I have an ELM327 Bluetooth OBD2 dongle. Just a cheap one from ebay but has worked faultlessly for the last year. I use Torque Pro app on my phone. Scans, resets codes etc.

Had a CEL pop up last night (99% certain it is an O2 sensor, as the fault has been showing up with increasing frequency over the last 9 months, clears and then comes back 6 weeks later). Not too concerned about that as I have a new exhaust and sensors on order. However, when I attach the OBD2 dongle now, it won't connect to the ECU. It has power (from the OBD2 socket) and can connect to the phone but app says that it cannot connect to the car's ECU.

I've tried the dongle on a Land Rover and a VW Golf this morning and they both connect straight away, without any issues. Which suggests that the issue is with my Scooby and not the dongle/app.

Any ideas where to start investigating? I could just buy another dongle but there doesn't appear to be a fault with this one. Is it worth pulling the battery and see if it resets?

 

pull the fusebox (in car one behind the alarm panel) and the one under the bonnet just incase you've lost a fuse somewhere. Also could be a duff earth connection under the bonnet giving it grief but usually they will still connect OK with that - just wont read data very reliably.

 

I haven't looked at all the fuses yet but figured if the dongle was getting power via the OBD2 socket then it wouldn't be fuse related. The issue seems to be between the OBD2 socket and the ECU, as the car drives fine and everything else appears to operate as normal.

 

have you tried wiggling the cables at the back of the socket? Sometimes you can lose a pin or two when pushing the dongle in and out.

 

It was a tiny break in the insulation of one of the wires. Typically, it's just a few mm above the connecting socket. Managed to get a bit of tape onto it for the time being. Will have to see if I can melt some plastic onto it. Failing that, will need to see if I can another plug and splice it onto the loom.

 

if you take back some of the black tape on the loom there is usually enough to get decent access to it when the lower dash is removed - bit of heatshrink round it if you can unpin that cable from the loom and get to it should do the job.

 

I need to get the pin out of the socket so that I can get access to the wire - it's literally 2mm above where the wire exits the pin/socket. I don't think that the pins are designed to be removed though?

 

aye maybe they aren't designed for it but you can certainly pop them out and back in again with a little pick. Take the clip and surround off so you can access the port properly and you should be able to work the cable out with a pick, wrap the wire and pop it back in again.

 

There is a white clip over the back of the socket, where the pins enter. Can that be removed - is it supposed to remove - will it give any more access?

 

not sure that any of it is supposed to be removed - if I remember correctly my bug had the black socket bit attached to the lower dash, which was connected to a surround that was connected to the port/block itself. I removed the surrounding bits leaving just the connector block. Take a pic of yours even as I can't picture it?

 

I've did likewise - removed all the lower trim so was just left with the connector block where it attaches to the loom. The break in the wire is about 2mm back from where the wire exist the connector block. Hence there is very little room to work with. It's basically where the wires have been bent over in order to fit the connector into the lower dash housing. Put it back together no so no pics I'm afraid.

If I can get the pin out of the connector, then it should be easy to tape and heatshrink. If it the pin gets damaged in any way though, I'll need a new connector.

 

if you can see it enough to get a little tape round I wouldn't worry about messing with it any further than that the tape will hold it just fine