My daughter’s Nissan is not very happy at all and showing the “Eek! Something’s wrong!” light on the dash, so I decided I’d get a cheap OBD2 reader to find out what it thinks is the problem. It’s an ELM327-type Bluetooth device that plugs into the socket and connects to an app on a tablet or phone. Or I guess on a PC/laptop if that’s what you’re after.
Only mine didn’t. On my Android phone, an Android tablet, my Linux laptop and a MacOS laptop the device would show up in a scan and I could attempt to pair with it, but after probably less than ten seconds the connection would drop. None of the four or five different apps I tried from the Play store made any difference. The red “powered up” LED shows on the unit and occasionally I get blue and green LEDs flashing which I assume is something attempting data transfer, but no dice. Not even fluffy ones.
My father-in-law has a Vauxhall Meriva (yeah, he’s the one), so I thought I’d have a try with that. Once I’d found the OBD socket (some of the trim in the centre console has to be removed because it’s “under” the electric handbrake switch), I found it worked just fine. That’s not a good sign from my point of view. Back to the Nissan.
This time I found an app that allowed the BT connection to be made within the app and I managed to get a little bit further, but the data transfer eventually timed out without telling me anything useful. Not happy.
So, I’ve decided to give a wired reader a try. No idea if it will be any better and I don’t really see why it should be, but it’s the next cheapest option.