Scotty Kilmer recommends highly against these inexpensive scanners. At best, they give limited useful information....at worst they can cause damage to the vehicle's computers.
^ Scotty is a drama queen. I have a fair knowledge about the ELM327 based dongles but it's too much info to put in a deal post.
Briefly, if your vehicle doesn't use canbus, as many pre-2006 vehicles didn't, then read reviews carefully as many scan dongles that claim all vehicles '96 and newer, don't actually support anything but Canbus, even some that claim they do!
If all you need are OBD2 codes, many will, work, but if you want realtime data and vehicle manufacturer specific code reading, then you need software specifically inclusive of your vehicle, otherwise the tool will just have no idea what label to apply to whichever PIDs it can sense.
Also being bluetooth, look for reviews from Apple host product users because there are extra hoops the developer has to jump through to get bluetooth working on Apple devices, usually people opt for a USB or wifi interface when using apple hosts.
Never tried this software but most people opt for Torque app, free or paid version, or Forscan if you happen to have a Ford or joint collaboration Mazda. However one review for this claims no ELM protocols and I don't know if I trust that (yet) but if true, then it won't work with the majority of 3rd party software out there. The included/designated app might work fine but again, I've never tried it, and if it does try to do more than the OBD2 code set, that will require ongoing developer updates for newer vehicles.
Your best bet is to check on a popular web forum for fellow owners of your vehicle, what dongle make/model that the kewl kidz use.
Comments & Reviews (3)
Briefly, if your vehicle doesn't use canbus, as many pre-2006 vehicles didn't, then read reviews carefully as many scan dongles that claim all vehicles '96 and newer, don't actually support anything but Canbus, even some that claim they do!
If all you need are OBD2 codes, many will, work, but if you want realtime data and vehicle manufacturer specific code reading, then you need software specifically inclusive of your vehicle, otherwise the tool will just have no idea what label to apply to whichever PIDs it can sense.
Also being bluetooth, look for reviews from Apple host product users because there are extra hoops the developer has to jump through to get bluetooth working on Apple devices, usually people opt for a USB or wifi interface when using apple hosts.
Never tried this software but most people opt for Torque app, free or paid version, or Forscan if you happen to have a Ford or joint collaboration Mazda. However one review for this claims no ELM protocols and I don't know if I trust that (yet) but if true, then it won't work with the majority of 3rd party software out there. The included/designated app might work fine but again, I've never tried it, and if it does try to do more than the OBD2 code set, that will require ongoing developer updates for newer vehicles.
Your best bet is to check on a popular web forum for fellow owners of your vehicle, what dongle make/model that the kewl kidz use.
Thank you!