ricnoval

Hi there.
OK, first off, I’m lazy and I’m not going to search through all these forums to find what I’m looking for; figgered I’d just post my thoughts and see what happens.
So, I’m in this section because I recently took the longest road trip in my xB since acquisition; 600 miles round trip, there on Friday and back on Sunday.

The car behaved perfectly, yet all the while I wanted to know things the car's computer knows and is not sharing with me; coolant temperature, cylinder head temperature,
oil pressure, just little things which concern me while driving at 70+MPH in 85° weather.
The fuel data is almost useless to me, and I’d rather use that space for one of these other displays.
I'm likely going to purchase an OBDII device which will Bluetooth to an old tablet, so...

Q1: Anyone know anything about changing the default dashboard displays?
Q2: Recommendations on an OBDII device?

Thanks.

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Greg S

iTrader: (1)

No real idea what you are asking with the first question. If you mean physically changing the displays on the stock instrument cluster I would recommend leaving it alone unless you want to gut the whole thing and replace it with a different digital display.

As for question two, almost any of the generic OBDII bluetooth dongles on Ebay work great when connected to the Torque app through an Android device. Just make sure it say ELM 327 on it and you should be good. I've been running one for years and it's worked great the whole time.


I've attached a picture of when I used it with a tablet mounted in front of the stock cluster. Eventually deleted this and just paired it with my phone, which is mounted sideways above the steering column.

ricnoval

Hey Greg.
Thanks for your input; exactly the sort of thing I want to do.

As for explaining my first query... prior to the xB I owned a 2001 Ford Focus, and I discovered on a Focus Forum a post detailing a sequence of button pushing/holding while turning on the power, bla bla... the digital readout could be made to display the trouble codes.
The post went on to explain how to make it display for engine temp, or RPM (no tach in that car) or a myriad of other data, all using the digital display normally chalking up the mileage.
This memory prompted my question, as I’m certain Toyota to be every bit as cleaver as Ford, if not more so.

I hope this clarifies my meaning.

Thanks again.

Ric

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Greg S

iTrader: (1)

Ah, Now I understand what you were asking. That's easy to answer, not possible. Toyota doesn't give access to that sort of info. Fortunately running something like the Torque app gives you all that and more.