GeniScan and MaxiScan Code Readers are the perfect choice at an affordable price for car-owners, DIY customers and professional technicians to read and reset OBD-II / EOBD diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs).
Got a service or MOT coming up? Save big money by finding out any fault-codes that may be present BEFORE you get a telephone from the garage warning of expensive bills.
The box says that the tool works with vehicles from 1996, why do OBDII and EOBD tools not work on all cars from 1996 in the UK and Europe?
Although the VAG405 will work on older VAG based vehicles because it is a manufacturer specific scanner, this is not the case for the OBD-II scanners GS300, MS409 and GS500. From 1996 in the United States, a Federal Law came into force requiring all US-sold cars to be OBDII compliant (On-Board Diagnostics Second Generation). Most OBDII tools shared with the US market are therefore advertised as working with all cars from 1996.
Importantly, the OBD-II Federal Law applied only to cars sold in the US.
In the UK and the rest of Europe, our equivalent law (European On-Board Diagnostics, or EOBD) did not come into force, and more importantly, was not fully implemented by all our car manufacturers until 2001 for petrol cars and 2004 for diesels. Where an OBD-II tool is sold in the UK/Europe claiming to work on all cars from 1996, this is highly unlikely to be the case. Even where a seemingly identical car may have been sold in Europe and the US before 2001, it is rarely the case that the European model will be 100% OBDII/EOBD compliant.
Therefore these tools work with European 2001+ petrols (and similarly 2004+ diesels) rather than simply duplicating the sales information from the US.
Do Code-Scanners work with any UK/European cars before 2001?
Yes they do but certainly not across the board and very rarely back as far as 1996. A few manufacturers that we know have some OBDII/EOBD support (on petrol models) before 2001 are listed below:
Ford - most petrol cars using the EEC-V engine management system
Jaguar - most models from the beginning of the X300 series
Volvo - some models
US imports from 1996 (e.g. Lincoln Town Car)
A few examples of European manufacturers that have had very little success connecting OBD-II/EOBD tools on pre-2001 models are:
Vauxhall
Peugeot
Citroen
Fiat
On the other hand, we have found that some Japanese and other Asian vehicles circa 1999 equipped with a 16-pin OBD-II socket tend to work fine with OBD-II (good news!) but please check with someone who has knowledge of your car before committing yourself to buy..
eBay WARNING!
Did you know that if you see a cheaper scanner on eBay, you will probably end up paying nearly 70% more for it?
Example:
eBay price £69.00 + Postage £25.00 [usually hidden] + Import Duty £16 [MINIMUM!] + VAT = £124.88 !!!!!
