Good cheap scanner?

[Matt275]

Hi all,

I have a B7 Sline, a B5.5 Passat and a mk4 Golf.

Is there a half decent scanner out there for sensible money that works well on VAG stuff?
It's only for occasional random scans and finding codes if there are any EML's etc...

Just something to keep handy in the garage really, nothing too fancy....

 

[Dan_G]

I have a Carly and it seems to detect most things.

Can reset fault codes etc and turn on features. Wasn’t daft expensive.


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[Matt275]

I have a Carly and it seems to detect most things.

Can reset fault codes etc and turn on features. Wasn’t daft expensive.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Is that a wireless to your phone or a handheld cable type?

 

[Charlie Farley]

Or look out for a user selling a used vcds cable , some bargain around and for genuine kit too.

 

[Matt275]

Or look out for a user selling a used vcds cable , some bargain around and for genuine kit too.

Would something like that give me full VCDS on my laptop?

 

[Charlie Farley]

yep, if you lookout for a usb cable version it will plug into laptop or PC etc.

I use one on my laptop, I'm running a fairly old software version with a HEX+CAN cable now but more than fine given its a b7 i use it on , covers up to 2014 if I'm correct unless i update the software .

 

[Matt275]

yep, if you lookout for a usb cable version it will plug into laptop or PC etc.

I use one on my laptop, I'm running a fairly old software version with a HEX+CAN cable now but more than fine given its a b7 i use it on , covers up to 2014 if I'm correct unless i update the software .

Nice one, lots on ebay, I'll have a squint around.

 

[Dan_G]

Is that a wireless to your phone or a handheld cable type?

Wireless to your phone.


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[northpole]

Nice one, lots on ebay, I'll have a squint around.

Mate you need to check what you are buying... the cheap ones come with certain headaches... cracked software etc... so if you aren't good with software installs, know how to tell the software not to flag the installer as a virus etc... just buy a purpose standard vag obd2 scanner. That will give you the option of reading all the modules, tell you wallet faultcodes are there and erase them, but the best thing also reset the service counters on one click.

My neighbour has one and he is happy with it. I prefer VCDS full oem hex + can but at the moment I'm using my old kkl 4.09 cable with vcds light full version... it works but is buggy. Some modules want the hex connection it still reads them but erasing codes or recoding well it sometimes has to be done 4 or 5 times before the slow kkl commands do what they should.

So make a decision based on what I told you. Those wireless things... if you want that.. go for obd11 as it gives you the option to reprogram stuff too.

 

[Rob Avant]

OBD11 is decent. Works well on the old wagon and my MK4.

 

[Charlie Farley]

Maybe a case of get what’s within your budget really given it’s only for the odd usage.

 

[swisstony]

OBD11 is decent. Works well on the old wagon and my MK4.

Another one for OBD 11. I have tried loads of them ( Carly etc ) and the one I have works well across the VAG range. On my two B7's , my son's golfs and so on so will do everything you need and is not too expensive. Sure the VCDS is a nice thing to have for more complex stuff but by the sounds of it OBD 11 will do the items you need . You are lucky the cars in your fleet are all VAG, I currently have OBD 11 for the Audis, another OBD reader with bimmercode for the X6 and Forscan for the fords...grrr.

 

[jdp1962]

How about Carista?

 

[Matt275]

The trouble is with a Carly or Carista there is a £50+ a year subscription fee....

 

[jdp1962]

The trouble is with a Carly or Carista there is a £50+ a year subscription fee....

Ah, right, I didn't realise that. I joined Carista donkeys' years ago when they offered a one-off lieftime subscriptioon.

 

[swisstony]

The trouble is with a Carly or Carista there is a £50+ a year subscription fee....

They all now do something similar, the business model has changed. Carly does the subscription model ( which btw is auto renew so I cancelled my auto renew immediately ) , OBD 11 does the whole buy credits to unlock features , Bimmercode ( from the app store ) is free to download but if you want to do anything remotely useful you have to pay for the in app purchase. Just the way it is. The only thing I found was my OBD 11 with a one off purchase that came with 100 credits, I have never had to pay for anything since I bought it and only used like 10 points out of the 100. Cant even recall what it was but everything like basic coding, adaptions and code reading is free.

 

[B7Tourer]

Another vote for OBDEleven. I too have hardly ever used the credits; coding and adaptions are pretty straight forward and not far from VCDS in completeness and usage; used it to code lock beep, Scandinavian DRLs and change from long life to fixed service intervals; reads every module down to bulbs out too on cars without a trip computer and DIS warning. I was lucky I bought my Pro lifetime one off payment before they changed it to yearly fee.

Just a warning, I left my dongle in the port for a few weeks, thinking it doesn't draw any current unlike the cheapies. I was driving every day so didn't have an issue. Recently I've left the car for up to 3 days - had to call out the AA, with a flat battery, which is almost new and heavy duty. left it out since and no issues; battery tested good.

 

[Sidrick]

Another for OBDeleven. It's done everything I've ever needed it to do across a large number of VWs and Audis. The apps are really handy and the interface is great. Never had to buy credits and just use free ones that I've accumulated through using it.

Like the gent above, I was an early adopter so have a lifetime pro licence. Not sure I'd be as eager to recommend based on a subscription service.

 

[Charlie Farley]

does this apply to any scannner thats ODB11 or specific devices?

 

[Charlie Farley]

I was about to order this .

 

[Spike107]

I just bought one of these to clear an emissions light... Worked brilliant and very easy to use.
You dont need to buy credits for fault code clearing.

Download app to your phone , scan car for 5mins, clear errors. Job done.

 

[B7Tourer]

I was about to order this .

I don't think that scanner will give you anything but engine codes, maybe better than the cheap OBDII scanners that work with Torque but unlikely to access any other modules - those tend to be model or make specific. There are many Chinese units on the market now that do access other modules but they are reverse engineered rip offs and not totally reliable. OBDEleven is actually officially sanctioned by VAG, unlike even VCDS, I think - Vagcom is the official one. For example OBDEleven can unlock the SFD codes on newer cars, to get to the modules, which I don't think VCDS can yet.

You don't need a Pro subscription with OBDEleven to clear engine codes, and I think it will work free just as well and better than the one you linked. But if you want to mess with coding and adaptions then you will need the Pro - in my view worth every penny, in my case. As said it may not be worth that to others, with the now yearly fee.

 

[Sidrick]

If you only ever need to scan and clear codes, then the Torque mobile app and a cheap Amazon Bluetooth OBD2 device works just fine.

 

[northpole]

If you only ever need to scan and clear codes, then the Torque mobile app and a cheap Amazon Bluetooth OBD2 device works just fine.

Torque only does engine codes not the rest, and this is why you either want a VAG decicated OBD2 device that can read all modules, OBDEleven with it's dongle or VCDS running on a laptop with a cable. (where the last 2 also give you the option to retrofit otions and recode everything)

 

[adrianc1]

Carista doesn't support B7 unfortunately.
I have a Thinkdiag scanner, which is pretty good, but quite slow. And the subscription is not cheap.

I'll be moving to vcds soon I guess.