Has anyone bought an OBD diagnostic reader off ebay? they’re priced from £6 up which seems like far too little to me. Do they work?

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/recommend-an-engine-code-diagnosis-reader

Fortunately you can google “vw fault code 12345678” or whatever to find out what the code means. Modern cars will quite often show the fault code after the faulty part has been replaced though.

What car is it? F-Super/Mobydic for Fords is excellent, costs a wee bit more than your £6 and needs a laptop but does a proper job.

What software are you planning on using?

Most eBay bluetooth obd2 readers used with torque will only read basic codes I.e. You cannot access the srs airbag system to reset the airbag light unless you delve into understanding the protocols and program something to send the command yourself.

I bought a very basic one and have found it very useful , paid for itself many times over.

I have a SAAB 93 turbo, 2001 vintage, but if i want to fork out for one i’d rather it was versatile. And I do have a laptop

The cheap bluetooth ones are versatile. To quote someone on PH:

It’s the ELM327 chips that actually implement the underlying OBDII protocols and it provides a simple serial interface back to the PC/phone. It should be capable of accessing other controllers, but that would be down to the supporting software application instructing it to do so

You just need the software to communicate with each system and most of the free software e.g. torque just communicates with the engine management system.

This software worked for me (with a £7 Bluetooth ELM327 device) and was free:

http://www.easyobdii.com/free-download/index.php
http://www.plxdevices.com/product_info.php?id=DATASCANXL

The second one, ScanXL, can apparently read ABS codes and the like, but you need to pay for additional modules for it to do that.