http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-Design-OBD2-327-USB-Scanner-CAN-Bus-OBD-OBD-II-Tool_W0QQitemZ150263677898QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item150263677898&_trkp arms=72%3A636%7C39%3A1%7C65%3A12&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

By the description, with one of these I could cure anything - has anyone tried one?

I bought a similar one for a fiver. It works fine but the " Scantool"software on the disk was the basic version. You can download higher versions on mine. That one may differ.
Steve.

Thats very cheap. The one advertised in the Jag club mag is about £50

A mate of mine has a ford focus that he is fed up with spending money on.
He got the engine warning up and a misfire. So off to ford he trots where they diagnose coil pack problems.
So they replace the coil packs and leads and misfire goes away........for a few days and now the engine light is back on and the misfire is back.
Is it worth him buying this and sorting it himself? Does anyone know if the car is worth salvaging, it's done 130K

£13 postage - Hmm, manufacturing costs must be keeping low on Mars...

Very temted myself, if it does waht it says.For £20 its probably worth a punt

I did a course with work a while ago on both the volvo engine and the cummings engine (both big industrial engines for trucks and machines not cars) and they told me that all engines made now by every manufacturer use the same system and the engine codes are all the same so if a code 5 is low oil pressure in a mercedes then it is the same in a volvo etc and as they all just use can bus now which again uses the same configuration - on the larger engines its J1939 then it would be fairly simple and cheap to make something like this for the newer engines, I think its the older engines that use all different formats where the problems and complexity come. Let us know how you get on with it if you get one.

I have an OBD reader from ebay that has saved me untold garage fees (robbery)

It is a reader and reset tool and is used about once every fortnight, by work colleages or me, and this little gizmo cost about £20, 3 years ago

what i didnt realise is in the advert this item is also compliant with "MORRIS" and "AUSTIN" !!

those moggy minors must have been very high tech machinery in the 1950's

The ELM 327 chipset works very well on OBD 2 vehicles (generally 2001 onwards) and there is lots of optional software available.

Only problems encountered are configuring a virtual com port on the lap top and setting the chipset to auto scan for the correct protocol of the vehicle being tested.

Worth the money for live data reading and clearing MIL lamp!

I,ve got an early one from Bev Roadman linky thing, its great.

Thing to watch is what the diags mean, as in weak mixture from lambda probe could just be the car running out of fuel.

So you have to work back and deduce the problem. With this one you can log a journey and display vitals while driving.

Regards Mark

My son bought one of those £2+ scanners from ebay, to sort a Mitsubishi.

The item arrived within 10 days, hooked it up and away it went.

Configuration ended up with Com port 5. Probably different on other laptops, but Jr tells me you just have to keep going through the Com options to find the one that works.(That was using Scantool) I'll be finding out for myself this afternoon!

Cheers,
Syd.

[Edited on 29/6/08 by Syd Bridge]

Hi Syd,

Let me know how you get on!

While code readers can be useful, they are far from everything you will need to diagnose your cars. Our scanner cost $12,000 and it still only helps so much.

The only way a reader is going to help you diagnose your car is to get the code, and do research online for your specific car and that code. You might get lucky and throw a part at it and fix it, but I wouldn't count on it.

For example, an dtc for a lean bank could be anything from a missfire, vacuum/exhaust leak, leaky injector, or various sensors such as: either O2,MAP/MAF, CTS, TPS.

As a mechanic I get to see some pretty entertaining (and expensive) things happen because someone got a code and read up on it. People like to think mechanics just plug a scanner in and just do as it says, but that just doesn't work. It still takes years of experience to diagnose and repair cars correctly.

Long story short, code readers can be useful but don't be suprised if you still have to take it to a mechanic. And be even less suprised if what your mechanic says doesn't agree with what the internet say