Looking for Scanguage 2 users

[JoelB]

I'm interested in picking up one of these to watch fluid temps and oil pressure for my mirage. Mostly as a fun exercise in viewing the data under all kinds of circumstances.

I'm looking for opinions or info from people that have used one. Is it difficult to get the correct information displayed? It seems like manufacturers have codes or something used to pull up the information? I'm not well versed in the process so I'm trying to get a better idea before I order it.

 

[Falcon_LS]

I have one in each vehicle, primarily to keep an eye on actual coolant temperature, ATF temperature, etc. as well as monitor gas mileage and pull codes in case the money light comes on while driving.

There are individual X-Gauges that can be programmed in, depending on your make/model. Some X-Gauges are manufacturer specific, but may or may not work with your particular model. Trial and error is the only way I've been able to find the ones that work.

 

[MacManus99]

I have either a Scan Gauge II or a Ultra Gauge in all of my vehicles. The Scan Gauge II was my first one, and I bought that almost 10 years ago. Wish I had bought it sooner. Not a single issue with it over those years.

 

[JoelB]

Is it possible that I will not be able to pull up certain data for my vehicle? I'd like to display oil/coolant and trans temp along with oil pressure.

 

[JHZR2]

The scan gauge is a good tool, I’ve run one in some of my vehicles. In my S-10, the scan gauge wakes up if I put the battery charger on it. That’s my only gripe. I never got into coding x gauges, so I don’t know what might be possible....

I have an ultra gauge, it works ok too. I like that it’s smaller, but some functionality I just don’t like as much. It does have a lot of parameters programmed in to select from though...

 

[dippschtick]

I bought one for my 4Runner to read trans temp for doing drain and fills. Haven't used it for anything else.
Works perfectly for my intended use.

 

[MacManus99]

Is it possible that I will not be able to pull up certain data for my vehicle? I'd like to display oil/coolant and trans temp along with oil pressure.

It depends on a couple of things. Every car has coolant temp available, however trans and engine oil temp is highly dependent on if that data is even available via OBD II port. I personally haven't seen any that carry oil pressure data.

In my FRS, I had to enter a code into my scangauge in order for it to be able to read my oil temp. It was an easy process, took about 5 minutes. Oil temp data isn't available on my other two vehicles.

 

[supton]

I have one in my truck. It is supposed to have 2 ATF temp sensors but only one returns data--and yes, I entered in the code a second time, triple checked, and it simply won't work. But otherwise it works just fine.

I used to have it in my Jetta, and found it was a lousy tool to track mpg. I could "calibrate" it and it'd be fine for a few tanks, then I'd alter my driving habits, and it'd be significantly off. I'd drive conservatively, get 47mpg for several tanks in a row, and SGII would report that. Then I'd get a bug, drive hard, and get say 42mpg calculated--but SGII would report something like 39. Not close. Not a problem here, since I think your Mirage has an mpg readout and you weren't asking--but will point that out. In my truck it seems "ok" but I rarely drive that hard, so I don't know if the issue still exists or not. [It's like a sample rate error, I think. No idea, gave up caring, if I want more mpg then I know how to do that, don't need a gauge to know when I'm misbehaving!]

I want to say, couple years ago, on the Mirage forum that I read of issues with SGII on the OBD port. Like the car was having problems with having a reader that was plugged in all the time. Maybe it was unrelated, maybe it was FUD. Point is, I'd go there and look for it, if you can't find it maybe it's a non-issue. But of all the people who would know what code to enter for transmission temperature, they would be the ones.

My SGII did lose its backlight after a few years; I had to open it up and fix some cracked solderjoints. No issues otherwise in what must be 10+ years now.

 

[JoelB]

I posted on the mirage forum to see if anyone had been able to display what I'm looking for. Unfortunately for me it looks like the mirage doesn't have an oil pressure or oil temp sensor so there would be no way to pull that data. That basically kills the usefulness of the scanguage for me.