What OBD reader/scanner do you fellow is250 drivers use?

[Mr Vlad]

As the title asks. I'm asking as I'm taking the plunge. Was going to get the Carista but unfortunately due to hardware limitations they don't do one. Oh confirmed by Carista after I emailed them.

So what do you folk use?

[LIJO151]

Techstream 

[Herbie]

Techstream

[Beamish]

Techstream.

[ahmed24]

TechStream

[Mr Vlad]

Silly question now. Where do I get it from? Is it a Bluetooth dongle and a programme on a laptop or phone?

[ahmed24]

45 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

Silly question now. Where do I get it from? Is it a Bluetooth dongle and a programme on a laptop or phone?

It's the official windows Toyota/Lexus application.

[Mr Vlad]

I've looked online and have seen a lot of websites stating Techstream with 16 pin dongles and 22 pin dongles and have found it confusing and wondering if they're genuine or not. 

[Herbie]

45 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

I've looked online and have seen a lot of websites stating Techstream with 16 pin dongles and 22 pin dongles and have found it confusing and wondering if they're genuine or not. 

This one is fine.

[Harrier Man]

I watched the Car Care Nut's videos on You Tube. He was complimentary about XTool's offering but even the D7 was more than I wanted to pay. In the end, I bought the A30M as a compromise and because it covers 100s of different vehicles and I receive lifetime updates. I've only used it once so far on my NX 450h+ just to try it out and it worked fine. It came up with a number of 'faults', which surprised me as the car is fine. I guess the real value will only be appreciated when/if I learn how to use it properly and interpret the results!

[Linas.P]

Techstream or Torque

3 hours ago, Mr Vlad said:

I've looked online and have seen a lot of websites stating Techstream with 16 pin dongles and 22 pin dongles and have found it confusing and wondering if they're genuine or not. 

Techstream requires cheap laptop (£100) + dongle for £40.... and then you have a choice of paying £20 a week for official subscription or else...

Torque requires app for £5 and cheap adapter for £5... but it only covers like 10% of what Techstream does... so value is about the same.  

3 hours ago, Mr Vlad said:

I've looked online and have seen a lot of websites stating Techstream with 16 pin dongles and 22 pin dongles and have found it confusing and wondering if they're genuine or not. 

They are all pirated... The only place to get "genuine" Techstream is Toyota itself, they don't sell it, it is subscription - https://techinfo.toyota.com

That said they want £1200 for dongle and if you really want to go genuine, then you can get eBay dongle + subscription when you need it, the correct drivers should handle it. 

[scudney]

Vladimir, if you do get one, please let us know how you get on with it, as I ordered one a few months ago but couldn't download the drivers/get it to work so returned it and got a refund. Still looking to get one

[Mr Vlad]

Hi John. I've been doing some research and looking at reviews etc. I've decided against techstream even tho it may be the best but I'm not tech/computer savvy and I know if I got techstream it'd wind me up lol. So I'm juggling with 3 hand held scanners at about the 60-80 quid mark. 

Reason I'm finally getting a scanner is because of the dreaded check VSC and other lights popping up a few times a year. Disconnecting the Battery etc etc is just masking a possible fault. With the car being 15 years old some sensors must surely be on their way out so I want to see what's what.

[Herbie]

24 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

Hi John. I've been doing some research and looking at reviews etc. I've decided against techstream even tho it may be the best but I'm not tech/computer savvy and I know if I got techstream it'd wind me up lol. So I'm juggling with 3 hand held scanners at about the 60-80 quid mark. 

I really would stick with Techstream unless any of the others also show the sub-codes, because they help to narrow down the possibilities even further. Look at this example below:

OBD codes are not guaranteed to show you the fault and that's it, it's more of a guidance tool or starting point for further diagnostics. In the example above you can see that code P0AA6 covers six different scenarios, with only the sub-codes to differentiate between them and to help guide you.

[scudney]

I would like to be able to change some of the lock settings etc on my car, and techstream seems to be the way to go 

[Harrier Man]

This recent video shows that even professional diagnostic tools still need someone knowledgeable to interpret the results. youtube.com/watch?v=POEq1a2-aBc

[Mr Vlad]

Absolutely. The best thing on this video is the Tesla graveyard lol.

