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My 2013 V70 has a check engine light / error code.
There are various readers -
- Volvo owners club Vida/dice at £80-100. MUST have Windows 7 Pro laptop (another £100)
- Generic but fit handheld standalone (according to eBay) readers £60 ish
- Generic bluetooth requires app on phone, according to eBay fits/works at £30.
You can tell what I'm hoping - the £30 bluetooth will work.
Any experience of these things?
I find that there's little point in getting any of the middle ground or the Bluetooth junk.
The 20 quid OBD2 ones - if you check the forum for your car there will be a favoured one) or the dealer level diagnostics.
The stuff in between offers little value.
The difference between dealer and the 20quid job is ime the dealer stuff pin points faults much more accurately than the generic codes the cheapies give out
The basic OBD2 readers (mine was about £12 on eBay) are fine for checking general fault codes and clearing them if necessary.
My Lancer likes to ping on the light every 1000miles or so. It's normally because it's a diesel and I haven't given a good, hot motorway run for a while.
I'd say buy a cheap one, if that does the job fine. Otherwise it'll be cheaper to visit a friendly garage.
What a timely post.
I've got a VIDA / DICE interface you can have for £25 posted as we sold our V70 today and we're soon jetting off to live elsewhere.
I can also send a VMware image for VIDA so you can use it within a laptop with an OS other than W7.
PM me to discuss if interested.
I've a cheapie, it'll do the very generic stuff like tell you there's an ABS fault. My mid-price "make specific" one will isolate that ABS problem down to (for example) wheel sensor and capture the data stream. But then it won't let me register a new battery. So I'd say you get a bit more in the mid-range but nowhere near the full set and whether one will find your specific problem is just a punt.
Can you borrow one locally or try a tame garage? My guy is happy to plug in his reader and tell me the problem but then I use him for all my servicing and he knows I'm pretty likely to just say "cool, crack on then" when he tells me the problem!
Mrjmt, you've got mail...
I bought a cheap one for my TT, I had a string of fault codes over about a year and the dash lights were coming on every other drive.
Bought the cheapy, plugged it in, cleared to fault codes after logging what they were, went for a drive and repeated the same process until I had a consistent fault code repeatedly recorded.
Simple sensor failure that Audi’s are renound for, and a quick google on the TT Forums revealed simple fixes and other options.
IIRC, the cheapy cost about £20 and was invaluable when talking “car mechanics for a moron” to the local lad who looks after my car. He, obviously, had a proper set up and recorded the same fault codes and monitored the same codes over a month...
Then I got him to replace the air temp sensor which was making the car run cold for the first 50miles or so.. cost £40 and a scraped knuckle to fix.
Even a cheap one at least let’s you know which code/fault is apparently causing the issue, then allows you to monitor it to see if it’s consistent or just a one off.
A dirt-cheap eBay VAG code reader and free software let me diagnose the airbag sensor failure that was triggering a dashboard light, before the MOT was due. Sadly it didn't save me the £100 cost of the new sensor but did allow me to do my own labour to replace it.
Sadly it also didn't pick up the imminent suspension element failure...
Thanks all - I've a deal with mrjmt for the full fat Volvo VIDA/DICE system. 😎
Transpires that both flow sensors were clean enough and working. Cleaned and put back.
Turbo vane actuation was sticky - so we have cleaned the turbo (£130) with some gadget/device or other.
All codes clear.
Garage still offered to sell the car if we want rid to the other customers they have looking for V70's....