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Cake day: August 12th, 2026

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  • Veepeak and obdlink are good generic ones in my experience, BimmerLink even recommends a specific obdlink one for example, think it has an STN2120 rather than the usual ELM327 clone chips and thus is a bit higher quality, but for most cars and most apps, the ELM based ones work.

    If you use or might one day want to use IOS, get one with BT LE support and connect via app, not the Bluetooth menu. If you do, you’ll have to restart the phone to get it to show up again, stupid iOS thing.




  • Haven’t actually seen a car that’s vin locked myself, except engine and transmission control modules on some cars. You’d have to find someone with tools to write the ECU if you want to swap in a used control module in those cases.

    In general, good generic scan tools and even some mobile apps will get you the fault codes from most modules of most modern cars. What they might not support is coding a new module (it needs to know the options equipped on the car to know how to actuate things) or calibrating new sensors, but often times you can still do that too. There are also marque-specific aftermarket solutions. For example, VCDS gets you fault codes, live data, adaptations, tests, coding for most VAG models other than Porsches. In the expensive version (still in the hundreds price wise, not thousands) you even get some limited Lamborghini support.

    Also anything that triggers this particular light should come up with a standard OBD2/E-OBD scan you can perform with a 5 dollar dongle off aliexpress and any free OBD2 app.

    Don’t ever buy a John Deere tractor though. Those things have VIN locked parts all around. Tons of things need marrying to the tractor if replaced.