The Money Mustache Community

Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Do it Yourself Discussion! => Topic started by: Exflyboy on June 11, 2016, 01:58:59 PM

Title: OBD ll scanner
Post by: Exflyboy on June 11, 2016, 01:58:59 PM
For a few years I have had this ELM 327 diagnostic interface in my drawer, bought for $15.. But I didn't have a smart phone or table to run the app with.

We now have a tablet so I downloaded "OBD Car Doctor" app from Amazon for free.

Darn thing actually worked!

Works to diagnose and clear codes (I made my car set some codes) plus gives a read out of all the engine sensors in real time.. Gee you can drive it and diagnose while driving.. well not YOU personally if your driving of course.

It also draws a graph for each of the sensors along a time axis.

Apparently there are some problems with ELM 327 chips with firmware release 2.1.. Mine is release 1.5 and works perfectly!

Should save a trip to Autozone when I need codes read..:)
Title: Re: OBD ll scanner
Post by: forummm on June 12, 2016, 01:08:01 PM
I have a similar device and an app specific to my Leaf. It has a lot of stats about the battery, charging history, etc. It's fun to see what's available that you normally don't know about.
Title: Re: OBD ll scanner
Post by: HPstache on June 12, 2016, 02:27:54 PM
I love mine too!
Title: Re: OBD ll scanner
Post by: Gibbelstein on June 13, 2016, 02:19:13 PM
I started using one with an app called Torque (android).  I've not used Car Doctor, but Torque has proven worth the few bucks it cost for the paid version.  I almost wish I had more CEL problems to give myself an excuse to use it more. =)

One of the more useful things I have found with it so far was that I could use it to diagnose my 02 sensor by tracking the readouts over a longer drive and exporting that data to a spreadsheet and graphing it in Excel. 

The only downside was that the instantaneous MPG calculation function for it seems to be wrong for my car.  It can be adjusted manually, but it would be through trial and error over several tanks of gas, so I lost interest.  My car does not have an MPG gauge and I didn't want to spend the money for a dedicated one. 
Title: Re: OBD ll scanner
Post by: Exflyboy on June 13, 2016, 03:46:03 PM
Yes Torque Pro was recommended to me when I bought the chip. I was looking for it but could not find it on the Amazon Fire Tablet (they have the Google Play store locked out.. Apprently you can hack the tablet to get Google Play somehow).

So there are lots of apps for reading the chip on Amazon so I just picked the one with the highest ratings.. It just happened to be free..:)
Title: Re: OBD ll scanner
Post by: HAPPYINAZ on July 04, 2016, 12:54:48 PM
I use Torque on my Android phone for my old jeep cherokee.  It's been so very helpful in diagnosing....I can take screen shots of codes and text to my mechanic friends who can tell me if it's something to worry about or what the likely fix is.  I can also clear codes and then see if they come back or were just some sort of temporary glitch.  Definitely worth the little money I paid for the unit that plugs into the computer port in the car.  Love it!
Title: Re: OBD ll scanner
Post by: catccc on July 07, 2016, 10:21:04 AM
People rave about these things, and have suggested I get one.  But I think I'm still going to hold off.  I pass by the autozone often enough so that if I need a code checked, I'll just stop.  More than that, since I'm striving to own less stuff, I'm glad to not have another thing in the house that isn't frequently used.  I would still consider one if I started having recurring problems with our vehicles though.  And graphing data in excel sounds pretty awesome.  Fingers crossed that it isn't needed, though!
Title: Re: OBD ll scanner
Post by: acroy on July 07, 2016, 10:35:26 AM
They are awesome as a tool, and even better if you're a gearhead. I use one of the $15 scanners from Amazon and the $5 Torque app on Android. Really excellent. Cheap enough to keep in the car to have handy at any time; so if the 'check engine' light comes on while miles from civilization or on vacation, you can figure out immediately what's going on.
Title: Re: OBD ll scanner
Post by: Jack on July 07, 2016, 03:21:06 PM
I have a ScanGauge II, which is more expensive but lets me monitor stuff like MPG and water temperature (things I don't have "real" gauges for) in real time. Unfortunately, I can't use it anymore on my current car because it's too old to have ODBII!
Title: Re: OBD ll scanner
Post by: Syonyk on July 07, 2016, 09:05:18 PM
I've got an OBDLink MX (which is, uh, $99 or so) and I make good use of it.

I went with that because it's one of the few brands that is well known to tolerate the weird, OBD-II-esque dialect my truck speaks.  It's a '97, and speaks mostly OBD-II, but it's got some variants that trip up the cheaper scanners.

Totally worth the money, though.
Title: Re: OBD ll scanner
Post by: CmFtns on July 07, 2016, 09:47:00 PM
got cheap bluetooth scanner and torque for android as well... But not many car problems so only used it a few times for CEL

All the car data it can give is interesting though