I got myself the Carista OBDII (bluetooth + wifi) scanner and have tried using two different apps (Car Scanner ELM OBD2 and Torque Lite) which are supposed to be able to show a range of sensor data but they show pretty limited data (28 sensors readings in total). The Carista app that you get with the Carista scanner is only a fault code finder and customiser.

 

Both apps are supposed to be able to show, for example, Timing Advance on their free versions but neither show this data on my Mk2 Superb. I paid for the full version of Car Scanner and it still doesn't show this data, and with the Torque Lite app it just shows a dash for the timing advance display.

 

I'm wondering if this is to do with the car sensors not working or whether this car doesn't even have those sensors in the first place - my understanding would suggest any VAG 1.9TDI should have sensors capable of providing timing advance / torsion data.

 

I tried the scanner and apps on family VAG cars and found a similar limited number of sensor readings on a 2014 1.6CR Jetta, but found that a 2003 1.9TDI B5.5 Passat displayed the timing advance data which is telling me it's something to do with the more modern cars.

 

I have read that some cars may require PIDs to get certain types of data but my Googling so far isn't showing much a clear 'how-to' with PIDs and it seems like a bit of a minefield.

 

Has anyone else used a similar scanner with a Mk2 Superb and been able to show a full range of sensor data using a certain app? I was about to buy the OBD Fusion app to try that one out but don't want to keep spending money on something that may just be a limitation of the car sensors.

 

 

Any of these scanners are limited to what the engine exposes via OBD2, and maybe some limited additional stuff if the manufacturer has been able to figure out how to access it. I suspect non-OBD stuff is more likely to work on older vehicles since they've been around longer and people have had more time to hack the controllers and figure out how to gain access. Carista is supposed to be one of the better ones in terms of its ability to read additional data but I have no experience of using it myself. The tools that I know can do this stuff properly are VCDS, VCP, ODIS.

 

I'd suggest you post your query in the diagnostics section of the forums: you will probably get a better answer to your question there.

My Autopolar unit does not display half of what I can see in the ODIS or VCDS, but it is handy having what is does display in the DIS right in front of me without needing the VAS 6150. So I am happy enough.