OBD scanner advice

[Imy]

Hi,

My check engine light has come on so am thinking I may as well invest in a scanner, which makes more sense than paying a garage the same or more to check codes. There seem to be alot on eBay and vary greatly in price.

Could someone please share their experience and recommend one to me?

Thanks

[AW8]

It depends what you want  to achieve - relative to your ability to use the kit &/or work on your car on back of info provided.

I have seen many posts on various boards from folk saying they have bought certain kit and cant use it, interpret the data or perform a suitable repair on back of the info obtained.

I simply use a Peake reader............It plugs straight into the OBD port and gives codes which I cross check in a book which tells me what the code means. Ideal for me - straightforward , easy to use and codes can be cleared if desired.

Unfortunately even armed with code meanings folk can still be none the wiser and ulitmately the car goes to a suitable professional for the work to be done.

Also be aware codes are not definitive answer to sorting a problem as a code can be thrown due to something further up the chain so to speak

[Imy]

I hadnt really thought about it. The local garage is charging £50 to do a diog and read the fault codes if any, I thought I could save that money by buying a took myself and checking the codes before taking it into the garage...

[Steamyrotter]

I find the ability to read the fault codes a bonus as you can keep tabs on things, even if they dont throw a fault light up..

Gives you the extra "ammo"  But as said above it is the interpretation of the data that is the crux of the matter

It's all well knowing the spawdle valve is not at 3v but what do you do about it..
(yup not a true example, but some of the codes i have seen might as well have been!!)

Ability to reset is sometimes better as you can see when things occur, and most are time / distance stamped depending upon the software you use.

However be wary that if you reset then take to a garage they will check and say "no codes no fault" followed by "£50 please"  so if you do reset stuff take a print first

There are lots of kit available, Carsoft, INPA, BMW Scanner V??, DIS, Progmann to name a few
All have uses in the right hands, some very dangerous in the wrong hands....

[MSPORTBMW]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/310249608189? ... 1439.l2649

Hi there......i bought this one off ebay(china) paid £30 inc shipping.
Now im not a mechanic by any stretch.....but got it mainly to enable things that are not enabled at the factory.
For example....my 04 x5 has Aux vent on the screen, but i really wanted Aux heating. So i played about with it and got it enabled......so now i can go out to a warm car on frosty mornings
There are so many things you can activate....like anti hyjack locking doors etc etc etc
And of course it tells you faults.....although like said earlier, some of them mean nothing to me.

Great little gadget tho.
Hope this helps.
Cheers

[jaynana]

its quite useful, when something goes wrong to know more about the situ than to blindly go lookin for an indy or stealer.. although i also 'most often' cannot sort out myself.

said that, there are the settings that can be changed like said, plus there are the things you can sort out yourself, like the days when webo used to go into a lockout state, or when pdc dies and is replaced..

[jimag]

Hi Imy I bought one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CAN-BUS-U480- ... 43ba2928ae

£12.99 free P&P it works on my 2004 clk and more importantly on my 2005 X5 comes with code book, reads for faults but never had to rectify any BMW faults but read and reset Merc.
Hope this helps Jim

[Imy]

Thanks for the input. Its only £12.99 and the garage is charging £55. However I was unsure how reliable these things are.

I wouldn't want to be in a situation where the obd has thrown a code, I go to the garage and ask them to replace xyz and it doesn't cure the issue... Is it therefore just better to pay the garage the £55 and let them run the diognostics?

[Raj]

The scanner that MSPORTBMW linked is the one I have and tbh it's excellent. Great investment. It will read fault codes just as the garage will and you can use it to enable certain functionality etc as well as reset service intervals.

As with most things its down to your interpretation of the error codes and knowing what they a rurally mean but that is what Internet searches will help with. Most errors are easily interpretable and I tend to to clear everything first time round and read them again after a couple if days to ensure they are genuine issues being highlighted.

[Imy]

Problem im finding is that most scanners require Windows XP... which I dont have. So I would have to find one that purely throws codes out and on the scanner itself as well.

Ball ache, especially since I need to be driving to Birmingham for the cricket.

[Raj]

[quote="Imy"]
Problem im finding is that most scanners require Windows XP... which I dont have. So I would have to find one that purely throws codes out and on the scanner itself as well.

Ball ache, especially since I need to be driving to Birmingham for the cricket.
[/quote]

What are you running as it runs on 7 too with a bit if extra tweaking.

[Imy]

Macbook. Although I could probably do it on the Mrs laptop which I have just downgraded from 8 to 7.

[X5Sport]

On a mac you'll need boot camp and boot into XP.  You need to run it on 32-bit systems on MS products as it's a ball-ache to run it on Win7/64.

Richard

[Raj]

[quote="X5Sport"]
On a mac you'll need boot camp and boot into XP.  You need to run it on 32-bit systems on MS products as it's a ball-ache to run it on Win7/64.

Richard
[/quote]

Solution sorted.

[Imy]

Nice one. Just got back from garage. The light turned it self off and threw no codes out... Problem solved!

I may well still invest in one. Thanks for the help all.