[vishnugs]

Incidentally, I'm involved in a company that specializes in Telemetrics where we work on CAN, OBD and similar technologies. In our experience, very few cars in India actually are compliant to OBD II and open CAN standards, most of them take this piece for granted. Either their ECU is not modern or they are crippled by proprietary communication protocol including the Marutis, Fiats and even Toyota (atleast Innova). Innova follows standard ISO communication, but crippled by proprietary pids.

As a regular test, I was scanning the ETIOS OBD aswell with ELM scanner. To my wildest surprise, the car ECU shared most of the information in a standard protocol CAN 11/ ISO 15765-4.

CAN-ID ECU#1
AUTO, ISO 15765-4 CAN 11/500

I was able to pull the following data in the first shot itself.

Absolute Throttle Position
Engine RPM
Vehicle Speed
Calculated Vehicle Load
Intake Manifold Pressure
Fuel System 1 Status

The data report was almost instantaneous ~15 times a second (15 Hz).

I was glad that Toyota has not compromised on the technical intricacies of the car though they have cut costs elsewhere. Kudos Toyota for this. I plan to buy a OBD Bluetooth version also to pull the data to an Android device. Will keep my thread - http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...interiors.html updated on the same.

Friends, should you have any experience with seeing scanners working on Indian cars, please share.

[vigsom]

If I need to educate myself on how to do a OBD check on say a Maruti or a Toyota and interpret the parameters,how do you think I should be going about that?

This is purely for academic interest.

[asdfvinay]

Hey Vishnu,
The post is greek and latin to me, . If I understand right, the ECU programming follows some open standards and you were able to pull out some information from the ECU on your first try. Am I right?

Now, if it is a standard protocol and you can access the ECU easily, is that a good thing or bad? Does it mean techies can easily fiddle with the ECU and reprogram? What about security? Can some geeky car theives easily bypass the car security system and pass commands to ECU directly and drive away the car?

I do not know if my questions are applicable, but I have so many doubts.

-Vinay.

[vishnugs]

Originally Posted by vigsom

If I need to educate myself on how to do a OBD check on say a Maruti or a Toyota and interpret the parameters,how do you think I should be going about that?

This is purely for academic interest.

Hey Vigsom, there are low cost OBD readers and free computer applications (some are opensource even) for you to start exploring the data output from the car. My recommendation is ELM327, you could shop for it from the internet and software you can use Scantool. This might be a cost effective DIY. But that said, most Marutis and Toyotas wont reveal the data to any non-proprietary scanner. Infact, the protocol that Marutis (except Ritz) is non standard, not even something that can be appreciated by regular scanners. If you can tell me the cars you have access to I might be able to guess if you will have luck with the OBD scanners.

Originally Posted by asdfvinay

Hey Vishnu,
The post is greek and latin to me, . If I understand right, the ECU programming follows some open standards and you were able to pull out some information from the ECU on your first try. Am I right?

Now, if it is a standard protocol and you can access the ECU easily, is that a good thing or bad? Does it mean techies can easily fiddle with the ECU and reprogram? What about security? Can some geeky car theives easily bypass the car security system and pass commands to ECU directly and drive away the car?

I do not know if my questions are applicable, but I have so many doubts.

-Vinay.

Hey Vinay, sorry for confusing you with jargons. Your understanding is partially correct. The ETIOS ECU supports open standards to reveal data to the OBD scanners. That only means that you can pull out interesting statistics from your car, you cannot control, change parameters, flash or mod your car using this interface. The OBD in most of the cases is read only, you ask questions and the ECU gives answers. Also OBD compliance is a mandatory on all cars in the western market like US sold after 2000, so the OEMS are just taking cars sold in India for granted. Hope I have given some clarity to your questions.

[fordday]

vishnu,
I have an Ikon 1.6, 2001 model. Can you tell me which protocol it uses and what OBD scanner I can use? If it is available locally what is the cost?

[phamilyman]

that is awesome. Imagine pulling up your phone and diagnosing your car if you feel its sluggish!

[DerAlte]

Well, for a moment I thought you are talking of no-compromise complex algorithms to calculate injection timing and quantity till there are no emissions other than CO2. Being ISO standard compliant is not an absolute necessity, since for long there have been one or the other variant of the available scanners which successfully read even the close-to-ISO-standard implementations of CAN and OBD.

Matters would be different if one were to inter-connect cars over CAN bus, but that not being a desirable objective (still, some academically-inclined might ask 'Why not?'), deviation from the standard is acceptable.

Don't want to rain on your party, but to find out more on how many Indian cars have one or the other form of OBD, do search and check out other threads on this subject, especially those by a lot of members who have outfitted their cars with Carputers!

