Is it worth getting an ebay vag cable

[Nolski]

My wife has a seat ibiza and we've had the engine management light on several times. Occasionally this goes off by itself, or we've managed to diagnose the fault, (brake light), I've took it to a local garage, (freind of family), who isn't an electrical mechanic but he sent it on to another colleague of his.

Anyway I was charged £30 to link it up to his diagnostic machine, only for the engine light to turn off by the time it got to the diagnostic mechanic. His software couldn't pick up any faults on the system, and seemingly couldn't find any saved faults in the ecu.

Is it worth getting a cheap vag cable, to use for diagnostics?

I'm just wondering if anyone else has bought one, and can tell me if they do the job, even if it is limited when compared to the full system.

thanks.

 

[Slimy]

It's probably the best thing you could get, especially if this is a one-off issue. If you want to start getting into working on the car then forking out for the full version would pay for itself very quick, but there's nothing wrong with the ebay jobs.

I'm very suspicious that there weren't any fault codes recorded, even my faulty electric window switch stored a fault code!

Any of the £15 ish leads will be fine, but I recommend a UK supplier rather than hong kong. They do all come from the same place, but it will arrive quicker, and you can send it back if its faulty.

 

[Nolski]

It's probably the best thing you could get, especially if this is a one-off issue. If you want to start getting into working on the car then forking out for the full version would pay for itself very quick, but there's nothing wrong with the ebay jobs.

I'm very suspicious that there weren't any fault codes recorded, even my faulty electric window switch stored a fault code!

Any of the £15 ish leads will be fine, but I recommend a UK supplier rather than hong kong. They do all come from the same place, but it will arrive quicker, and you can send it back if its faulty.

Thanks a lot, I'll order one today.

As I say it's the wifes car, and she's happy with the way it runs. We don't want to pay £50 to the dealer each time the light comes on, and similarly don't want to pay this guy £25 for nothing.

The last time the ibiza had a fault, the acceleration was slow for the first few yards. I'd booked the car into the garage for the next day, but in between done a google search which says brake lights can affect the electric throttle. Got sidetracked in between and
totally forgot to check the brakes until after I'd took it to the garage.

Sure enough that was the problem, and got charged the £25 fee, just for looking at the car, and fitting a bulb.

At least I can cut this part out.

at £25 a shot it'd pay for itself on first diagnosis.

 

[Random1989]

i just got one, the cable quality is really good but the only down side is that i have windows 7 on my laptop and the free software you can get from rosstech doesnt work on windows 7 or vista so i'm stuck. you can buy the lastest software from rosstech that will work on new windows but think you need the rosstech lead.

 

[Nolski]

Can you not use windows 7 xp mode in your laptop. IIrc windows professional and upwards has xp mode. Mines got it but the laptop isn't good enough to run it. Any ideas on a cheaper version for the software. These ebay items advertise with a data disc, i'm assuming these will only work with xp?

 

[Random1989]

i dont know if i have one on mine i'll have to check with my brother hes the it expert. the data disc is just driver software for the cable.

 

[Slimy]

i just got one, the cable quality is really good but the only down side is that i have windows 7 on my laptop and the free software you can get from rosstech doesnt work on windows 7 or vista so i'm stuck. you can buy the lastest software from rosstech that will work on new windows but think you need the rosstech lead.

Erm, yes it does. I've got Windows 7 and the shareware stuff works fine. I have to run it as administrator but apart from that it's fine

Some cables do come with the software on the disc as well, but it is just the same as can be downloaded from RossTech. The drivers can be downloaded as well, but not from Ross Tech. So even if they don't offer the drivers with the cable, just search for FTDI drivers and you're set.

 

[Wolvotim]

got mine from hong kong for 5 quid and it works great.

 

[jonesy118]

Got mine from HK, cost about £8 and as said, to get it working on win7 and vista, right click and run as administrator. Once received I Did a full scan for fault codes and TB alignment with mine. Well worth the money

 

[Random1989]

what software do you use can you send it to me please [email protected]

 

[Slimy]

what software do you use can you send it to me please [email protected]

Just download it from here;

http://www.ross-tech.net/vag-com/download/1405/Release4091s.exe

 

[oma]

Random1989
i just got one, the cable quality is really good but the only down side is that i have windows 7 on my laptop and the free software you can get from rosstech doesn't work on windows 7 or vista so i'm stuck. you can buy the latest software from rosstech that will work on new windows but think you need the rosstech lead.

There are some drivers available which may work with Win 7.

http://www.ftdichip.com/FTDrivers.htm

 

[F2 Ed]

I've just ordered one of the £10 ones for my window 7 laptop

hope it works lol

 

[Slimy]

I've just ordered one of the £10 ones for my window 7 laptop

hope it works lol

You'll be fine. It's actually Vista that I had most trouble with. XP and 7 seemed to work with only a bit of messing around, but a recent attempt at getting Vista to recognise the lead just met with complete failure. There wasn't even a clue on what it was having trouble with!

 

[Random1989]

i'm going to try that driver tonight and if i have no joy i may need some help from you slimy what revision of vag software do you use ?

 

[Random1989]

i downloaded the software from that link you sent me but even if i click run as administrator the computer starts loading but nothing comes up and the computer its only months old.

 

[Slimy]

i downloaded the software from that link you sent me but even if i click run as administrator the computer starts loading but nothing comes up and the computer its only months old.

Let me ask one question, is it 32 or 64 bit Windows 7?

 

[Random1989]

64 bit

 

[Slimy]

64 bit

Oops....

I don't suppose you have another laptop do you? Or some means of running a 32 bit OS on there?

I've not worked on the 64 bit editions yet (thankfully!), so there's not much I can help with. There is a few discussions on here about 64 bit windows, but I didn't really pay much attention.

 

[F2 Ed]

You'll be fine. It's actually Vista that I had most trouble with. XP and 7 seemed to work with only a bit of messing around, but a recent attempt at getting Vista to recognise the lead just met with complete failure. There wasn't even a clue on what it was having trouble with!

Works fine with Window 7
Didn't even need any drivers, just plugged it in and windows did the rest on its own