Anyone have any experience with this device?

"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury) 04/27/2018 at 16:09 • Filed to: None

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There’s one of these at a local pawn shop that I can grab for around $65. I’ve got a cheesy Chinese OBD2 device but I have a feeling that this will be a little better. Anyone use one of these? Should I buy it?

Wacko > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/27/2018 at 16:16

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i have an ultragauge, which is similar.

I had mine plugged in permanently in my 2010 Sx4

these are good if you want to constantly monitor your temp or others.

benjrblant > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/27/2018 at 16:20

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I own a scangauge. I paid $100 for it from amazon. It works well for OBD2 vehicles. Note that if its old you may need to download a software update from the scangauge website.

Make sure the cable is included as its a CAT5 to OBD2, something you’d likely have a hard time sourcing if needed.

Chuckles > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/27/2018 at 16:23

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I used a Scangauge II in my 2003 civic for years and loved it. It gives you a wealth of information, and you can create your own statistics. I’d still use it today had it not been in my car during a flood.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > benjrblant 04/27/2018 at 16:25

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I have verified that it does have the correct cable included.

What is the procedure to update these? Do they have USB ports for that?

vicali > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/27/2018 at 16:25

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Yes. Highly recommended.

bought one for the 2005 Tacoma,

bought one for the 2008 Forester,

Updated chip in the Tacoma one to work on the 2017 Tacoma.

I use them to keep an eye on coolant and transmission temps in the truck while towing. The Forester is just for fun because I got it used at a garage sale where they had no idea what it was.

Mileage helps keeps my foot light, I keep it with instant and avg daily - keep instant under daily avg and win.

Also reads and clears codes.

benjrblant > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/27/2018 at 16:26

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I’ve not personally updated one, I think there’s a procedure on the company website. I’m guessing you’d just plug in a CAT5 network cable to the device and to your computer?

vicali > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/27/2018 at 16:26

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You can send the unit back to them to be updated, or for us Canadians you can get a new chip (just the board) for $25.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > Wacko 04/27/2018 at 16:28

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Monitoring temp and fuel economy are the two major things I’m looking for. The thing I have now only gives a proper average reading in metric even though it has settings for MPG. It gives the same reading for instant and average MPG which can probably be fixed with software, but I’m not expecting there to be a patch.

vicali > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/27/2018 at 16:41

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You can switch a scanguage between metric and imperial.

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/27/2018 at 16:43

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my dad has that exact one and its pretty neat, but in this day and age you can get bluetooth dongles for about the same price and have all that info on your phone

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero 04/27/2018 at 16:53

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I was using an app for years but lately I’ve been using the phone for navigation since my GPS was stolen. When I get my iPad mini for navigation I may go back to the phone app.

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/27/2018 at 16:54

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ahh that makes sense, in that case the scanguage2 is probably the best bang for your buck scanner

t0ast > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/27/2018 at 16:56

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I had one in my NC for a while before I upgraded to something else for data logging support and graph displays. It’s a good little device and works great for giving real temperatures and other readouts that either aren’t provided or get abstracted away in your gauge cluster. The fuel consumption related functionality was a little more of a hassle than I cared to mess with, but I did put the trouble code read / clear functions to good use after upgrading to an aftermarket exhaust with a cat that didn’t always like to heat up to the ECU’s liking.

If you do get one, it’s worth noting that additional parameters can be programmed into the device, because different manufacturers provide data beyond the OBD2 standard in different ways. With a little online searching legwork, you might be able to add some other potentially helpful readouts.

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/27/2018 at 17:00

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I also own an UltraGauge. Though there are a lot of things about it I would change, I like it. I remember looking at both, but I don’t remember why I picked the Ultra other than it is larger than the Scangauge for about the same price, ~$110. Also there is a lot of customization and you can set up alarms on the Ultra.

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/27/2018 at 17:09

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My dad’s put one on his last 3 cars. It’s pretty neat but the design is super dated. A wireless dongle + smart device will have a cleaner install, better interface, and be more configurable.

Tristan > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/27/2018 at 22:09

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I have one. I have mixed feelings about it. For what they retail for, they’re a terrible deal. But, they’re handy, nonetheless. Mine came to me in a ‘98 Cobra, and I kept it after selling the car. It currently lives in my Suburban.

Pros: The MPG/AVG functions really help to calibrate your foot for better mileage. Hence why it lives in the Burban. Resetting the MIL on the fly is nice, too, since my truck has a chronic small EVAP leak code the pops up about every 2 weeks. I can’t find the leak, so it’s nice to be able to reset it and forget about it again for a couple weeks. The other functions are nice, but my truck has gauges for everything including trans temp, so I mostly use it for the MPG stuff.

Cons: it likes to forget its settings periodically. The display color defaults back to bright obnoxious white, the engine size defaults to 3.0 litres, etc. Occasionally it just falls out of communication with the ECU while driving... I’ll look down and the display is blank. Unplug/replug usually fixes it. Sometimes it’ll come on when the engine is started and just shut back down. 90% of the time it works great, though. I do wish it kept average MPGs for longer than just one trip.