There are two general types of devices, handhelds and wireless scanners, with fairly self-explanatory names. Not all the best OBD-II scanners are created equal. (Here's how to find your car's OBD-II port (opens in new tab) on North American cars, and here's how to find your OBD-II/EOBD port worldwide (opens in new tab).) OBD-II/EOBD scanners work on almost all passenger vehicles sold in the United States since 1996, in Canada since 1998, in the European Union since 2004, and in Australia, Mexico and New Zealand since 2006.

Saving you unnecessary trips to a mechanic, and stopping unscrupulous types from taking you for a ride. A good scanner can identify if your problem is trivial matter that takes a few minutes to fix, or if it's more serious. Everything else that is gold like fuel trims, load, coolant temp and air intake temp has been more than fast enough for my purposes.On-board diagnostic (OBD) scanners plug directly into your car's access port, and give you a glimpse at what's going on in your car's computer. The only delay I have found was with the RPMs but it's useless. I also had a scangauge on the spyder which was nice for the time but now these smartphones take it to another level. I have been using data logging software since 2002 with an old laptop and Palm. It organizes your logs so you can view them later. Data logging and be done on the fly by just holding the screen and accessing a quick legible boxes to start and stop logging. It has number and graphical representations with big numbers where it's supposed to be.

I also suggest using the dashcommand app because someone designed a great skin exclusively for the MR-S that is easy to read while you are driving so you can monitor a lot of data at once. The main reason I bought it is because it's the only one I found that powers down a half hour after the car is shut off which is convenient. It works great and I never lose a connection.

Wifi vs bluetooth obd2