Hopefully the moderators don't mind me posting this here, but I thought I would post here to help those with those infuriating electronics problems to spot this and hopefully help them. It's a little project that I've been working on and hopefully others will find very useful.
After being on this forum for a little while, I've noticed that there is a common issue that people have with Renaults. They have a warning light come on or have running issues, and they need to try and fix that problem that causes it. As we all know, Renault electrics aren't the best and most reliable out of all the car brands! So one of the key things that need to be done is reading+clearing error codes that can help locate and solve the problem.
There are tools out there that can do this, but they're either cheap generic which don't read Renault specific codes, or extremely expensive that can work with Renaults. Of course there are the knock-offs of these expensive tools, but apart from the obvious legality issue, they are both complicated+fiddly to install and use plus often have viruses in the software cracks.
So when the average home mechanic/small garage Renault owner wants to fix their car, they have to either guess and change parts or go to a main dealer and pay a fortune for a diagnostic session... No wonder people get fed up of these cars! :crazy:
I thought this whole scenario was quite ridiculous and having a bit of spare time recently, I decided to start a little project to solve this!
After buying copious amounts of old Renault ECUs/Airbag controllers/Fuse boxes and many other bits of Renault electronics plus a lot of work, I set about figuring how to read the Renault specific codes from the various Renault modules.
From this, I made a little smartphone app...
Ohno! Diagnostics for Renault (*warning light comes on* Oh no Renault...! Get it?? never mind... :d)
Currently just an Android app (I intend to write a iPhone version eventually), it works with the many cheap ELM327 OBD2 Adapters that you can get from eBay. Unlike Torque/Piston/DashCommand/etc that can only read the generic engine codes, OhNo can read the Renault specific codes from all the main modules in the car. Its still in Beta, so feel free to let me know if you try it and have any issues/unrecognised codes/etc. I currently have focused on the Phase II models, such as the Clio II/Megane II/Scenic II/Laguna II - but later on I intend to get the newer Phase III models in as well.
It works with both the Bluetooth and WiFi ELM327 OBD2 adapters. Annoyingly though, the Chinese manufacturers of the Bluetooth version in the last 6 months have cheapened the design which makes it incompatible. Basically they cheapened it by removing the functionality that I need to use to be able to talk to all the Renault electronics. Any of the Bluetooth ELM327 v2.1 adapters won't work, but the Bluetooth ELM327 v1.5 should work (if the seller hasn't miss-labelled them). If you have a Bluetooth ELM327 adapter that is older than a year it should work fine.
If you don't, then I recommend the WiFi ELM327 OBD2 adapters for ease of getting it working.
I bought this one, which seems to work just fine. At £8, its far cheaper than going to a garage to get the codes scanned! Plus small enough to always keep it in the car.
This is what it looks like:
So please give it a go and let me know what you think. All feedback is great feedback. At the very least, hopefully it means less cars being scrapped unnecessarily with simple to fix faults. :)
Or at the very least gives me more excuses to my fiancée to not throw this out and let me buy more... :p
(That's only part of the pile of bits I have acquired so far too :d)
Cheers,
Si.
After being on this forum for a little while, I've noticed that there is a common issue that people have with Renaults. They have a warning light come on or have running issues, and they need to try and fix that problem that causes it. As we all know, Renault electrics aren't the best and most reliable out of all the car brands! So one of the key things that need to be done is reading+clearing error codes that can help locate and solve the problem.
There are tools out there that can do this, but they're either cheap generic which don't read Renault specific codes, or extremely expensive that can work with Renaults. Of course there are the knock-offs of these expensive tools, but apart from the obvious legality issue, they are both complicated+fiddly to install and use plus often have viruses in the software cracks.
So when the average home mechanic/small garage Renault owner wants to fix their car, they have to either guess and change parts or go to a main dealer and pay a fortune for a diagnostic session... No wonder people get fed up of these cars! :crazy:
I thought this whole scenario was quite ridiculous and having a bit of spare time recently, I decided to start a little project to solve this!
After buying copious amounts of old Renault ECUs/Airbag controllers/Fuse boxes and many other bits of Renault electronics plus a lot of work, I set about figuring how to read the Renault specific codes from the various Renault modules.
From this, I made a little smartphone app...
Ohno! Diagnostics for Renault (*warning light comes on* Oh no Renault...! Get it?? never mind... :d)Currently just an Android app (I intend to write a iPhone version eventually), it works with the many cheap ELM327 OBD2 Adapters that you can get from eBay. Unlike Torque/Piston/DashCommand/etc that can only read the generic engine codes, OhNo can read the Renault specific codes from all the main modules in the car. Its still in Beta, so feel free to let me know if you try it and have any issues/unrecognised codes/etc. I currently have focused on the Phase II models, such as the Clio II/Megane II/Scenic II/Laguna II - but later on I intend to get the newer Phase III models in as well.
It works with both the Bluetooth and WiFi ELM327 OBD2 adapters. Annoyingly though, the Chinese manufacturers of the Bluetooth version in the last 6 months have cheapened the design which makes it incompatible. Basically they cheapened it by removing the functionality that I need to use to be able to talk to all the Renault electronics. Any of the Bluetooth ELM327 v2.1 adapters won't work, but the Bluetooth ELM327 v1.5 should work (if the seller hasn't miss-labelled them). If you have a Bluetooth ELM327 adapter that is older than a year it should work fine.
If you don't, then I recommend the WiFi ELM327 OBD2 adapters for ease of getting it working.
I bought this one, which seems to work just fine. At £8, its far cheaper than going to a garage to get the codes scanned! Plus small enough to always keep it in the car.This is what it looks like:
So please give it a go and let me know what you think. All feedback is great feedback. At the very least, hopefully it means less cars being scrapped unnecessarily with simple to fix faults. :)
Or at the very least gives me more excuses to my fiancée to not throw this out and let me buy more... :p
(That's only part of the pile of bits I have acquired so far too :d)
Cheers,
Si.
Renault Diagnostic Error Code scanning
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