[Linas.P]

12 hours ago, Harrier Man said:

This recent video shows that even professional diagnostic tools still need someone knowledgeable to interpret the results. youtube.com/watch?v=POEq1a2-aBc

100% - Code is just vague location of the fault, identifying the actual fault still requires understand of how systems work and sometimes the fault is not even caused by the system which is giving the code (like common Battery and alternator issues can throw error in different side of the car).

One useful thing is that if you have workshop manual and the codes for your car, then you can start trouble shooting it step by step. But in my experience code is extremely rarely just points to say broken sensor, it does happen, but it is not common that you get the code, check the description, it says sensor-x, you replace sensor-x and that is done deal... I wish it would be that simple.

And if there are no code but one just need to interpret results by live data, then there is whole other of level of complexity.

I guess what I am saying - Techstream is great tool, but it won't fix the issue for you, and it won't even troubleshoot the issue in most cases, it just points you to the area which you have to research yourself. 

[toffee_pie]

What diagnostic detail do you need? If you are a fully fledged mechanic you would probably have a very expensive scanner, if not there's literally thousands of diagnostic scanners - you need to remember that even the bog standard one's will or should pull engine codes, the rest of the ECUs will be proprietary and will need a higher level of a device - ie airbags, transmission and abs brakes. Torque I use for reading live data as it's useful to give an instant reading on fuel trim and other parameters that tell you how your car is behaving.

I have another scanner that pulls airbag and abs modules as well as all the engine ones. 

So the first question is what do you want from a scanner and how much of the data is useful 

[Mr Vlad]

Hi Eric. I finally want a scanner to get to the bottom why a few times a year I get the check engine light and VCS etc etc. Last time was a couple weeks ago on my way back from Leeds. Left the car alone for a few days started it up to go shopping and no lights. Got a copy of techstream coming and the seller is oh so helpful so I'm glad about that. Was wondering about a cheap scanner. I use to have torque pro app some years ago but seem to remember it was like missing something but there again that particular car didn't throw up any codes in fact no other car I've had ever threw up codes like this one does.

[toffee_pie]

5 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

Hi Eric. I finally want a scanner to get to the bottom why a few times a year I get the check engine light and VCS etc etc. Last time was a couple weeks ago on my way back from Leeds. Left the car alone for a few days started it up to go shopping and no lights. Got a copy of techstream coming and the seller is oh so helpful so I'm glad about that. Was wondering about a cheap scanner. I use to have torque pro app some years ago but seem to remember it was like missing something but there again that particular car didn't throw up any codes in fact no other car I've had ever threw up codes like this one does.

I can tell you off the bat a cheap scanner won't read the modules you are interested in, my cheap dongle is fine to pull engine codes and read fuel trims I can read with torque - if you want to interrogate VCS stuff you need a higher level scanner - I need to check which one I got it's quite good.

[Mr Vlad]

That's why I've settled to get techstream. 

[toffee_pie]

8 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

That's why I've settled to get techstream. 

If you can make use of a £400 scanner that's up to you, I think it's a bit excessive. 

This will read abs, airbag codes and all the engine codes for £50. And no licence fee 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/125663308999?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=im7a9n4usre&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=8aHKHK23TzW&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

I have this, there are OTA updates for all the manufacturers also.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255863169317?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=ebr3th5DQ3O&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=8aHKHK23TzW&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

[Herbie]

32 minutes ago, toffee_pie said:

If you can make use of a £400 scanner that's up to you, I think it's a bit excessive.

Not sure where you get that price from.

All that's needed is one of these cables from eBay and a Windows laptop. Even a cheap old Windows XP laptop from a charity shop or Freegle will do the job, so that's less than £100.

The cables from eBay come with a pirated copy of Techstream. I'm not going to go into the legalities of right/wrong (that's for each individual and their conscience), but even if someone doesn't want to use that, the legitimate software can be downloaded from Lexus and costs something like €5/day or €10/week.

[toffee_pie]

17 minutes ago, Herbie said:

Not sure where you get that price from.

All that's needed is one of these cables from eBay and a Windows laptop. Even a cheap old Windows XP laptop from a charity shop or Freegle will do the job, so that's less than £100.

The cables from eBay come with a pirated copy of Techstream. I'm not going to go into the legalities of right/wrong (that's for each individual and their conscience), but even if someone doesn't want to use that, the legitimate software can be downloaded from Lexus and costs something like €5/day or €10/week.

Unless you are going to the trouble of carrying out repairs it seems a bit much to spend huge sums on diagnostic scanners that are seldom used but If you can get it for a knock off price can't argue with that, even if there's some moral conscience..!