Those cheap bluetoooth OBD things off of ebay and the like

[himoverthere]

I bought one of these the other day, because I was going to look at a £450 Micra with the orange light of bother on. From talking to the vendor I deduced that the chain had stretched, so I didn't bother in the end (and bought a £500 Fester instead).

 

Any road up - I've plugged it into the hitherto flawless Civic, and it works lovely. I can see lots of information that means not much to me, but it has good vacuum pressure and all that business. 'triffic.

 

 

However, this morning the dashboard looked like this

 

 

I was quite pleased - it's only done it once or twice before (when it's cold and wet - it clears if you restart the car after 10 minutes), and I thought I could use my new scanner thing to find out which wheel is the issue. The scanner thingummy (connected to Torque on Android) said there were no error codes though, when I was rather hoping it'd tell me which wheel doesn't like autumn.

 

I don't know if this is a limitation of the £3 software or the £9 bluetooth thing or if 'engine management' doesn't cover stuff like this but, you know, pfft - I spent twelve quid on this kit!

 

Anyway - the real question - when I plug the bluetooth dobber into the Fester, the power light comes on, but neither of the others do - they flash away when it's plugged into the Civic. I've never used one of these before - have any of you any idea why it might not work? Cheers.

 

 

[dieselnutjob]

Two things

Is the Ford eobd compliant? Eobd compliance was only mandatory from 2001 onwards.

Even if it is Ford use a different protocol to other cars and some tools don't work on them.

[billyboy406v6]

Had 3 of the gizmos to read me Forester, all failed to connect to phone etc. I blame myself for being stooopid !

[himoverthere]

Two things

Is the Ford eobd compliant? Eobd compliance was only mandatory from 2001 onwards.

Even if it is Ford use a different protocol to other cars and some tools don't work on them.

Yes - it's a 2003. I guess it's probably a protocol thing (goes off to read sellers description of bluetooth thing)

 

Had 3 of the gizmos to read me Forester, all failed to connect to phone etc. I blame myself for being stooopid !

 

Ha! I can get it to connect to the phone, it just doesn't seem to like the Fiesta. It's full of data about the Civic (which seems very healthy fortunately) but for the Ford, nowt. I was sort of wondering if it was possible for the diagnostics to have been disabled to stop the engine management light coming on the dash.

 

EDIT - description says:

 

Vehicle Coverage:

- Works on all OBD2 Vehicles (1996 onwards in USA) and EOBD vehicles (Petrol cars from 2001 and diesel cars from 2003/2004 in Europe)

- Chrysler(1996~2008)

- Daewoo-Lanos, Daewoo-Leganza, Daewoo-Nubira

- FORD(1996~2008)

- GM(1996~2008)

- GEO prism

- Honda/Acura

and so on.

 

Hmm...

[Anthony]

I've had similar issues with one of those bluetooth dongles and as suggested above, it seems to depend on what protocol your car uses (there's several used on OBD2) as mine point blank refuses to connect to some cars (e.g 306 HDi) even though the protocol used is apparently supported by the dongle/software and same car works fine on a cheapo plug in code reader.

[Pillock]

In my 2014 Astra, the bluetooth OBD dingly dongle used to cause faults, not clear 'em.

 

Plugged it in to use Torque (because a 110hp diesel needs a boost gauge, like) and within about 50 yards it cut the EPAS out and threw up a warning light telling me the EPAS had failed, then the stability control, then the ABS.

 

Unfortunately, about 48 yards from my house is a mini-roundabout and straight on leads directly towards some petrol pumps. I can confirm that an Astra on bloody 205 series tyres (because it's so powerful) is chuffing heavy to steer. Thankfully the ABS warning didn't make the brakes cut out too, because presumably they use good old fashioned hydraulics and not electrickery and computers.

[scaryoldcortina]

Lots of the cheap adapters are fussy about connecting to older fords, the cloners didn't get the circuit right for PWM - anything pre about 2004 will be PWM not CAN.

[SiC]

Those cheap ELM327 will only read engine codes on your Civic. You either need a knock-off (or genuine for £££££) HDI (Honda Diagnostics Interface) or a DS150e. If you're into modern chod the last one would be most useful.

[Dead_E23]

I bought one of these for £6.28 and it seems to talk to my '04 Mondeo alright.   This is the third model I've tried; the other two went back because they wouldn't connect.

 

Haven't seen any error codes yet, nor am I in any hurry to.

[Dave_Q]

Worth noting here that OBD is a generic standard that relates to engine fault codes and emissions related stuff.

 

Most manufacturers comply with the standard to the minimum allowable level and anything more complicated needs their own kit. Obviously over the years the aftermarket has developed kit that can do brand specific stuff but that's not cheap either, even the pirated versions of ds150 are a bit much for me.

[stuboy]

I didn't like idea of bluetooth so bought 14.99 one

[beko1987]

My cheap one won't connect to 2002 polos, as I found out after being all Billy big bollocks at work when a fit girls 2002 Polo threw an engine light...

 

Works on my mates modern vag shite though, and the meriva, but not tried anything more than torque through it, although there's fancy vauxhall apps out there that can do a fair bit.

[himoverthere]

Thanks all. Further experimentation was curtailed over the weekend becuase I left the bloody thing at work. It seems though that I need to spend more to get useful diagnostics for either car - which is doubly a shame as the Onda now ocasionally puts the ABS on one whel when there is no lock up - presumably because it stops getting a signal every now and again.

[Kiltox]

Cheap readers like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/122036663195?lpid=122&chn=ps&adgroupid=27377119746&rlsatarget=aud-105106656306%3Apla-181479819186&adtype=pla&poi=&googleloc=1006527&device=c&campaignid=620794543&crdt=0 are good for generic reading of fault codes on multiple cars because they scan for the correct communications protocol before starting comms - I guess that's where some of these bluetooth jobs fall down

DS150 is the daddy but a cheapy like that is handy to have around for quick code reading/erasing