Best vehicle plus computer/scanner combo?
Posted by Heavy_Gap_5047@reddit | askcarguys | View on Reddit | 3 comments
An aspect of modern cars that isn't talked about enough and should be is having the tools to access all of the vehicle's computer systems. OBD2 is great, but it only accesses the portions of the vehicle related to emissions. It takes more than a typical OBD scanner for all the other dozens of computer systems in the vehicle. For everything from tuning the engine to fixing modern headlights, these things require make/model specific software.
Some vehicles have great software solutions in the market that provide a very high level of access. Some have almost none at all. I'm mostly curious which have the most access available. But I'm also curious which have very little beyond OBD. Which require very expensive systems, which are cheap, etc.
CetiAlpha4@reddit
Forscan is free and works for both Ford and Mazda cars.
But if you don't have those models, try the Autel AP2500E, scans all manufacturer subsystems and about $60 on Amazon. It's limited to one car manufacturer though so if you have multiple cars, you have to pay extra for each additional manufacturer. Good if you're looking for a car and you know specifically which manufacturer you want. Not so great if you're just open to whatever deal you can get on the lot.
I also like the Launch Creader Elite 2.0, it's made for several different other car brands and can do some bidirectional programming, one feature it does is allow you to change the setting so you can disable start/stop on some cars. The Autel is just a basic scanner, no programming abilities.
jtj5002@reddit
Ford/Forscan and it's not even close.
ObviousAlias7@reddit
Ford/Lincoln = ForScan. Best thing you can use short of having the actual Ford IDS/FRDS software.