Hi: Should I give the dealer $129 to shut off drive away locking and tell me source of CEL? Or should I buy a mongoose and do it myself? Can a person with reasonable computer skill use a mongoose on a 04 xj8 to get stored codes and alter driveaway locking mode without rendering the car un-driveable with an errant key stroke? Apparently a mongoose can be had for half what an hour of dealer time costs. Or do I have that wrong? Thank you. --Tom in Tucson

 

Is it that cheap? If so it's time for me to get it. I've ran into way too many stupid problems lately to not have it.

 

You can read powertrain codes with a $12 reader, or allegedly autozone can do it for free.

A Mongoose would read more stuff, but it needs a PC with vexing software install. If you are a patient person IMO it is a worthy investment. Keep in mind the Chinese Mongoose clones are not terribly reliable (they just stop working it is unlikely they would damage the car). A real Mongoose is $500 or thereabouts.

All that said reading the code is not the same as discovering what is wrong, which is what your dealer is supposed to do.

 

It took three different autozone readers and two stores to find my car was picking up 0171. I will try the various air leak fixes first.
The hard part of the cheap mongoose is the software of course. People who bought cheap one on amazon posted emails from the seller stating product will not work on cars older than 05. My car is 04. Real question remains: has anyone on here used the cheap mongoose on 04 xj8 successfully and with what software obtained from what source running on what computer and OS? --TH

 

I you have time and are not totally new to computers, go with mongoose.
Close to the setting of locking, there are other features to set, like making the mirrors look down on reverse.
I used the cheap mongoose on my x350 10/03 without problems.

 

That's one of the main things I'm interested in. I can't stand the mirror dip. After about a week I have to adjust the mirror again.

 

Herr Nebelfuerst: Thank you for your recommendation and information. Exactly which software version are you using for mongoose? And what is the URL you got it from please? Thank you.
I sort of like the mirror tilt down but it does seem to drift a bit. One important question I have about mongoose is if you can alter settings; not merely look at what they are?

 

The software is a problem with cheap or real Mongoose. It is exactly the same. You either pay $$$$$/year for a TOPIX subscription or do some careful dance with dates, patches etc. It would work fine on X350/X358 cars, the 05 or newer is rubbish.

 

The software is quite self explanatory. If critical things will happen, there are lots of "are you sure"-questions.
The chinese clone comes with a working copy of SDD, the version is normally written in the advertising.
I use a 1.30, which I bought from ebay, as the DVD I got with mongoose was damaged.
You can have a deep look into your car without programming anything, to become familiar with the SDD.
The most important thing is to keep the battery from getting low, when diving into SDD, so I just hang my charger to the battery.

Maybe the quality of the cloned mongoose is less good compared to the original, but a DIY doesn't use the mongoose every day.
Older SDD versions ( like 1.30) seem to run best at winxp, while later versions worked on win7. I dont't have experience with Win8 or Win10 with SDD.

 

My experience with bad mongooses (or mongeese) is that they bur when you plug connect them to the car/pc - at that point the PC will no longer recognize the device and the LEDs on the mongoose are all red. You can even smell that something burned inside.

I think it is safer if you connect them to the PC first (wait for the driver to initialize the device) and then the car, but this is just speculation.

My first clone burned on my third attempt to connect, my second clone lasted 6 months, third one is still alive, but I have used it only twice.

 

i have sdd 131 running on an old laptop my local pc guy did for me with win xp pro with a genuine mongoose and it works just fine , ive enabled my dip in reverse mirrors as my drive is quite narrow and disabled drive away locking and reflashed my tranny and located faulty abs sensor , im not a computer expert but find it easy and saves you loads of expensive dtc reading at the dealer

 

As the clones are somewhat prone to early death use an elm327 for ordinary OBD tasks. Very cheap, seem robust, much easier to use.