I am a home mechanic. I love to restore vintage cars. I have a handful of old Datsun Z Car restorations that I can show you pictures of and two that are still in the garage, one in primer. I also feel like the mechanic is a last ditch effort. Maybe it is my pride or simply the fact that I hate to spend money, but I try everything in my ability to ward off a trip to the shop.
I own a decent OBD II scan tool. I’ve had it for a few years and used it to good effect on my own vehicles and many of the neighbors cars as well. It has saved me and my friends hundreds of dollars. The code scan results along with careful searches on the Internet are often all I need to diagnose a bad sensor or more often than not, a faulty gas cap.
Lemur Wireless Vehicle Monitors has stepped up scan tool technology a notch, creating the BlueDriver plug-in module that easily connects to your vehicles OBII port (usually located under the dash near the drivers seat) and collaborates with an app on your phone or tablet to produce a powerful advanced scan tool.
Lemur sent me the plug-in module and allowed me to put the tiny scan tool through its paces.
Hardware installation took less than a minute and I downloaded and installed the free app from the iTunes store in about the same time.
The connection process was straightforward. Once the car is on you simply open the “Settings” menu on your phone or tablet and select the BlueDriver as your Bluetooth device.
Once the module and the phone/tablet connect to each other the rest is pretty straightforward. I ran the code scanner and found zero codes in my review car, the all-new 2015 Hyundai Genesis. If you run into trouble the app has video tutorials to help you navigate your way.
Of course if you forget which car you are testing there is a button for that too…
The live view and Mode 6 options are perhaps the most valuable and what set the BlueDriver apart from the $99 plug and play scan tool you can pick up at the local auto parts store. You can dial up anything from your air intake guage to the throttle percentage read out. Essentially your phone expands the gauge cluster of your car and becomes the dashboard that you wish you had.
For money versus the value, purchasing the BlueDriver seems like an easy decision. I know there are other units on the market, but Lemur seems to be onto something here and the fact that they have updated the app three times since they sent it to me shows that they are continually working to make it even better. You can also use the app to download and store your findings, but I am a creature of habit and found that simply taking screenshots worked fine for me.
The Lemur Wireless Vehicle Monitors BlueDriver costs $99.95 and can be ordered through http://www.lemurmonitors.com/ or Amazon.com. The downloadable app is free.
