OBD Tools - Best Value?

L

LivNLearn

Regular Member
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Oct 21, 2022
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I have a 1997 Z3 1.9l and am looking at OBD tools for this car. I've seen the Creator 310+, BMW Scanner 1.4 and various INPA software packages. Can anyone tell me what they've found to be the best value for this year of the Z3?
 
Depends on how in depth you want to go for the money the Creator 310+ does a decent job for a not huge outlay.
( i have one ) I'm sure others will post up what they use and what they think of it.
Stephen.
 
Being a 1997 car its not going to have OBD2 and some scanners will not communicate with it, early cars required a true serial interface cable to connect and run INPA on a laptop. The usb cables used on OBD2 cars will not work on the early cars. The change over to OBD2 came about around 1998/9.
 
colb said:
Being a 1997 car its not going to have OBD2 and some scanners will not communicate with it, early cars required a true serial interface cable to connect and run INPA on a laptop. The usb cables used on OBD2 cars will not work on the early cars. The change over to OBD2 came about around 1998/9.
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Darn. I watched a YouTube video today of a guy using INPA on what he claimed was a 1997 Z3 and saw you could get the software at no charge so ordered a USB cable today as that was cheap option to try.
 
LivNLearn said:
Darn. I watched a YouTube video today of a guy using INPA on what he claimed was a 1997 Z3 and saw you could get the software at no charge so ordered a USB cable today as that was cheap option to try.
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I have the '98 1.9 model and can use INPA on most modules but Instrument Cluster needs the interface/serial port.
I actually fired up my old Windows laptop yesterday, after ~4 years hibernation, to reset an airbag fault.
You can also download free basic Torque app to Android which will read engine fault codes and monitor a few running conditions.
 
I have a c110 scanner which I can keep in my boot and does most things. Inpa on a laptop is more in depth. Ideally I want both but I'm not sure I could work the inpa 🤣
 
I have used INPA, Rheingold and Scanner 1.4 on a '97 1.9L
The only thing that I couldn't read (on any of them) was the dash.
 
Thanks to all for your recommendations. I hooked my older generic ODBII scanner to the car yesterday and it says it has ODBII support so it’ll be interesting to see the results using INPA when the cable arrives. Got it from Amazon so can return it if it doesn’t work on the 97 Z3.
 
I did an update on my Foxwell on Monday evening. While I was doing it I considered buying some Citroen software as a friend is having intermittent fault with the Airbag system on his C4. When I looked into it they don’t do software for Citroen, Peugeot, Renault or any French cars. That’s tells me something.

Tony.
 
t-tony said:
I did an update on my Foxwell on Monday evening. While I was doing it I considered buying some Citroen software as a friend is having intermittent fault with the Airbag system on his C4. When I looked into it they don’t do software for Citroen, Peugeot, Renault or any French cars. That’s tells me something.

Tony.
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@t-tony What C4 is it ? I have a Delphi DS150E Clone which appears to include airbag up to 2012. If I select the later "[11-]" version, it doesn't show airbag. There's plenty of Delphi clones out there at reasonable prices.

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I have an iCarsoft BMM V2 that works like a charm for the Z and also my 118F40, and the BMW era Range Rover. Checked it side to side with the famous INPA (or Reinghold or whatever they call it) and there was not a single menu that was missing from the iCarsoft.
so if you have a laptop and dont have two left hands when it comes to some minor software installation the ideal is to buy a cable from ebay or amazon and go this route.
if you are willing to spend a little more and have a handy reader (with all the options, such as live data, codes reset, data analysis etc) the BMM is the one. No need to spend for V2 or V3, (that do coding on batteries, programming etc) as the Z has a pretty simple ecu and very few functions that can be troubleshooted.
 
Peter12345 said:
@t-tony What C4 is it ? I have a Delphi DS150E Clone which appears to include airbag up to 2012. If I select the later "[11-]" version, it doesn't show airbag. There's plenty of Delphi clones out there at reasonable prices.

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Thank you Peter I do have a Delphi clone (thanks mate, you know who you are) but as you say up to 2012 which is where it runs out of steam as this C4 is a 2016 unfortunately. I am confident the fault is in one of the connectors under the drivers seat cos the couple in question are like little and large, consequently the seat is constantly being moved. If I had the software to be able to delete the light I would have the seat out and try but they live in Co. Durham.

Tony.
 
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