Hi guys. I bought a diagnostic scanner from amazon yesterday was only a cheap one for £30 the question I have is 1 are they really any good and 2 can these cheap ones be used on my car? It’s a Octavia vrs mk2 tdi. Have heard various feed backs on these, I’m no mechanic was just one them things I bought as a diy really.

Only one way to find out, suck it and see.

Yeah true, just heard mixture of opinions and didn’t wanna f*** my car if the cheap ones are no good il send it back. I did try n scan girlfriends bmw 3 series but wouldn’t even read that

Initial impressions aren't looking good then.

 

It would help if you gave some details.

The name of the reader is vdiagtool  supposed to read a series of codes and be compatible with a number of manufacturers. My mums Kia it found a code fine, but others have said the cheap one have been known to disable there cars and cause a lot of damage

It appears to be the usual budget box of tricks with limited use for serious use but fine for casual/basic diagnostics.

 

Perhaps the unsuccessful BMW was due to user error as there may be different connection protocol settings that need selecting.

That’s all I want it for mate long as it gives me a code to get the problem fixed. I was unaware of other settings u may have to do so thank u for letting me know. My cars been mapped so didn’t really want it wiping that if these scanners can do that

cheap one from Aldi, does everything I want.

If it's just generic OBD fault codes you want to read and clear etc then a cheap Bluetooth OBD will do the trick.

 

Making actual programming changes required VCDS or OBDeleven etc.

Yeah that’s all I want it for long as it tells me what’s wrong sorted👍 

I have an OBD dongle thing for an app called Torquepro or something, it found a generic fault code on an 18 year old Clio, also bought a reader from Eurocarparts on ebay although didn't know it was them or would have avoided. to date it has never retrieved a code from any vehicle, that and the torquepro one have never found a single code on my Skodas even though using VCDS is like fault code city.

 

I keep them both in the vain hope that they might one day find something usefull on someone elses vehicle but for myself I will stick with VCDS for VAG vehicles and buy the equivalent if ever I change allegiance to another make of car.

I was gonna use mine on my car as I had the eml light come on last wk but as it’s now been cleared by my mechanic who has an expensive machine but if it does come on again il plug mine in just to see if it brings up the same code. 

I bought a cheap ELM 327 dongle to access the diagnostic port which I use with the Carista app for full diagnostics/clearing codes and activating addition features that are already in the car but hidden

Also use it with VAG DPF and TorquePro apps.

A better combination than a dedicated plug-in code reader.

I have bought a couple of cheap OBD readers in the past. Both would read the codes ok and switch off the EML after the fix. However, the first one, the screen 'faded' and could not read it properly. Sent that one back and got a replacement for it but that one went the same way. Then I bought an Autel Autolink after a recommendation from a friend and that has worked fine for a number of years, still use it on 'non VAG' vehicles as I purchased a VCDS genuine lead and downloaded the software from Ross Tech. As people will testify, not cheap but if you want to seriously get into VAG vehicles then you need something like this. My main reason was because I run a fleet of 5 vehicles and as my repairer charged around £40 a time to run a diagnosis on a vehicle reckoned I would recover the outlay in a reasonable amount of time.

As an aside, I live in Kent, TN17, so if anybody needs a scan happy to help.