Hello all.

I bought a sub £10 cable off eBay. Does the job, showed me engine fault codes and which glow plugs I needed to sort. So far so good.

It only works on the engine tab in the VAG COM / vcds software; all the other tabs want me to register and of course the seller is silent when I enquire about the relevant codes. Nose not out of joint, it was worth it for the price.

Can anyone tell me where to source cables/ codes/ software that will allow me greater diagnostic capability and the ability to make changes to set up ( set auto locking etc) without shelling out stupid money?

Octavia II Tdi.

The ROSS TECH cable is the only official cable for VCDS/VAG COM. You can purchase the cable/software directly from their website or via one of their approved distributors (all listed on their website).

It is definitely worth paying for it. I use mine all the time!

Thanks for that. How much did you pay?

I think they're generally £200-£250, which puts it beyond what I can justify for the odd bit of coding. If they were below £100 I might go for one but that's a significant drop......

My local family run dealer have always hooked my car up and done the odd bit of coding for free - it doesn't take them any time or cost them any money so I think it's wrong to charge an hour's labour for diagnostics. The downside is I hae to work round when they've got a bit of a lull in their workload which is why you're unlikely to get this kind of service from the bigger chains/multi site garages.

Other than that, you could always see if someone locally with the genuine lead would be willing to help out in return for some beer tokens on the odd occasion you need full functionality.

I don't know if it is/would be a problem, but the reason I haven't gone for one of the cheap/fake cables is because it would be just my luck for it to cause damage!

More importantly you would be ripping off the product. VCDS costs the money it does. There is no point shopping around for it - it'll be the same price at any of the resellers.

There are plenty of people with it and all you have to do is ask and someone is usally more than willing to spend a little time activating what you want etc.

As with all things software - the coders of the software are fully entitled to their money for selling this product, they do not deserve to have their product stolen.

If you really want it, pay. If you can't justify, borrow.

I thought the sub 10 buck cables do not work for the Octy II. Doesn't it have CANBUS which I think only the more expensive cable from Ross Tech can only support?

More importantly you would be ripping off the product. VCDS costs the money it does. There is no point shopping around for it - it'll be the same price at any of the resellers.

There are plenty of people with it and all you have to do is ask and someone is usally more than willing to spend a little time activating what you want etc.

As with all things software - the coders of the software are fully entitled to their money for selling this product, they do not deserve to have their product stolen.

If you really want it, pay. If you can't justify, borrow.

TBH the morality of software piracy doesn't come into it for me. Not because I don't think it's wrong, more that I don't see it as important as te other reasons. Certainly it's not as important (to me anyway) as whether some cheap eBay copy fries my car!

As for shopping around - I was giving a range largely because I have seen people pick it up via group buys for about £220 and have seen it being resold (presumably unofficialky) for close to £300. Clearly it is worth shopping around, as you might be lucky and get in on a group buy, you might pay over the odds or you might pay RRP.....

Like you say, loads of people have it and many are happy to help fellow forumites. There's also the option of finding a friendly local dealer who won't try to rip you off for a diagnostics fee.

The reason I don't fully subscribe to this nonsense about software developers 'deserving' the often wildly inflated prices they charge is because there is one thing software companies, drug manufacturers, creators of aggressive tax schemes, etc all have in common: their pricing strategy is (as it to an extent has to be) to set their price point at the absolute maximum number they ctan charge without alienating people and then reduce it as sales drop off or their work is either copied or improved upon. As a natural capitalist I have no problem with this but if I'm going to attempt to fleece my customers in this manner the. I have to be prepared for others to play the game too and try to get my product for as little as possible.

The alternative is to adopt a 'cost plus' approach and expect people to pay a fair fee for a fair product/service. However, like I say, that's difficult with intellectual property as it can be difficult to apportion costs against an unknown quantity of sales, and you wouldnt expect the seller to reduce the price just because they've for their development costs back.