General OBDII question...

[NokeProtege]

In a lot of places I have read that the way to check your trouble codes without a handheld tool or whatnot was by using a jumper wire between two contacts on your OBDII plug. They say to do this with the car in the ON position and not actually have the engine started. Is this to prevent shock or something? I recently helped a friend pull up her DTCs with my ScanGauge with the car running and then reset them from there. Should this be ok?

[bazooka joe]

maybe i missed something....how does the jumper pull the codes up, i mean you need some sort of device to see the actul code??

[NokeProtege]

Well, supposedly on a lot of cars you can run a jumper wire between two contacts on the OBDII port and the check engine light will flash in a sequence that you can interpret to get your DTC. I think the Protege service manual has a thing on how to interpret this.

[bazooka joe]

Well, supposedly on a lot of cars you can run a jumper wire between two contacts on the OBDII port and the check engine light will flash in a sequence that you can interpret to get your DTC. I think the Protege service manual has a thing on how to interpret this.

okay, ya, that sounds famlar but i think that was for older cars maybe pre odb II???????? not sure really, sorry

[Alejo_NIN]

i remember doing this on my 626 93 odb 1, it was grounding one of the terminals in the plug in the engine bay and with the switch in the ON position the check engine light would start blinking in sequence...

pretty hard to get the codes this way since you gotta be counting the flashes..

just go to autozone and they'll pull'em for you for free