OBD II readers

[Top down]

Can any one  shed some light on this annoying problem. Whenever i get an engine warning light come up on the dash I try to connect one of 3 readers { my last one was a bluetooth connected to my phone} only to find that i can't get them to work.  I have checked the fuse which is associated to the ODB socket, its a uk car on an 06 plate.  My garage has no probs reading the codes on a cheap and cheerful reader.  So I am at a loss and reluctant to buy a forth reader.

[Ardent]

Is your phone an apple phone?
They seem to prefer wireless vs bluetooth

[thetyrant]

What are you using to connect ? and when you say doesnt work what do you mean exactly as in can not connect to ecu ?  or it connects but just doesnt read any error codes ?

Some OBD dongles and readers can be a bit fussy about connection and also ive found some dont read the errors as well as others, on my BMW for example when i had an EML the Torque App via OBD bluetooth dongle didnt show anything wrong, however using INPA bmw diagnostic software on my laptop plugged into OBD port it of course showed everything as you would expect, same on my dads Yeti the Torque app didnt show an error that another App (carista i think) did, not all obd adaptors/readers/apps are the same and some dont connect to all modules on the cars which is why you get this sometimes and can be a bit hit and miss, especially with free app's on phones. 

I must say on older jap cars ive had including the MR2 that Torque has usually worked pretty well for codes with my cheap Bluetooth OBD dongles.

[jvanzyl]

I've had several Bluetooth obd readers... all of which have failed after a while. Bearing in mind they were not expensive to buy and it's likely that the electronics were very cheap and poor quality.

However I don't like being stuck with out an reader so I purchased a nice bog standard cabled one which lives in the glove box and I can take out and diagnose a problem as soon as it occurs.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B013DSTPWY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_image?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I bought it a year ago and it's still going strong with no issues.