OK, I've been playing with the ScanGauge II for a few weeks, and have a clue about it, so I thought I would post a bit of a review here, for anyone else who is considering which way to go.
First off, here's the site:
ScanGaugeII : Linear Logic - Home of the ScanGauge
In Canada, you can buy from
Gifford Automotive in Ottawa - good service and fast shipping, and price was comparable to getting it out of the USA. I paid $160 CDN, shipped, plus tax.
I really like the form factor, and the display. It is just over 4-3/4" long, 1.5" high, and 1" deep.
The display is backlit, and the device is powered off the ODBII port that it reads data from.
It does not tie up your phone, rely on bluetooth, or hog your 12V power supply.
I mounted mine fairly easily on the fugly chrome trim under the audio.
It mounts with supplied Velcro strips, and the included data cable is quite long.
Basic setup is a snap - you can tell it the units you want to use (SAE or Metric) for distance, temperature, and pressure, the engine displacement, fuel tank size, and whether or not the car is a hybrid, gas, or diesel.
After that, you are good to go (actually, you can probably skip the setup for a lot of the gauges and just hook it up out of the box).
The device can display four "gauge" values at a time, and there are about a dozen that it automatically pulls from the OBDII port. These include some we get on out dash, like RPM and fuel economy readouts, but also useful but missing things such as coolant water temperature, intake air temperature, MAP, and battery (12V) voltage.
Now some of the gauges are wonky, and I contacted the manufacturer (Linear Logic) about them. MAP seems to be all over the place, but if you select "Boost" instead (useful for me), it actually compares the MAP with ambient pressure, and the readings start to make sense. I think that the engine braking messed me up on the MAP readout.
It says that one of the standard values for the CR-Z is real-time horsepower, but that's bunk. I asked about this as well, and they calculate this value based on a number of parameters, including fuel consumption, using a proprietary formula. My suggestion would be that they make it an open source formula, so someone can "fix" it, because it is not working for the CR-Z. It also can tell you "engine load", but basically after 3,000 RPM, that is 99%, according to the gauge, so I don't see the purpose. Other readouts like fuel trim, I don't really understand - so I cannot tell you much about them.
Toggling between displays is as easy as pushing the button beside each readout, until you get the one you want. It is just a continuous loop, so if you miss it, just keep pushing until it comes round again. Setup uses the same buttons, and is quite intuitive to navigate. If you have ever scrolled though menus on a printer display, you can do this thing easy! The unit powers up automatically, and shuts off about 10 seconds after you remove the key (if you set to Hybrid - if you leave it as a gas car, it will shut off every time auto-stop happens).
Also included is what they call "X-Gauge", which seems to be a way to query the car's computer for additional readings. I have not played with that yet, but hope to find more hidden gems there some day.
As well as the real-time displays, it can show you trip history, including speed, RPM, distance travelled, and fuel used on the last outings. Again, I have not used that feature, as our car does a good enough job for me in this regard. Might be useful to tell on your son, who borrowed your car last night, though!
It can also keep track of "performance parameters" for a short duration - but this is not a feature that I can tell you about just yet.
The ScanGauge II also doubles as a code reading / resetting tool. Again, not something that I have dabbled into yet, and the Hondata FlashPro probably does a better job of displaying errors anyway. But you get this feature thrown in for the price, and who has their FlashPro and laptop with them everywhere they go, anyway?
But since our province just moved to OBDII emission testing, I figure that I can check for pending trouble before taking any of my vehicles in for a pass.
This device will plug into any OBDII port, and connect automatically, so you can swap from car to car with ease.
Although it is far from the fancy display that drheem set up, but the basic information is there and easy to read while driving. For the price, I'm going to give it 1-1/2 thumbs up.
Hope this is helpful to somebody.