Has my car got On Board Diagnostics?

[tempragolf]

When I've recently gone to buy parts for my December '99 V reg 2litre petrol,Ive been asked if the car has OBD or not. What does this mean? There is a socket inside the car on the drivers side dash - is that what it means??? Sorry to be a bit dull here!

[mjb]

Unless you want to spend some serious money - over £500 - on a reader and illegal software which nobody here's actually tried yet (although I'm very tempted to when my bank account recovers from moving house and a clutch change!), then the only way to get diagnostics will be to go to the dealers and pay them around £50 because the protocol used over the diag socket is a propriety one that the usual readers can't speak

[Pob]

I use to have a OBD2 reader that plugged into a PC, got it from Scantool.net where you can also download a free version of the scanning software. A couple of weeks ago I used one similar to this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/OBD2-OBDII-OBD-US ... 1|294%3A50 Worked very well, used it on a Clio no problems. It also came with a version of the Scantool software, reads codes and gives sensor information.

Dan

[mjb]

the protocol used over the diag socket is a propriety one that the usual readers can't speak

[tempragolf]

I think you have both misunderstood my initial question guys. I simply want to know if my car has OBD or not. I am not interested in getting a scanner or software or indeed going to a dealer to get it done. Cheers folks.

[mjb]

I think you have both misunderstood my initial question guys. I simply want to know if my car has OBD or not. I am not interested in getting a scanner or software or indeed going to a dealer to get it done. Cheers folks.

It has diagnostics capability, but it's not something you can reasonably access yourself.