Anyone recommend a car obd reader

[samswatch]

My EML is on and there seems to be a huge range in OBD readers.

I am a bit strapped for cash so was hoping to get the reader, find the error and get a quote for the repair.

So would anyone recommend one that is easy to use and understand.

Car is a fiat 500

thanks

[uktotty]

To be honest they are all much of the same.
I have the orange cabled one from ebay for about £10 and the BluTooth version for about £5
They will all read the codes, then google what the EML actually means.

[ernestrome]

Below £50 there seems to be little difference in function between readers. I use an £5 elm327 clone with bluetooth and the 'piston' app on my android phone, it reads codes and resets them, can also show live data but does not do graphing, which would be really great. It has helped me diagnose and replace several faulty sensors, and where I can't tackle the job, gives me some reassurance about my local garage's diagnosis.

[adrianw]

Where are you in the country, if things are tight maybe you can borrow one,

I have a Snap on diagnostic computer, I'm in north west Essex

[samswatch]

Thanks AdrianW, but I am in N W London which is a way away from Essex.

[JohnnyE]

As said above... Anything around a tenner off amazon will work well. I use the torque Pro android app. Great bit of kit.

[Jeremy67]

Beware, cheapie didn't work in my Panda, maybe it's something with Fiats?

[billymac]

I use an £5 elm327 clone with bluetooth .

This and Torque Pro app on your mobile is a good cheap way of getting into the ecu.

[mowflow]

Cheap bluetooth OBD2 thingy off amazon and the Torque pro app for me. If you're using an iPhone I believe you need a more expensive OBD2 transmitter because the bluetooth ones don't work with iPhone.

If you want something a bit more fancy then obdeleven is supposed to be good. All the VAG boys use it to change all sorts of fancy stuff on their cars settings.

[adrianw]

Cheap bluetooth OBD2 thingy off amazon and the Torque pro app for me. If you're using an iPhone I believe you need a more expensive OBD2 transmitter because the bluetooth ones don't work with iPhone.

If you want something a bit more fancy then obdeleven is supposed to be good. All the VAG boys use it to change all sorts of fancy stuff on their cars settings.

I thought VAG-COM on a laptop was the only one of the cheapie that really worked ?

[kace]

obdeleven will let you make quite a few changes, you need to pay for a lot of the precoded stuff apparently but there is a lot on the net showing you how to enable stuff like auto wipers.

[mowflow]

Judging by the MQB Facebook group there's no real need for buying any of the precoded stuff as all the guides are shared on there. Hardest bit is understanding what you go into and what values to change but there's lots of help online. You can change things right down to how aggressive the differential is

[IAmATeaf]

Can anybody recommend something to do some coding on my sons mk7 golf? Wants to change a few things around. For my bmw I just got an el-cheapo obd2 net adapter and then used esys but looking at some sites for the golf I’d have to get vcsd which starts at around £300.

[Neilw3030]

DiagnosticsS with an eobd code reader is fraught with danger, gives you minimal emissions data only, in depth is vehicle specific data not available in eobd.
Don’t forget the fault code is a symptom and not necessarily a fault. I get calls every week from someone who fixed the fault code only to find the light came on again later.