which vag com to buy

skinz

skinz

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im after a vagcom an not sure which 1 to buy, i've got a 96 1.8t a4, how many pins does mine have and where is the plug on my car, any links would help cheers
 
all the 1's i can find on fleebay are saying there for the A4 B7, cant find 1 for the b5, are the 1's of fleebay any gd or am i better of looking somewhere else
 
i need one for my 1998 S4 as well if anyone can help?
 
I sell the genuine interfaces if interested, feel free to PM me.
 
Steer clear of eBay ones. My old man bought an ebay special and it wouldn't connect at all. I've bought them as they claimed TECH2 etc for Vauxhalls, never worked!

I have a non genuine KKL Interface which works perfectly but to be honest, spend a few quid more and buy genuine, Its gonna work with less hassle.
 
some has offered me a new 1 for £250 but didnt want 2 spend that much
 
just looked at my connecter and it is a 16 pin plug but only has 3 wires going to it
 
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where's the best place to look for 1, i did buy an op-com 1 for vauxhalls of fleebay an it was a nightmare to get to work with my laptop, my antivirus always stops it from starting up but when i do get it working it works fine, it took the bloke who i brought it of 3 days to get the disk to load up on my laptop, he had to send another disk out with dif settings on it
 
Thats the difference though with genuine & non genuine vcds, genuine works full stop every single time :)
 
This is true, but sometimes these things come at a cost, albeit in comparison to audi's hourly rates, a small one at that, at least with genuine you get warranty, full usage, no installation issues, works end of, support from RT, updates free, to list a few benefits :)

You have to ask yourself, is it worth all the time/hassle of searching for a cheaper version that maybe wont work, take ages to get working, sometimes fail when you really need, no warranty, when goes wrong you have no recourse to return, basically its potentially throwing your money away, thats not to say some have got cheaper versions working, but I'm always reading of people with issues with chinese counterfeits/clones, but you never hear 1 person complain about a genuine interface, not 1 to date.
 
TBH chaps, all I have posted is nothing short of the truth & tbh common sense, people are free to make there own choice, but also honestly, not 1 of my customers has ever comeback with an issue, thats a fair few now tbh, keeps my daughter in nappies lmfao.

Oh sorry, 1 did comeback, this was some 1-2 years ago iirc, he wanted na RT label on his cable, lmfao, even though he was advised by me & RT directly it was completely genuine & resellers attach there own labels for various reasons, he still wouldnt listen, tbh it was the most pedantic thing I've ever experienced in my life, reason I put new labels is the existing ones had a tendency to come of with use, so to help customers retain serial numbers on cables, I stuck new ones recessed, he still couldnt see the logic or fact I was trying to help buyers, but alas, these things are sent to test us :), funny thing is he never complained about using the cable lmfao.
 
lol, its just that i aint got that sort of money already got to buy a new turbo an alternator, plus what ever the vagcom brings up
 
Mate I wasnt having a dig just a friendly compliment. How much is it for your your one all in? You still work at that BMW dealership? Smashed the sales record yet for this year? (only kiddin bud).
 
I clicked liked that post :)

Shhhh if word gets around I'm a closet bmw employee, my rep (whatever that may be lol) will be tarnised forever lmfao

I can assure anyone, I cant stand bmw's, driven 2 different chassis M3's & hated both, X5 was horrendous, getting back into my S3 back then was pure bliss, made an M3 look stupid IMHO.
 
There must be at least a few ebay cables that work in conjunction with the freeware versions of vcds/vagcom. A hell of a lot of bods buy them without drama.
 
I started with an e-bay lead and a cracked vagcom 401 and didn't have a huge problem getting it to work.
I did, however think that RossTech deserved payment for the program as it was so good, so registered VCDS Lite (the genuine freeware from RossTech for use with e-bay cables) with them ($90 IIRC) this didn't do the full job I wanted, so I bought a KII lead from them (a cheaper option for older cars), and they knocked off the money I had spent on registering! I felt that although it was expensive, it really was worth it, especially if you think that it will also do all the other VAG cars, and has a limited OBDII function so even if you ditch the Audi you can still use it on other cars.
Most guys on this site will tell you to buy genuine, and once you have, you really become a convert to RossTech!
BTW I ordered it during the snow last winter, and even though I live in the middle of nowhere, it arrived within 5 days, when UK parcels were taking a fortnight!
 
