Some more related helpful information from a recent discussion here on OBD devices...

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...l#post16035670

Rich (Tugly is his username) has a TON of helpful posts and information both in his signature line as well as his posts. Run a search for his screen name and have fun sorting through everything that pops up - way more information than you'll know what to do with, and if you can't make an informed decision off of all that info then I dunno what to tell you...

 

It can be hard narrowing down which cheap obd2 device to get. Some batches of the same device are truly elm 327 compliant and some aren't. Some can only read a couple of active pids at a time before slowing down and some are fast with many pids.I read a lot of recent reviews when I bought my last one and ended up with a short blue one from Amazon that cost 10 bucks. It works great. It even worked with forscan to program a pats key, something they say the cheap readers won't do. For the price though, it was worth the risk of buying a few until I got a good one. There are better ones available that are made to leave plugged in 24/7 shutoff so they won't drain your battery as well. All depends on your planned usage.

 

thank you for that link
The phone App does not allow me to search and i paged through the posts quite a few times and could not track this

I have an Android phone that is mounted to the windshield and I want to have it on and monitor when running. would like to have it run all the time.