Diagnostic & Performance Infomation via the OBD2 socket

If you are interested in reading the fault codes and/or performance data, you can do so using a cable to connect a laptop computer to the diagnostic socket under the dashboard above the accelerator pedal.

I was concerned about the health of my 1.6 diesel Fabia 2 and used this technique to read the engine temperature and manifold (boost) pressure while driving. My car onlt has a blue warning light to indicate engine temperature.

The cable came from eBay:-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CAR-DIAGNOSTIC-CODE-READER-ELM-327-USB-1-4a-OBD-CAN-BUS-/150997536637?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:GB:3160

It came with a small CD with 4 demo sftware products which can display a wide range of inforation on performance and temperatures as well as read the diagnostic codes and reset them.

Having tried out several of the programs I ordered and downloaded one from here:-

http://www.easyobdii.com/index.php?act=viewCat&catId=3

Some of the programs are more oriented towards performance data which mights be useful on track days and similar. But that is not what I wanted.

The only tricky bit was setting the computers USB port data speed to match the sofware setting. This can be done via the control panel. For Windows XP it is under System Settings and Widows 7 it is the Ports page under Device Manager.

If you don't have a laptop there are also Bluetooth Dongles which plug into the diagnostic port and send the information to a Smartphone. The software will be slightly different but should cover most of the same data.

These tools should work with any recent Skoda with an OBD2 diagnostic port.

SlowBloke