Dear hive mind

I have an OBVEleven dongle (a couple, in fact.  although both appear to have been put in  _very safe place_).  But I'm looking for a general purpose scan tool that can do deep reads, adaptations and commands on most vehicles.  I have currently a Peugeot 308 (2014), skoda fabia mk1 (2008 ish), toyota corolla verso (2008), a new style Beetle (2015) and a newish MG (2023)..  I'm looking for something that covers these at a reasonable buget (say <200).  

 

any recommendations please?  Currently I use the obdXI for the skoda and beetle (when I can find it), a special cable and some linux software for the toyota and I have nothing for the Pug or the MG.  I'd rather standardise on one thing that I'm less likely to lose! 

1 hour ago, jpadie said:

any recommendations please?

Either buy something that will do one marque, say VAG, well, or buy a generic tool that will only do engine faults and possibly not all of them.

35 minutes ago, Paws4Thot said:

Either buy something that will do one marque, say VAG, well, or buy a generic tool that will only do engine faults and possibly not all of them.

Oh!  is that the trade off?  

 

so garages etc have to have different scan tools for each marque? 

Unfortunately I'm unable to recommend what I use due to it being cloned software, however it is the best multi-marque pro-class software I've ever used and like the proverbial 'oracle' it seems to know the 'location' of everything. I bought it on eBay for a twitch under £100 and it was installed on my ancient lappy which runs it easily.

Thank you for that @sepulchrave!

 

I've seen on Amazon, eBay and other sites that the purchase of some software scan tools mandates a remote installation by the vendor.  This seems profoundly unwise even on a throwaway lappy.    I'm still hunting and am on my way to Greece to check out Mount Parnassus.  

 

Yes, I had it remote installed and there were no problems at all, as you say it feels unwise but I figured there was nothing they could do with my ancient lappy and so it transpired.

1 hour ago, sepulchrave said:

Yes, I had it remote installed and there were no problems at all, as you say it feels unwise but I figured there was nothing they could do with my ancient lappy and so it transpired.

 

Just don't allow it on any network with your other devices and don't allow it to connect to the internet.  It's fairly trivial to cross infect over networks, harder but possible to compromise perimeter devices and if it connects to the internet it's entirely trivial to co-opt it into a bot-net or remailer.  

On 09/07/2024 at 12:34, jpadie said:

Oh!  is that the trade off?  

 

so garages etc have to have different scan tools for each marque? 

No but they have a bigger budget for that sort of tool, so you will find many spend >£1000 on something that'll do the majority of cars they see on a daily basis. Different league, as it's their living.