Originally posted by britishtrident
quote:
Originally posted by 907
I think you are probably looking at a knock-of copy of one of the early Autel AL300 series, Autel make good scan tools really best to avoid buying a knock off as buying one is a gamble.
It is a gamble, but the odds are entirely in your favour. I've bought 7 I think, I know of at least 3 other people with one for each car. So probably about 15 in total, across a range of brands and models. No problems with any of them.
But there is always a risk it's not going to work or does damage.
Mr Whippy - 8/6/17 at 12:21 PM
you've most probably got a sensor fault. My Volvo engine light came on but ran just the same, reader said oxygen sensor 2 heater not reading (been thrashing the crap out the car at the time so probably got it too hot), many of the sensor have backups so the car will run as normal but they should be fixed still.
907 - 8/6/17 at 12:28 PM
Thanks for the replies.
@ BT
Didn't really want to spend £60 on one to be honest.
@ DW100
The cars an '03 mark 2.5 S-VT with the 146bhp engine.
There's a socket in the fuse box by the bonnet pull. (by your r/h knee)
pekwah1 - 8/6/17 at 12:51 PM
for a fiver, why not give it a bash and see what you get?
907 - 8/6/17 at 02:37 PM
I have ordered an Autel MS309 for a tenner.
Thanks for your help everyone.
Paul G
chris - 8/6/17 at 10:13 PM
i got one off ebay £18 works on my vauxhall plugs into my laptop so think i get live data
ianhurley20 - 9/6/17 at 07:58 AM
A bit late to this thread, I have a Maxiscan which works fine but is very basic. I also have cheap blue tooth dongle thing which cost about £2 ish of ebay. I use that with my android phone and Torque light which is very good, free, and also gives live data. I have used it for a few things to monitor boost, temp and other things to compare to the cars own instruments, interesting to find what the bar graph instruments actually mean. They both work with OBD II only which officially came in in 2004 but several cars have it fitted before it became a requirement in 2004.
907 - 13/6/17 at 08:22 AM
The MS309 reader arrived; watched a few youtube vids on how to use; and to my surprise easy peasy.
It came up with " P0172 rich bank 1 " Deleted this and now no light. Yayyyy!
This could be a problem with the mixture, or a problem with the O2 sensor.
I will check for dirty air filter and colour of plugs as a starting point.
Best £9.99 I've spent for a long time.
Cheers
Paul G
britishtrident - 13/6/17 at 04:04 PM
Just a P code without being able to read live data live data makes it very difficult to tell if this a genuine rich condition or a false rich .
A false rich condition can be caused by a faulty O2 sensor but often that would also flag an O2 sensor inactivity code in the ( P0130 to P0135) often
codes relating to air fuel ratio and 02 sensor activity are only triggered after clear once one or two drive cycles are copeted.
Simplest quick test for a common cause of a genuine rich condition is to examine the fuel pressure regulator for a leaking diaphram see this Paul
Scanner Danner YouTube video
907 - 13/6/17 at 04:16 PM
Quote BT
often codes relating to air fuel ratio and 02 sensor activity are only triggered after clear once one or two drive cycles are copeted.
After putting the light out I drove into town this afternoon ( 16 mile round trip ) and the light came back on. 
Paul G
britishtrident - 13/6/17 at 07:16 PM
The usual key to tracking down this kind of fault is to compare the pre-cat oxygen sensor signal output with the post-cat sensor output and force the
fuel lean (create vacuum leak) and rich (add propane to the inlet) and watch how the sensors respond and also watch the fuel trims, but for that you
need to be able to read live data.
As an alternative you can test out the pre-cat sensor with a multimeter start by checking the sensor heater 12v power and ground, disconecting it
checking the sensor heater for continuity and resistance (normal expect about 2.5 to 6 ohms) .
Also with the sensor disconnected check ressistance between the O2 sensor signal output and the heater wires --- this should be infinite.
You can then reconnect the sensor and with engine warm check the voltage between the sensor output terminnal and battery earth. With the engine warm
If the signal from the sensor is rich this wiill be about 0.7 to 1 volt, if it a true rich condiotion and you create a vacuum leak this should fall
below 0.5v , if you have false rich condition caused by a bad sensor or shorted wiring then the voltage will stay above 0.. It isn't uncommon
for the signal from the sensor to the ECU to be shorted to power giving a false rich, the short can be internal to the sensor or wiring which is
exposed to both vibration and heat.
In the oposite case a false lean the sensor is shorted to ground.
This a good Paul Scanner Danner video on a false rich from the pre-cat O2
britishtrident - 13/6/17 at 07:32 PM
quote:
Originally posted by ianhurley20
A bit late to this thread, I have a Maxiscan which works fine but is very basic. I also have cheap blue tooth dongle thing which cost about £2 ish of ebay. I use that with my android phone and Torque light which is very good, free, and also gives live data. I have used it for a few things to monitor boost, temp and other things to compare to the cars own instruments, interesting to find what the bar graph instruments actually mean. They both work with OBD II only which officially came in in 2004 but several cars have it fitted before it became a requirement in 2004.
Torque works and shows a lot of data PIDs but boy is it slow try OBD Car Doctor the graphing is much better (faster) than on Torque. If you try it and like you can pay for the unlocked pro version.
The graphs that are most useful are the pre-cat (B1S1) sensor and post-cat (B1S2) sensor -- watching the two together will tell you if your cat is working and if your engine is running rich or lean. The very other useful ones are the MAF airflow grams/sec and short term and long term fuel trims. Adding together STF and LTF is good way to spot developing faults if the engine is running within limits the result should be less than +/- 10%, in an engine in a good state of tune the total fuel trim will typically about +/- 3%. even at 100,000 miles plus.
[Edited on 14/6/17 by britishtrident]