, intake temp. It's more than enough data to see something coming long before it becomes an issue.

There is a standard connector which existed before big screens landed in cars, the OBD2 connector. Dongles are cheap and you can read the output from your phone or computer. Some dongles support bluetooth. The connector is mandated in some markets and I guess that makes it less interesting to add a redundant interface inside of the car. It's fun to try if you're interested. Manufacturers can extend the error codes IIRC.

Tesla has a service mode on the display through which you can scan the car for faults, run a battery test, ... It is password protected but the password is publicly available.

They don't want to maintain the software for it.

Also, they simply don't want you to know. Especially if the whole setup is already a patchwork of sensors that barely work together in the first place. It might cause unnecessary questions, concerns or even liabilities.

A lot of it is useless anyway as long as the car is not broken, and if it is broken, the sensor might be broken too. It's meant for diagnostics only.

They want you to go to the dealership...

The only reason you can read the codes at all is because of regulation... For now thanks Trump

Money

I don't know if that's the reason but it probably is

I’m not aware of any car manufacturers selling their own diagnostic ASICs, so it’s not an extra margin to squeeze afaik…

What? The errors are intentionally vague so the drivers are forced to go to a dealer, giving them a chance to lie and pretend that's something very serious and very expensive, while all they're going to do is a reseat of a cable and a error reset

Btw Car scanner supports showing obd data on Android auto. It's a game changer for hypermilers

Surprisingly, Teslas actually do. You have to access a hidden menu, but it's well documented and easy to do.

They probably don't want YOU to be the one diagnosing.

We could have had readable diagnostics since they started showing multiple items on the in-dash LCDs. It's always money.

They want you going to the dealer, so they can upsell more maintenance and repair costs.

As someone pointed out on the comment, one of the reason is Money, the other one is safety and security ~~based on Vehicle manufacturer claim~~.

Yet, nobody can stop you to sniff and monitor your own car CAN/OBD2 interface using as simple as cheap microcontroller and compatible OBD2 interface kit (e.g CAN Transceiver/Controller kit).

EDIT: So far this curated list helpful to me for CAN bus based protocol.

P r o f I t

Yo it'd be sick af to root your cars dash and load some OS onto it and have your own console!

ODB2 into a raspberry pi or a breadboard somehow, get some sick diagnostics application whipped up.

Here's to projects I'll never tackle.

Who is going to look at that stuff apart from technicians? Most users have no clue how the functionality of their vehicle is achieved and they don't care.

For argument's sake, let's assume there is a userbase for this type of information. It would be possible to show diagnostic information like DTC or run DID routines from the dashboard but this is already possible from any cheap offboard tester, via a phone app or laptop.

The reality is that even if an OEM wanted to provide detailed diagnostic information, they don't know it either because the information isn't disclosed by their supply chain. Companies such as Bosch, who supply brake ECU, are extremely tight lipped about their intellectual property. When something goes wrong we use a special development version of the ECU to record the associated software variables during the fault and present that as evidence but we don't have access to the source code.

Modern products are not designed to be repaired. They want us to continually buy new shit. Basically anything with software in it is an absolute nightmare to maintain. It makes me depressed just thinking about what a clusterfuck this landscape is.

Source: control system engineer for a large OEM.

Teslas do. https://youtu.be/fVWfmvgDtaY

What I've learned with 15 years in the DIY repair sphere is that (obviously to me) the codes don't tell you what's at fault, only what's not reading correctly and (to my surprise) the general public will just replace what the code says is off. A MAF code doesn't tell you if it's the sensor, the wiring, or the PCM.

While I'd certainly appreciate a simple code readout because I'm pretty knowledgeable about which are actually concerning this moment vs this year vs never, diagnosis typically takes more equipment and time. The cost and hassle of the reader is negligible in the repair. I use a Bluetooth dongle and Torque app to read all kinds of stats when diagnosing. An integrated interface would be convenient in some ways, but the portability of a phone/tablet probably has an equal amount of convenience once hard diag is needed

As other mentioned cheap ODB2 readers, but some brands offer a lot of diagnostic data over the infotainment system, they just won't display them to you - for BMW I use AAIdrive (is foss, github/AAIdrive) and it displays some of the data on the main screen without a physical ODB2 reader inserted.
(And ofc custom navigation, VLC, etc)

Car manufacturers aren't required to document how to repair "infotainment centers" because they aren't critical to the operation of a car. Making them more useful might require a car manufacturer to spend more money by allowing more requirements to be imposed upon them.

I use a Veepeak OBDII reader, and run Car Scanner on my phone or a tablet to access that data. And yeah, it would be nifty if I didn't have to add one or more additional screens to do that. It's cumbersome.