No, like just about every other major OEM, they expect those working on the car to have both the knowledge and correct tools to work on the car.

Yeah true. Just seems like they go the extra step to make sure. Just taking off the idle air control valve required a security bit.

You can rent a durametric for pretty cheap. As a bonus, if you don't have the OBC, you can enable that too so you at least get outside temp on the dash. you can add other parts later.

These guys on this forum really know what they're doing. These cars are pretty cheap to buy right now but they are still premium, high performance, automobiles that are relatively expensive to maintain even if you do the work yourself. The cost of not listening could be a new engine which, for the vast majority of owners, isn't worth it.

Proceed carefully and try to follow as much as the advice as possible. I jumped in just after Christmas and the advice here, direct or from researching, has truly been invaluable.

I definitely trust them. Blue was very helpful with my previous issue so I have no doubt that they know what they are talking about. And my car does have the outside temp reading on the dashboard. I didn't know that wasn't standard.

Honestly you have spent more time messing with things then you would have spent just having someone that knows what they are doing do a proper diagnostic. time is worth money. Get it to a shop so they can tell you what is wrong. You are only going to continue to make things worse by guessing or only providing part of the issue to us. Any decent shop can tell you what is wrong it doesn't have to be the dealer. Get in touch with your local PCA and get recommendations on where you can take it to.

You WILL end up needing a new engine if you continue to drive the car or messing with it. We are trying to help you but you also have to help yourself. You are over your head on this issue.

Yeah I definitely can't fix that my self if it is in fact bad. I cleared all the codes and I'll see if it comes back. I haven't noticed any bad idling or anything that other people have attributed to the p1531 code.

But hey. Life is good. The coolant problem seems to be alright now. It didn't overheat whenever I had it running for about 20 minutes and it didn't move past the 0 in 180 and that's with just distilled water in. So it can only get better from there.

That is good sign.
But the most important thing as far as your over heating issues goes......does it still loose coolant???
If it does via the cap the overflow tube what ever way. Then you still have an issue with the cooling system.

Keep us posted I am interested in the outcome especially what you do and what happens over the P1531 Variocam actuator code;)