OBD AA service app

Baldytyke88

I notice that the AA(Vixa, wellness for cars) and no doubt others do them, they are advertising an app that plugs into your OBD11 port and gives you health alerts for your car.

Is this useful and are there other free alternatives?

I am with the RAC myself.

Mildly_Miffed

£6/month (or £4 if you're an AA member) for a little dongle that plugs into your OBD port.

So that's £72 or £48/year, and of course it's a rolling small-amount DD, so before you know it it's into a second or third year.

It then connects to an app installed on your phone. If it sees a fault code, it tells you... and sends you an estimate from an "AA-approved" garage that you can quickly book your car in with.

It also reminds you of MOT (free service from https://www.gov.uk/mot-reminder ) and service being due (within most free fuel tracker apps).

Well, for £4 you can buy a dongle outright that'll connect to a free app on your phone to read fault codes. Sure, it won't hook you straight into a garage estimate... And it won't do the reminders (but you can get those free elsewhere - or just use your phone's calendar)

Baldytyke88

Mildly_Miffed said:

It then connects to an app installed on your phone. If it sees a fault code, it tells you... and sends you an estimate from an "AA-approved" garage that you can quickly book your car in with.
It also reminds you of MOT (free service from https://www.gov.uk/mot-reminder ) and service being due (within most free fuel tracker apps).

I have read that some faults are not read by the cheap OBD readers, it needs to be the manufacturers OBD?

Baldytyke88

Mildly_Miffed said:

It also reminds you of MOT (free service from https://www.gov.uk/mot-reminder ) and service being due (within most free fuel tracker apps).

Thanks, just signed up for that. If only other things came with a text reminder.

ThorOdinson

You can buy one for a couple of quid on AliExpress, and use a free app to read any error codes.

Mildly_Miffed

Baldytyke88 said:

Mildly_Miffed said:

It then connects to an app installed on your phone. If it sees a fault code, it tells you... and sends you an estimate from an "AA-approved" garage that you can quickly book your car in with.
It also reminds you of MOT (free service from https://www.gov.uk/mot-reminder ) and service being due (within most free fuel tracker apps).

I have read that some faults are not read by the cheap OBD readers, it needs to be the manufacturers OBD?

eOBD is the legally required standard. EVERY petrol car sold since 2001, diesel car since 2004, van since 2007 MUST fully support it - so a standard eOBD reader will read everything on all compliant vehicles.

But eOBD only covers powertrain codes.

Anything beyond that is outside the scope of the standard, and needs a reader capable of manufacturer-specific stuff. ABS, SRS, body computers, transmission, etc.

400ixl

Baldytyke88 said:

Mildly_Miffed said:

It then connects to an app installed on your phone. If it sees a fault code, it tells you... and sends you an estimate from an "AA-approved" garage that you can quickly book your car in with.
It also reminds you of MOT (free service from https://www.gov.uk/mot-reminder ) and service being due (within most free fuel tracker apps).

I have read that some faults are not read by the cheap OBD readers, it needs to be the manufacturers OBD?

Sort of, most of the cheap OBD readers and free software will only read the short code in the standard, manufacturers can tag on additional information. There are readers and software which will read the full messages and give more detailed information. Some go as far as allowing you to make modifications and re-code the vehicle.

For the vast majority of people the basic OBD readings are fine, and most likely all the AA app will give you anyway.

Are you and Android or iPhone user? Last time I checked the iPhone still needed a wifi dongle rather than bluetooth.

One of the most popular apps on Android is Torque.

chrisw

400ixl said:

Baldytyke88 said:

Mildly_Miffed said:

It then connects to an app installed on your phone. If it sees a fault code, it tells you... and sends you an estimate from an "AA-approved" garage that you can quickly book your car in with.
It also reminds you of MOT (free service from https://www.gov.uk/mot-reminder ) and service being due (within most free fuel tracker apps).

I have read that some faults are not read by the cheap OBD readers, it needs to be the manufacturers OBD?

One of the most popular apps on Android is Torque.

Car Scanner is a good app for iPhone.

Goudy

I use a cheap Bluetooth dongle and various apps, some of which are free or cost very little for the full version and they have covered most of what I needed on nearly every car that needed it 

Torque Lite is free and will read the generic powertrain codes and allow you to load up dials and graphs of various sensors or better still Torque Pro will allow you to load up vehicle specific PIDs.

For Toyota hybrid's, Dr Prius is useful as it'll read specific Toyota codes and codes related to the hybrid system and battery and has a hybrid and battery check program (though it's a bit simplified).

There's another called Hybrid Assistant as well 

None are perfect and you do need to know what you are looking at information wise as they don't usually delve deep enough into all the sub codes, but they can be handy if you understand the information that they give you.