Replacement ELM327 Bluetooth needed

When I did my 1st Explorer swap EFI Guy recommended using this device with FORScan software.

I bought a cheap ELM327 on EBay. It worked great. Fast forward 2 years and FORScan will not read my ELM327 in my 2000 Explorer swap. I upgraded to the current FORScan software and it tells me it is unable to read my Cheap Chinese Clone.

ELM327 typed into Google brings you and unending amount of units you can buy all telling you that theirs is the best one to buy.

So which one do I buy for a Windows 8 on a ASSU Tablet. Sorry not interseted in getting another program for my phone, I would like to stay with what I started with...

Garry made his suggestion...Long time to get to me which says it too is coming from a land far away.

Is there anything made here in the States? What have others used/discovered that works?

Thx. Doug

How much money are you willing to spend?

Cheapest possible will guarantee it is made in a place where they don't even know what quality control means.

Pretty much all ELM327 units are Chinese clones. IIRC, for a real one you had to buy the ELM327 chip and build the interface yourself, but that may have changed over the years.

Recently the Chinese have figured out that they can make clones of the clones even cheaper if they leave out the Ford communication protocol. So, when shopping E-bay or Amazon look carefully in the item description to make sure it supports the J1850PWMprotocol. Most support CAN and VPW, the J1850PWM is what all Ford's from 96-04 use, (with a few exceptions).

This is what I bought:

https://www.scantool.net/obdlink-mxbt/

You can usually get it for $79.95

Reads Ford MS-CAN
Small enough to leave plugged in and shuts itself off if the car/truck isn't running.

sykanr0ng said:

How much money are you willing to spend?

Cheapest possible will guarantee it is made in a place where they don't even know what quality control means.

Click to expand...

I did cheap and after one use I have a hunk of useless plastic... I was hoping that something made in the states would last... So this time I am willing to spend some money. Thank you for the link in the Thread above ^^^

I use this one, no issues
mine is the first generation

it cost more but it works

http://www.plxdevices.com/category-s/195.htm

ransil said:

I use this one, no issues
mine is the first generation

it cost more but it works

http://www.plxdevices.com/category-s/195.htm

Click to expand...

I was a Vendor for PLXdevices. They make quality products.

Currently, they cannot say with certainly that the Kiwi 3 will work for/with FORScan. They did say that FORScan is Beta testing one of their units. I sent an e-mail to FORScan to see if that testing is done and there is compatibility.

Interesting! I'm a fan of PLX products myself. Let us know what you find out Doug, I'd much rather spend my money with them.

EFI Guy said:

Interesting! I'm a fan of PLX products myself. Let us know what you find out Doug, I'd much rather spend my money with them.

Click to expand...

The response from FORScan below... I contacted one of OBDLinks vendors, (since all you can do is email them) to confirm that they work with FORScan and they said as long as I can set Com and Baud rates it should work fine. I have one coming my way for $75 (See SykanrOng comments and link above) Thanks All.

"Hello,

We currently work on adding Kiwi 3 support to FORScan Lite for iOS. Kiwi 3 works over Bluetooth LE, so it can be used in iOS (normal Bluetooth adapters with serial port profile do not work there). This task is about to be finished and we are going to release new version of FORScan Lite to iOS soon. However, Kiwi 3 support is not really actual for other platform (such as Windows and Android), as they have no Apple limitations and can work with normal Bluetooth and USB adapters, so we have not decided yet about adding its support in Android (in anycase, not in the nearest release) and we have no plan to add it in Windows yet.

We would recommend to look and OBDLink line of products, it is also American made. In particular, OBDLink MX is the best (most optimal) solution for vehicles with MS-CAN bus (after 2007), especially if you are looking for a wireless one.

Regards,
FORScan Team"