Newbie here. Not a mechanic, and have been without a car since the early 90's (Public Transit always got me where I wanted to go.)

So now I find myself needing a vehicle, so I have a line in a 1999 Stratus which should suite my needs just fine.

I used to do my own repairs "back in the day", but that was when a timing light was a big deal.

So now that I am going to have a car that is almost from this millennium, I figure that I might as well has some of that fancy new fangled equipment that can help me maintain the thing, and keep me looking at least a little intelligent when I take it in for service.

I also don't want to spend a lot of money on something that I may get tired of.

So doing a little research I find that one of the cheapest ways to go could be to pick up an "ELM Diagnostic Monitor", hook it up to my laptop, run some software, and away I go.

My problem is, being cheap, there are several choices as to which ELM Diagnostic Monitor I can pick ... three cheap ones that each handle only limited ODB II protocols, or the more expensive one that handles all three protocol. The Cheap ones being less than half of the expensive one. So given that I only want something to give me a clue as to what I can expect from these ODB thingies, and am not looking to run a service department, I would prefer to go cheap to start, and then if I think this is useful for my needs, I can go bigger next time with a little bit of education as to what best suits my needs.

Now, my question is, what ODB II protocol does the 1999 Stratus use? (From what I can gather it is the ISO protocol, but I only assume that because I was able to confirm that an older and a more recent year Stratus uses the ISO protocol, but of course that doesn't always mean that all years used the same protocol.)

And my second question is, has anyone used anything like these ELM Diag Monitors with ODB II software? And if so, how are they? Are they a decent "beginner platforms", or are they not worth it even for a "learner" model?

Thanks

P.S. Just to make it clearer ... the ELM diagnostic monitors I have linked to are just the ELM chips themself ... you can get ready built lits with all the necessary cables for about $40 for the single protocol versions, and $120 or so for the multi-protocol version.

 

you can just go to a parts store, lots of them will read the codes for free. just a thought.

 

Not my preferred way, as I was interested in learning more about the whole system and how it works, but do you have any Canadian recommendations?

I had figured that for the first little while I would more or less drive around with my laptop attached to get an idea on what can be seen, and captured, and how that relates to reality. I'm doing this because it sounds interesting, but if I were just being practical I guess a finding a place where they did this for free would be the way to go.

Thanks

 

I am hopeful that others will jump in here with ideas for you, as I had hoped to go down the same path.
As a temp workaround I bought a simple code reader from Schmucks for something like $49.95.

Not as cool or informative as the software, but at lease I can get the codes out of the ECU.

Hope we hear from those using software!

BOL
Vince

 

As soon as I get my car I will be ordering one of those ELM modules (assuming no one comes by and totally debunks the use of these software ODB systems.)

I will post a review of what I think about it when I do finally get it up and running and try it out a bit ... keep in mind though this will be a review from a complete ODB novice, so it may not be a whole lot of use to the more advanced on this forum ... but it might be useful for the rest of the novices.