The title pretty much sums it up. I've looked, but there's no real reputable answer that I've seen so far. The few contenders I have seen want $300 or more, and it'd be nice to know if they're up to scratch before I spend that kind of money.

 

Matt,

Is your car what Americans call a 1994 XJS or what we here at home call a 1994 XJS?

If your car has an AJ6 engine (VIN 194774 or earlier) then you can't use an OBDII reader (unless US cars are different to UK cars).

The best thing would be to find a used facelift XJS trip computer for the car which just plugs in to the existing clock wiring plug and you can read the engine error codes from that.

However if you have an AJ16-engined car, then that's a different story as OBDII code readers are readily available. I use an £8 Bluetooth plug-in module and a £1.49 smartphone app and it does just about everything I need.

Good luck

Paul

 

Yeah, the kind that reads codes is the best.

In this case we definitely need to know about your car so we can recommend something that works with it.

I have a wireless OBDII, which works well, but my iphone won't bluetooth get and my girlfriends android works with some free programs well. I haven't tried purchasing one.

I also have a generic orange OBDII scanner just to get codes,it can't do anything else. I think it is an actron. It doesn't do much, but it is pretty sturdy.

I also have a Autolink autel because it has some stuff necessary to read the ABS and SRS system on our land rover. 300 bucks is professional scanner territory and should be unnecessary.

 

Mine is production number 189737, and I believe it's an OBD1 setup, which is why finding the code reader is problematic.

EDIT:

Never mind. A big case of "dumbass" on my part. I guess I'll just find a list of codes and hopefully that'll help. Thanks, everyone.

 

Doesn't the OBD1 system display codes on the trip computer?

 

"Doesn't the OBD1 system display codes on the trip computer?"

Yeah. That'd be the dumbass part I was talking about. I just don't know how to make the codes display.

 

I am pretty sure you just turn on the ignition but don't start the car and wait like 10 seconds and it will just pop up on the screen. I don't know if you need to press buttons if there are multiple codes or if they will progressively appear.