The Story

The story of CANDooPro began in 2009 when two long-time Sea Doo enthusiasts, Dennis and Jeff, began development of a system that would allow both individual users and independent repair shops to effectively work on their Sea Doo watercraft.

Both Dennis and Jeff have similar stories on what led them to start development of CANDooPro.

Dennis bought a project RFI ski that was missing the key. He first contacted the Sea Doo dealer closest to him, only to be told that he would have to bring in the ski and leave it, and they “would fit it in over the next 6 weeks”! He began calling other dealers in an ever expanding radius from his home, finally finding a dealer over an hour away that could do it in a day’s time. He ended up wasting an entire day waiting for the 5 minute key procedure, and paid $169 for the new key! Once he had the ski back together, he needed to get the TPS reset, only to go thru the same pain to find a dealer that could do the reset in a reasonable amount of time.

Jeff began buying blown-up Sea Doo’s as a hobby several years ago, picking up couple per year to fix as winter projects. Every time Jeff rebuilt an engine, he would check the timing. He was frustrated that there was nothing he could do about it if was a 787 or 951, as the timing change is done as a setting in the MPEM. Jeff was always dealing with key issues, both with the skis he worked on as well as his personal skis. As an example, he replaced an MPEM on a ski, and needed a new key. He had the ski at his lake house, and there are two dealers, both over an hour and a half away. He called up one dealer, only to be told he would need to leave the ski and they would have it done in about two weeks. He called up the other dealer, only to be told the same story. After he challenged the service manager that he knew it was only a 5 minute procedure, the service manager told him “OK, bring it in, I will fit it in today”. He drove an hour and a half, dropped off the ski, and was told to come back in about three hours. He left to get something to eat, did some shopping, came back three hours later and it wasn’t yet done. They stopped what they were doing, and proceeded to spend 5 minutes programming the new key, and $100 later and a wasted day, Jeff had his new key.

This project ski had out of state registration on it. The dealer never asked Jeff for any identification, or even questioned Jeff about the out of state tags. Jeff found this a bit curious; weren’t they supposed to verify that the ski was not stolen when programming a new key? He challenged the tech that was programming the key; wasn’t he supposed to run the HIN? The tech looked at him blankly and stated that he had worked there for over 5 years and had never run a HIN. He asked the other tech, who had worked there for 7 years, and he replied he never did it either.

Both Jeff and Dennis individually started out to develop a system to enable diagnostics and repair of Sea Doo PWC, and met somewhat by accident in 2009. They realized that they possessed very complementary capabilities; Dennis with a strong background in software development, Jeff with a strong background in electronic systems and assemblies. They decided to join forces to develop what is now called CANDooPro, the first comprehensive diagnostic system that enables both the DIY home user and the independent shop to effectively diagnose and repair Sea Doo personal watercraft and Ski Doo snowmobiles.