I hate text-speak, but this fits. I don't even know if it's really five bucks - I bought it weeks ago and the price no longer shows on Google Play. Anyway....

It's official! Thanks to some searching by Pikachu [LINK], I actually did an injector buzz test on Stinky with an Android app today - Car Gauge Pro [LINK]. I hate the app because of how cumbersome it is, the gauges suck, and I haven't yet found things I want (like Exhaust Backpressure)... but it buzzes!

Why didn't I find it before? I couldn't find a direct reference to a buzz test (it's for all vehicles and we are a small market share), and you won't find it on a menu in the app. In order to get access to tests like Buzz, you have to be connected to the vehicle and scan it. I didn't do that, because Torque Pro had what I was looking for without linking to the truck (same with the P'us).

All my reading said this wasn't going to happen, but I had Car Gauge Pro sitting on my Nexus 7 and I was unwilling to play with the buttons because I didn't like it. I still won't use it as a gauge set... it just sucks so bad. BUT... if my AE needs a pinch-hitter, I have something right there at the end of my arm rest.

Pikachu needs some reps for this find, and I need a slap upside the head for sharing my misinformation on the forum.

 

I got to play with it some today. Did a buzz test, all 8 sounded the same, so I guess that's good? it was the first time I've ever heard a buzz test performed.

I tried a cyl cont test, The truck idled up a couple hundred RPMs then I the screen showed a Pcode (don't remember the code off the top of my head) but it said ICP low/high out of parameters or something like that and nothing else happened. Truck stayed idled up. I closed out of car gauge, opened up torque and my ICP was showing 2200+psi @ idle. Shut the truck off, started back up and ICP was back to its normal 500-700psi @ idle, and idle was back to normal.

I tried several times again to rerun the cyl cont test, everytime it idled the truck up and increased ICP pressures. But it never showed the Pcode for the ICP again.

Im not trying to troubleshoot anything, just playing around, so im not too concerned, especially how horrible car gauge is. But if anyone has successfully ran a cyl cont test, i'd like to hear about it

 

Yea... Car Gauge put Stinky in some kind of mode after the Buzz test, and you have to shut the key off before starting the truck.

 

No reps needed. All I did was spend a little time searching and finally came across it.

 

That is still an effort to assist the brotherhood, my friend. I made the effort and failed miserably, where you came through.

 

I got him Rich.

 

So whats it gonna take to get Torque up to speed,
we gotta pester the forums over there?

 

So to clarify, Car gauge pro appears to be a pretty useful tool? More so then Torque app? and if so is anyone running these apps on an iPhone? I saw tugly specified android for his. I did a quick search in the app store and couldn't find Car Gauge pro so I am afraid this might not be mac compatible. I bought an elm bluetooth a while back but never really messed around with it bc it came with one of the smaller diameter CD's and I didn't have anything to play it on.

 

Apple products will not work with Elm Bluetooth. The word I got was copyright infringement... but that needs to be confirmed.

The small disc should have the same spindle size as a regular CD, it will work on any CD player. The laser reader works from the inside-out, unlike a phonograph.

Apple has Dash Command and not a lot of others. Android is fraught with OBDII apps and you have the opposite problem - you have to sift through a torrent of trash to find a toothpick.

Car Gauge Pro is a tool, but "useful" is too strong of a word. A hammer is a tool, but it has limited uses on our trucks. Torque Pro is useful for daily driving and some rudimentary troubleshooting - at least you can see your backpressure and a few other goodies. Maybe CGP can read all out PIDs, but my scanning, searching, saving profiles, clicking boxes, and wearing my finger out on the screen yielded a net gain of frustration.

Did I mention the gauges are fugly?

For me, AE is still the primary for real troubleshooting... and Infinity is under no threat from CGP. If I'm in the middle of the desert with no water, I forgot the carputer, and the truck up and stalls with no clues from Torque Pro - then I'd use it. Caveat: I've grown biased from comparing other Apps and PC Software to this "Car Gauge Pro". If you don't have a proper scan tool to give you a buzz... CGP is a cheap high.

 

I read the CD is malware. I never used it for either of my ELM adapters, has no purpose far as I can tell. Pair up and go.

 

cool, its the app i got..(not dash command like i mentioned in tug's thread). Now just need the bt to compare with...

 

Guys... until I figure out what happened, I can't recommend Car Gauge Pro. I'm not saying don't get it, I'm saying do so at your own risk. I'm yanking it out of my tablet permanently and I'm not sure Stinky will be road-ready soon. I hope it's as simple as I suspect, Stinky was supposed to show off at the Western Washington GTG - and I hate letting him down. I'll share more when I know more.

 

OK - - I'm still curious? what's the verdict on app's testing/reading the 7.3 engine? And, what happened to Stinky?

 

Gar Gauge Pro put Stinky in some funky mode that resetting the key wouldn't clear. The timing (SOI) was very aggressive and he sounded like hell opened up under the hood. I was afraid I was going to damage the engine, so I shut him off until I could think it through. I came up with a few ideas and consulted with someone who knows a little something about the behavior of the PCM. Here's what I came up with:

The Car Gauge Pro set the PCM in some kind of test mode when I did the buzz test, which somehow corrupted the Keep Alive Memory. The KAM kept the error in there because it's held by the battery, not the switched power. I could clear it by pulling the fuse to the PCM, pull the PCM, pull the battery connections, or my odd choice of using AE to clear it. I ran a buzz test and a KOEO to reset everything in the PCM, and this cleaned up the mess.

I fear what this could do to a person who isn't aware of what that gawd-awful noise signifies and just drives on with it. This is the stuff that windows are made of.

Saying all of that, I might have done something wrong while operating the app, but that's something that AE has never let me do. AE is developed to the point where I haven't been able to do anything undesirable to Stinky. I was able to threaten Stinky's life in my first round with the app. It's yanked out of my tablet, and it will stay that way until somebody sorts something out. I don't want to be the test-bed for this one.

I'm not saying AE is above the other legitimate scan tools, but this concept of scanning for a command with a $5 app and just issuing a command doesn't work out in practice.

 

that's important to know! Thanks for the heads-up!