Scan Gauges and warranty
Submitted: Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 at 17:07
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Tony H15
I spoke with the service manager at Mitsubishi motors today, he said as long as the scan gauge doesn't affect anything, the scan gauge should not affect the warranty. The ads for scan gauges advertised on ebay say they turn off '
check engine lights', do they do this automatically, or is this something you can select on the scan gauge?
Reply By: Member - Frank P (NSW) - Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 at 18:37
Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 at 18:37
Leigh W raised the point about whether or not the Sacangauge might "load up" (my paraphrase) the ECU in Thread 105890, Reply 524898.
I can see Lee's point. As I understand it from reading Scangauge documentation, to get the info it wants the Scangauge has to ask the ECU for
information and the ECU has to reply. More tasks for the ECU, in addition to running the engine. So, depending on how the ECU prioritises its work, the Scangauge COULD be a detrimental processing load on the ECU. I suppose with an ECU that does not have sufficient overhead to absorb the extra load, it may stuff up (technical term) one or more of its primary tasks. (I am happy to stand corrected here.)
Try contacting the
Aussie distributor and ask them if they have any info on this.
Cheers
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525002
Follow Up By: Member - John (Vic) - Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 at 19:39
Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 at 19:39
Would think it asks less of the ECU than the tools/laptop used by Toyota to
check or alter ECU functions.
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806866
Follow Up By: Gronk - Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 at 19:57
Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 at 19:57
Been running a scangauge ( and now an Ultragauge ) for 6 or more yrs and never had a problem with ecu's..
I think if the ecu didn't have enough capacity to run a bit of extra stuff, then it would at times struggle to do it's normal job..
FollowupID:
806868
Follow Up By: Ross M - Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 at 21:32
Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 at 21:32
There are a few things the ScanGauge looks at and it seems to up date every 1/2 second.
It would be no good for the user to have the display a blur of figures. If it is working like that, whatever info it is asking or receiving is coming from a processor running at thousands or million times a second so just a data grab every 1/2 second is chicken feed for the ECU and it is probably just electronically looking and acting on what is presented by sensors and not sucking the tube dry so to speak.
It is interesting that dealers are poised to, not be prepared to act or with hold something because a customer may use one but they often use themselves, the smarter ones that is. Others seem to have not much knowledge of what is around these days despite being right in the middle of the industry. Funny that.
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806878
Reply By: garrycol - Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 at 23:11
Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 at 23:11
I had a scangauge connected to my Range Rover Sport for a year and it worked fine. Would only read high level codes that you had to look up and only clear basic stuff.
A year after I fitted it I had a lightning touchdown next to my car - 2 feet away and lets say the car had issues afterwards as the electronics went wild from the electromagnetic pulse from the lightning strike. After a while I disconnected the Scangauge and there was nothing wrong with the car electronics - it was the Scangauge causing the issues - things like no tacho, hazards on and off, doors locking and uplocking, car in limp mode, no auto changing of the gearbox etc.
The car's electronic systems were robust enough to handle the lightning strike but not the scangauge that was doing weird things to the car when it was plugged in.
I haven't bought another one but I would recommend them for the additional
information it gives you and not the code reading and
clearing ability. Unplug them though if you are parked near lightning.
Garry
AnswerID:
525020