My modern motorcar is a 2013 Superb diesel estate, Elegance model. I have lots of other cars and motorcycles, but they are all too old to need an OBD scanner.

Nearly a year ago I purchased a Carista dongle with a fairly cheap first year subscription (I think it was £30 for both). It seems to work fine and I have used it to help maintain my Skoda to good effect, but the first year’s cheap subscription is nearly up (October I think) and the renewal would be £60. Whilst this is probably a reasonable price, I’d prefer to buy a scanner without an annual fee; also I feel Carista is rather more capable than I need to maintain one motorcar.

I know very little about OBD scanners. I’ve spent an hour or so this morning reading reviews and comments, including in the BRISKODA forum; now I’m more confused than when I started.

I’m guessing VCDS is VAG’s own software, and as such will be much more competent and expensive than I need. At the other end of the spectrum eBay and Amazon are full of hand held, plug-in scanners for a tenner or so. I’m guessing that something between is what I need - but I have no idea what that might be, so my question is: can someone point me in the right direction regarding OBD scanners?

As I said in the above, I only need a scanner for my 2013 Skoda as my two ancient Volvos and 5 motorcycles are all too old to need a scanner. I don’t particularly need Bluetooth connectivity (although it has been quite useful with Carista) - a wired scanner would be perfectly fine. It might be useful to be able to update the scanner online - I’ve noticed some manufacturers offer this - and often free.

It may well be that the answer is to stay with Carista and pay the yearly subscription fee, but if there was something similar I could buy for say £100 that didn’t need a subscription and might last some years I’d prefer that. Is anyone able to help with some advice?

Alan

Purchased this as wanted to code new battery to vehicle.been very handy as its specific to the vw group.it was under £50 about year ago. https://www.autophix.com/product/7610

Obdeleven is pretty good and can also do coding like VCDS but a subscription is required for that

1 hour ago, Othen said:

My modern motorcar is a 2013 Superb diesel estate, Elegance model. I have lots of other cars and motorcycles, but they are all too old to need an OBD scanner.

to code a battery on VAG vehicles you have OBD11 or VCDS.

those are cheapest versions..

for other stuff you can use some generic obd2 tool for 5-50$ and app like car scanner.. maybe torque.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ovz.carscanner

or renew your licence on Carista

Edited 25 August, 202525 Aug by imart143

3 hours ago, imart143 said:

to code a battery on VAG vehicles you have OBD11 or VCDS.

those are cheapest versions..

for other stuff you can use some generic obd2 tool for 5-50$ and app like car scanner.. maybe torque.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ovz.carscanner

or renew your licence on Carista

I used Carista to code the battery, it worked fine (that was the reason I bought it, but it has been useful for other things). The Autophix scanner that David6253 recommended above also claims to be capable of re-coding the battery, and he tells us that works.

That is exactly the point of my question though: how good a scanner do I need?

Having checked my Carista contract, I find that I have until January to decide what to do.

Many thanks,

Alan

Addendum: I can see the Autophix 7610 is available on eBay for £57, which would be less than the renewal price for the Carista licence, with no annual recurring fee - so at first sight I’d probably go for that when the time comes.

Edited 25 August, 202525 Aug by Othen

they do free updates when required also on the autophix site.