Hello all!

Being new to the world of modern cars (my last was a 1987 Celica), I know little about OBD II systems. But I would like to be more in tune with my car... Especially because it is showing a picture of a yellow car with the words SERVICE in yellow when I turn it on. I don't know what it means and my manual doesn't help.

So, I am thinking of getting some kind of scan gauge. Does anyone have recommendations?

A co-worker of mine bought a CarMD but that thing looks kind of silly since you can't use it on more than 3 cars and you must use it in conjunction with their website. ScanGuage looks legitimate, but I don't want to blindly spend my money without asking the beloved MINI community what they think first. Also, I think I've heard about some Garmin or TomTom that sync with your OBDII? That could be a nice two birds with one stone purchase, if they show error codes in addition to fuel economy.

Any suggestions/recommendations?

Thanks!
Chris

 

I purchased a used SGII from the Marketplace here and has proven to be invaluable. About year or so later ( August 2011 ), it developed a glitch where at WOT the screen would freeze and go blank requiring a full reset. But, even after a reset it would reoccur next time.

I emailed their customer service dept. They fired an immediate email back asking that I ship it in for a free software update and free service !

Got it back about two weeks later good as new. They even included a brand new
OBDII cable probably worth about 30 dollars !

Something to be said about customer service when today seems like it's more like customer-no-service.

SGII has my attention and patronage.