Best bidirectional scanner for Mazda

[timoboy]

As someone with exclusively Mazda and Toyota vehicles, what is the best scanner on the market for bidirectional control functions for these vehicles? Abs bleeds, evap purge valve control, etc.

If you have been around scanners for awhile, you quickly realized they are USA and Euro car biased. Many lack any real functionality for Japanese cars. Especially difficult are any that can talk to my Ford based Mazda vehicles of which I service several.

Has anyone had good luck with any in particular? I’m happy to spend $1-2k if it can actually talk to these vehicles bidirectionally. Especially Mazda.

I’ve reached out to a few of the big names but they basically said buy it and find out. Not super helpful, especially at $1500+ for a scanner that may be a paperweight. Hopefully someone has real world experience.

 

[Timmastertech]

On Mazda you are going to be disappointed. Mazda was not big on bidirectional controls until recently. I subscribe to the factory IDS scan tool for Mazda and compared to Ford vehicles of the same vintage the data pids and bidirectional controls just arent there, were never put into the vehicle software. Outside of IDS Forscan is about the best you will get for Mazda for non 7th gen vehicles.

 

[vwmaniaman]

I have an Ancel 610P that I bought on Amazon to do the ABS bleeds. It works great and does other tests too. It was about $110. Works really well on ABS.

 

[vwmaniaman]

To do the ABS bleed you must pump the pedal to get it as high as you can and hold pressure on it. Start the bleed by turning on the pump with it and you will feel the pedal drop while you are still holding pressure and then while the pump is running you will feel the pedal come back up. It works great.

 

[slacktide_bitog]

Innova has a coverage checker to see what it can do for your cars

The 5610 does bi-directional

 

[mazdamonky]

I ended up buying an autel unit to assist with some german cars I have been working on. My 2018 mazda 3 really doesn't have many bidirectional tests like most american made vehicles but the autel seems to be able to perform quite a bit. I have used it even on my 2002 protege to do things like check fuel pump functionality, various relays, and diagnose a bad vics solenoid.

 

[Mainia]

Check out XTool scanners on Amazon - I have D7 that is 3.5 years old. Still no reason to buy up to a D8 or D7S. XTool has 3 years free updates.