OBDII readers...

[carreauchompeur]

Folks,

Planning to buy a code reader. Don’t want to spend a fortune, basic functionality will be fine such as reading and erasing codes.

Are there any differences between say, £10 and £40 readers? Not planning to spend much more as occasional use doesn’t warrant it.

Would be nice to be able to reset service lights...

Churs

[Aphex]

Nope, I bought a <£10 one from eBay and does everything you need coupled with the torque app

[carreauchompeur]

Cool cheers, do you have a link?

[NDNDNDND]

Careful - some work betters than others. Cheaper ones may not talk to all cars. My cheapie can't talk to my wife's Fiesta for instance, but can talk to our Mazda pickup (basically a Ford Ranger)... go figure.

[Gary C]

Aphex said:

Nope, I bought a <£10 one from eBay and does everything you need coupled with the torque app

No it doesnt

Gives basic OBDII error codes but not from all the items in a modern car and certainly cant program some things.

Dont get me wrong, its gives you a bit of info, but really something like a DS150E clone gives you so much more.

[Aphex]

carreauchompeur said:

Cool cheers, do you have a link?

I have this one:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bluetooth-ELM327-HH-V2-...

There is a list of cars you can't use it with on the page. Its worked perfectly for me on all the cars I've used it on to read faults and clear them

[Gary C]

Thing is, OBDII specification was set to cover basic things when electronics were in their infancy, however the world has moved on massively and manufactures, while providing access to the required OBDII spec codes, hide everything else and require manufacturer specific equipment to access.

These are readily available as clone units with hacked software, but generally not available on a £9.99 ELM device

I would always recommend a DS150 or similar if your going to have several cars, or a clone of the manufactures unit if its a keeper.

Its amazing what extra it gives you. For example, on a Peugeot 407, you cant even change a diesel fuel injector without the Lexia kit to reprogram the ECU to recognise the new injector. You cant do that on an ELM unit.

On my old polo, it allows me to run the Catalyser performance test, start the test and floor the throttle, the ECU then manages engine revs and runs the test. You can reprogram ignition keys, replace airbag ECU's and a whole host of things that would normally need a dealer. Even ABS, the ELM doesn't generally allow you to see the output from each wheel to determine which one caused the error, so all you can do is replace each one in turn, clear the fault and hope you got the right one. With a decent unit, you can just replace the one reporting the fault.

[Down and out]

I have a tenner eBay jobbie and it's saved me quite a bit of time and cash, fault finding.

[gmaz]

This one is recommended as it reads more than the usual data for Hybrids. I've tried a few (ELM327 types) but this worked best

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00PJPHEBO/ref...

There's also lots of good reviews online for this one, and it works with many makes.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Carista-Bluetooth-Adapter...

[carreauchompeur]

Great ta. Ordinarily I’d shy away from Bluetooth gadgets like this, but is it just a case of downloading Torque app, linking and... Shazam?

[Down and out]

carreauchompeur said:

Great ta. Ordinarily I’d shy away from Bluetooth gadgets like this, but is it just a case of downloading Torque app, linking and... Shazam?

You don't need Shazam unless you have music problems.

[carreauchompeur]

Yep

[ShampooEfficient]

Down and out said:

carreauchompeur said:

Great ta. Ordinarily I’d shy away from Bluetooth gadgets like this, but is it just a case of downloading Torque app, linking and... Shazam?

You don't need Shazam unless you have music problems.