Newbie - looking for advice on scanners

[Fondu2 0]

Kia ora koutou

Please could someone recommend a bluetooth scanning tool for my X5M 2010.  I watched a YouTube video recommending Vgate iCar Pro Bluetooth 4.0 (BLE) for use with Bimmercode - but on TradeMe says not to buy for BMW.  Might be better options out there of course.  Any advice appreciated.

[M3AN 4016]

Bimmercode is great, check car compatibility and recommended adaptors at their site: https://bimmercode.app/

 

[Fondu2 0]

Many thanks!😊

[Blackie 510]

I bought a $6 ELM one off TM and paired it with the Torque (Light) app. It worked well on my 2006 130i but is Android only if I recall.

[Jun 233]

On 6/19/2022 at 8:08 PM, M3AN said:

Bimmercode is great, check car compatibility and recommended adaptors at their site: https://bimmercode.app/

 

Has anybody used it for Japanese cars?  Is there a difference with Japanese cars aside from the navigation?  Our M5 is a Japanese import.  I would prefer for someone who has coded a Japanese based bmw, and pay them.  As it's a one time code anyway, but I couldn't get anyone locally in Wellington to do it.  

[M3AN 4016]

31 minutes ago, Jun said:

Has anybody used it for Japanese cars?  Is there a difference with Japanese cars aside from the navigation?  Our M5 is a Japanese import.  I would prefer for someone who has coded a Japanese based bmw, and pay them.  As it's a one time code anyway, but I couldn't get anyone locally in Wellington to do it.  

Will work fine on Japanese imports, I'm sure there are Wellington members here that have a means to code for you.

[Blackie 510]

@promo

[Ooonst 4]

I've been through 3 OBD connectors -  my good old USB cable which I've used on multiple (99-2004) VAG cars but seems to struggle on some controllers/protocols with newer cars. I recently bought a super cheap ($15) Bluetooth one off of Trademe which was mostly garbage despite it seeming to pass  a bunch of compatibility tests.  And the last one I got was the Vgate iCar v2 Wireless (I wanted Bluetooth but got confused ordering the "blue" coloured one by accident...) and this set me back about $65 including shipping off of Amazon. I've used it on a couple of cars (06 VW Passat and 06 BMW 335i) so far and seems pretty good. Using it with the "Car Scanner" app for Android which seems to be the best one I've found so far.