I use an ebay lead, and it works perfectly. Sure it can sometimes require a bit of arsing around with serial-usb bridges and whatnot, but nothing that cant be explained with a few screenshots, and for a cheap get-you-started lead for pulling fault codes from a B5 they're perfect.

I've even taken all the screenshots and put them all in a thread on this forum somewhere, i suppose i should probably dig it out and keep the link handy.

As above, if you want to take it further you can register the software with Rosstech and unlock a lot of the features, and then if in future you decide to upgrade to a real cable, they will refund you the registration cost.

Simple fact is that on the B5 platform, a £10 cable and the free software is enough to do what MOST people need it for.
 
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Agree with aragorn on this on, it's not like there is any further developments on the B5 platform so the vcds-lite will work fine. Yes some of the ebay cables are cr@p but most will work fine, just the usb to serial which causes most of the problems (not a problem if your laptop has a com port). I've had a fair few Audi's over the years and worked on a lot of other Audi's so I ended up getting the full version of VCDS. Now I know the full version of vcds is way better than the lite version, but when your talking about scanning your own car that that is worth about a £1-£2K car you really justify the cost of the full version when vcds-lite does the job!

I know you only get the fault code on the lite version, and not all the nice text like you do on the full version, but just put the fault code into google, I think every fault possible on the b5 has been post on one forum or another.
 
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aragorn said:
I use an ebay lead, and it works perfectly. Sure it can sometimes require a bit of arsing around with serial-usb bridges and whatnot, but nothing that cant be explained with a few screenshots, and for a cheap get-you-started lead for pulling fault codes from a B5 they're perfect.

I've even taken all the screenshots and put them all in a thread on this forum somewhere, i suppose i should probably dig it out and keep the link handy.

As above, if you want to take it further you can register the software with Rosstech and unlock a lot of the features, and then if in future you decide to upgrade to a real cable, they will refund you the registration cost.

Simple fact is that on the B5 platform, a £10 cable and the free software is enough to do what MOST people need it for.
Click to expand...

Aragon, do you have a link or can you point me towards an ebay cable tha will work with my 1998 S4?
Thanks ..Lee
 
Another thing to note is that personally I've never got my eBay cable to work well under Vista but it's great on an XP machine.As stated VCDS lite covers most things you'll need,I've diagnosed ABS faults and dodgy temp sensors that I'd not have found as easily without it.
Now if only I could reset my service counters with the Lite version I'd be very happy!
 
so a ebay 1 would do me fine to read codes, thats all i want it for, so that link to the ebay 1 i put on here will work fine with my car, didnt want to pay out that much money for something i dont really no how to use
 
leeT that link i put on says if ur plug has the no.7 pin wired it should work
 
aragorn said:
I use an ebay lead, and it works perfectly. Sure it can sometimes require a bit of arsing around with serial-usb bridges and whatnot, but nothing that cant be explained with a few screenshots, and for a cheap get-you-started lead for pulling fault codes from a B5 they're perfect.

I've even taken all the screenshots and put them all in a thread on this forum somewhere, i suppose i should probably dig it out and keep the link handy.

As above, if you want to take it further you can register the software with Rosstech and unlock a lot of the features, and then if in future you decide to upgrade to a real cable, they will refund you the registration cost.

Simple fact is that on the B5 platform, a £10 cable and the free software is enough to do what MOST people need it for.
Click to expand...

Aragorn do you have a link to your step by step of the ebay lead working?
I have a 2011 Audi A3 3 door, will it work? using ross tech lite and an ebay cable?
 
Newer models like your 2011 probably use CANBUS for everything and the ebay leads dont support that. Your likely only option is a genuine cable unfortunately.
 
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