[headers]

Originally Posted by vishnugs

As a regular test, I was scanning the ETIOS OBD aswell with ELM scanner. To my wildest surprise, the car ECU shared most of the information in a standard protocol CAN 11/ ISO 15765-4.

CAN-ID ECU#1
AUTO, ISO 15765-4 CAN 11/500

I was able to pull the following data in the first shot itself.

Absolute Throttle Position
Engine RPM
Vehicle Speed
Calculated Vehicle Load
Intake Manifold Pressure
Fuel System 1 Status

The data report was almost instantaneous ~15 times a second (15 Hz).

Interesting-but this piece of information could be read from most engine scanners i guess

Whats the special info you've got sir?

Most OBD/OBD II scanners give you the above

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by vishnugs

protocol that Marutis (except Ritz) is non standard, not even something that can be appreciated by regular scanners. If you can tell me the cars you have access to I might be able to guess if you will have luck with the OBD scanners.

Hey, I have Alto. Do you know which scanners would be able to read data on Alto?

[asdfvinay]

Thanks Vishnu, I got the basic understanding now. From Phamilymans post, I understand that this is how the engine analysers and such stuff work. Thanks guys.

[vishnugs]

Originally Posted by headers

Interesting-but this piece of information could be read from most engine scanners i guess

Whats the special info you've got sir?

Most OBD/OBD II scanners give you the above

Hey headers, its not the amount of data that I was trying to highlight here. Ofcourse that depends on what the car exposes and what the reading software is capable of, but the fact that a car that was built to a cost has taken the initiative to provide CAN standard OBD II implementation which is very unusual on Indian cars. The cars which use such standard system utilizes not only ECU which support scanning from external readers, but the sensors on the car are also complaint.

[vishnugs]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Well, for a moment I thought you are talking of no-compromise complex algorithms to calculate injection timing and quantity till there are no emissions other than CO2. Being ISO standard compliant is not an absolute necessity, since for long there have been one or the other variant of the available scanners which successfully read even the close-to-ISO-standard implementations of CAN and OBD.

Hello DerAlte, I would love to comment on the algorithms used the day I get access to them. OBD-II is not a necessity in India, but then there is an ecosystem of applications for mobile and computer to exploit the OBD-II features and provide interesting visualizations. I was quite impressed with Toyota supporting it on Etios while it was not considering it on more expensive models.

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Matters would be different if one were to inter-connect cars over CAN bus, but that not being a desirable objective (still, some academically-inclined might ask 'Why not?'), deviation from the standard is acceptable.

I appreciate your thought, such inter-communication is cars are on the way. One of the projects in our organization involves collecting data from one car about road conditions and sharing it to others for better optimization of the car to enhance comfort. So you will definitely see what you thought a wild idea in action very soon.

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Don't want to rain on your party, but to find out more on how many Indian cars have one or the other form of OBD, do search and check out other threads on this subject, especially those by a lot of members who have outfitted their cars with Carputers!

Come on DerAlte, you have every right to express your thought. There is no spoiling of my party here. I had a humble idea of making this post to share the information with friends who might not carry as much information as you on these subjects.

[vishnugs]

Originally Posted by fordday

vishnu,
I have an Ikon 1.6, 2001 model. Can you tell me which protocol it uses and what OBD scanner I can use? If it is available locally what is the cost?

Hey forrday, I think you should try ScanTool, there is a reasonable probability that it would work for your Ikon.

[asdfvinay]

Hey Vishnu,
Is there any such tool for Scorpio? Mine is 2005 2.6 CRDe SLX. I'm a DIY guy fixing most of my wheels as long as I have sufficient tools and a tool similar to the one you suggested above will be a good addition to my garage.

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by vishnugs

Hello DerAlte, I would love to comment on the algorithms used the day I get access to them..

Small piece of advise (please read your employment contract, especially the fine print ): information is money, and your employers may not like your high-spirited altruistic / philanthropic sharing of information. "Discretion is the better part of valour" and all that.

Originally Posted by vishnugs

... impressed with Toyota supporting it on Etios while it was not considering it on more expensive models.

Perhaps you should try and understand the economics and why's of doing something or not in the automotive sector.

Originally Posted by vishnugs

... collecting data from one car about road conditions and sharing it to others for better optimization of the car to enhance comfort. ...

The cars in front wouldn't need it; the cars behind can't avoid experiencing the same. Altruistic objective, no doubt, especially when development funding is aplenty.

Even more relevant was the remote telemetry (telematics) objective that was set by some European manufacturers about a decade back: stream operational / service data back to a central location so that the car owner could be advised about optimizing service schedules. Didn't take off really because air bandwidth was prohibitively costly then.

Originally Posted by vishnugs

... humble idea of making this post to share the information with friends who might not carry as much information as you on these subjects.

Noble objective, but please search and read on TBHP - you are not the only one who has had that objective.