Blue Driver, ScanGauge D, or something else

[ng2951]

Hello,

So what does the group think about Blue Driver, ScanGauge and whatever else is out there on the market?

Some friends were asking me about the Blue Driver app for the Ford F250 diesel and their engine monitoring tool. I have used the ScanGaugeII (not the D) for many years and have been happy with it.

After reading a little on the Blue Driver, it looked interesting but seems to lack some of the performance options that a ScanGauge has. That rather surprised me, because I would think anyone putting together such a device would want to do nothing less than what ScanGauge does.

Ideas, comments?

[lynndiwagon]

You said "or something else" so I will recommend "Torque Pro" off of the android Play Store.

[Big_Katuna]

az99 wrote:
I had a ScanGage and was very disappointed. It is built in a 1980's looking case with antiquated display and functionality. There were several features that never worked properly. Seemed to be more trouble than it was worth. Although relatively cheap, it was a waste of money.
The Silver Leaf is nice but needing a laptop to use it is ?.

Or a cheap tablet. They make a in dash but why pay a grandcwnen a $200 laptop will work.

[hawkeye-08]

If I was interested in monitoring one vehicle, I would go with Scangage or something similar depending on what each supported and what I wanted. The bluetooth adapters and phone apps are nice, but I have not found one that does just what I want and I really don't want to tie my phone up for monitoring.

[az99]

I had a ScanGage and was very disappointed. It is built in a 1980's looking case with antiquated display and functionality. There were several features that never worked properly. Seemed to be more trouble than it was worth. Although relatively cheap, it was a waste of money.
The Silver Leaf is nice but needing a laptop to use it is ?.

[ng2951]

Edge looked interesting, Blue Driver doesn't have tranny or MPG. I really like the Blue Driver, but I need it to help with economy while towing and it lack those features.

[naturist]

@ng2951, I have not tried to use the Blue Driver to monitor fuel usage because the X5 already has both an overall average fuel mileage and an instantaneous usage gauge, but I will look into it, since neither of our other rides do.

My researches indicated to me that the various similar products do not always support the same features on the same vehicles, or even the same vehicles. Case in point the F250. Our Libby, however, does have a quirk on all of them that I've found: the computer stops talking to them all after about 30 minutes.

[brirene]

Check out the Edge Insight. I have the color touch screen model, and I know they have an updated version as well. Monitors just about anything you'd care to keep track of. Very user friendly.

[Big_Katuna]

I use Silverleaf with my laptop. Will by a Surface one of these years.

[jplante4]

I tried digging around my history but couldn't find the link. I saw a blue tooth scanner transmitter that came with an API for Android Dev Kit. Presumably, you could code any monitoring point(s) you wanted.

[ng2951]

Naturist,

I had noticed that too. The downside I noticed is that it really didn't appear to allow you to real time monitor for economy like a ScanGauge can.

ScanGauge is very limited in what it can do but it does allow for basic optimization. I was hoping Blue Driver allows that but from what I have been able to see, it doesn't make those calculations.

On the other hand it does look like a a pretty reasonable tool for monitoring vehicle performance. Downside, according to their website it doesn't work for the Ford F250 (go figure).

[naturist]

I have the Blue Driver, and I note that what it does depends on what vehicle it is attached to. It supports a long list of "things" generically, but some of those "things" appear to be implemented differently on different vehicles, thus support for them varies. This should make sense, of course, because an ability to read a sensor your car does not have in the first place makes no sense. For instance, my X5 35d has two turbochargers, each of which have a pressure sensor, but most turbo vehicles have only one turbo, thus one sensor.

The main thing I like about the Blue Driver is that it comes with all the error codes in its data base already, there are no in-app purchases to make. So I have used it on the X5, as well as my wife's 2001 Jetta and our 2005 Jeep Libby, and it seems to work on all of them, albeit with somewhat different things available for each.

I note that there are other apps/dongles that have more or less features. For the X5, there is one called Carly for BMW that also allows the owner to do some coding, such as, for example, registering a new battery with the ECU, a handy feature which I have suggested the Blue Driver folks add in the future.

I have no experience with Scangauge products, but I do like the Blue Driver's use of my iPod Touch as the display. It allows for a pictorial "gauge" as well as real-time graphing of multiple parameters, which you can't get from a Scangauge, as well as emailing yourself an Excel spreadsheet of recorded data for further analysis.