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TOAD pro OBD and ECU scanner

9K views 7 replies 4 participants last post by  Akshaya 
#1 ·
Hello all! I’ve done some research on scan tools for the last few days and have come
across TOAD in quite a few places. I looked through the forum but couldn’t find anyone on here that has used it before. I’m looking for a laptop based system that I can use across several different car manufactures and models (specifically lotus, Nissan, Mercedes, Audi’s, range rovers, etc.). Anyone have any experiences with this system? I’m sorry if this has been talked about in another thread. I couldn’t find any that talked about this system specifically.
TOAD PRO: OBD Scanner Software for ELM327 on OBDII OBD2 Cars


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#2 ·
Since it is based on an ELM327 hardware interface, I think that it is overpriced at $127 (If i scanned the website well enough).

The android phone application, Torque, interfaces with the ELM327 very simply and is inexpensive too. Any serial terminal application can also send special queries and commands to the ELM327 according to its data sheet:

https://www.elmelectronics.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/ELM327DS.pdf

Then, the end user would interpret bytes according to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs

Thus the entire set of behaviors that the TOAD software is capable of can be replicated with a little bit of data processing on the end user's side.

I guess that if "time is money" then this may not be worth the effort, but the 'magic' that controls the OBD queries is all in the ELM327, as far as I know (so the inexpensive software suites can also be just as capable).
 
#7 ·
Haha it did for a bit. I read reviews on other sites and mostly everything was positive so I felt a little better about it. Really for the lotus, I would just do the basics like read and clear codes. I got a CEL from my intake from not “breaking it in” properly so I needed to clear that and do it again.


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