Best diagnostic fault finder system?

[tblandy]

So which is the all round best system for all Land Rovers ?

I need it for day to day work with landys, all the usual problemos.

Nanocom?

Hawkeye?

Blackbox?

What other systems are there that do other 4x4s/cars?

Any help appriciated

[DirtyD]

Tblandy

I brought a Hawkeye for my TD5 Defender. Wasnt sure to go for the nanocom or hawkeye either. Chose the hawkeye in the end. Very impressive for the money and would highly recommend. Mine only works for Defneders but I think you can have it with all vehicles on. Dont know what that would cost though. I got mine from Bearmach in kent. They were really helpful to me

[hoss1720]

Depends on how much money you have available or want to spend?

What type of Landrover? Defenders,Discovery 1+2,Range Rovers,etc.

Dependant on age and engine type and the volume of work your doing I would always go for Autologic.

Not cheap though,your looking at £7000 for a Landrover set up,but if youve got the workload and given that an average diagnostic check is somewhere between £30-40.The outlay is well worth it.

Fully mobile and comes with full back up.It also gives the option to do ECU power upgrades on later model Landrovers.

[R_Lefebvre]

Hi Guys, I'm in Canada and looking for input on these things Not too many people on this side of the pond bother with these for some reason. I've got a 2004 Discovery V8 Auto. I've got the "3 Amigos" on the dash as usual. I believe it's a bad ground. I need to invest in one of these tools to keep my truck running. I could spend $200 on an ABS Amigo, all it does it turn off the 3 Amigos, no display, you have to plug it into a computer to read what the code was. That is all it does, clear SLABS faults.

For about $400, I could get the Hawkeye. And for about $800, I could get the Faultmate MSV-2. But I really can't tell what the MSV can do that the Hawkeye cannot.

And a related question. I'm in the middle of removing my auto gearbox and fitting a new R380. I hate autos and I got some water in side which destroyed the clutches, and I'm tired of dealing with autos. All is going well so far, except I need to reconfigure my ECU for a manual gearbox. Otherwise it is always going to be looking for the auto gearbox, and will set the check engine light permenently. I know the Hawkeye and the Faultmate cannot do this. I believe the Testbook can, but Land Rover dealers are not likely to want to deal with this situation. I've got an independent shop nearby with an Autologic, do you know if this can perform the reconfiguration of the ECU?

I know there is a location in the BCU which selects the gearbox, and this can be changed by a Faultmate and maybe a Hawkeye, but there is another location in the engine ECU as well.

Regards,

Rob

[simonr]

Originally, the choice was between:

Autologic - £7000

Rovacom - £800 + modules for different models

Nanocom - £200

The Autologic is by a long way the best - but out of the reach of most. Nanocom, at least the original version, as quite restricted in what it could do - you couldn't do much more than read and clear faults.

Rovacom was a good half way. They are owned by a lot of Land Rover repairers and owners and they can do most of what Autologic can do - but the user interface is pretty clunky and I wouldn't want to be using it every day!

Hawkeye is in the same price bracket as Nanocom, but can do pretty much everything Rovacom can. It has a nice user interface and can do a lot without plugging it in to a PC via the built in display.

I have a Rovacom - but I'm more than tempted to buy a Hawkeye. For the cost of a basic Rovacom, you could have a Hawkeye with the software modules for every Land Rover model.

Si

[sotal]

I only have experience of reading about the Range Rover Diagnostics (and trust me Range Rovers need diagnostics on a regular basis!)

The Faultmate MSV2 gets very good reviews, basically it's advertised as a do everything that testbook does but at a much nicer price. It's not stupid money but only if you go for a single vehicle licence. I think it worked out at about £500 which is the equivalent of about 10 trips to LR. It does get quite pricey if you want multi vehicle though.

The hawkeye got awful reviews from the RR owners, but this may be due to comparing it to what the Faultmate could do, the general consensus was that the hawkeye was an OK general diagnostics tool, but the faultamte was a do everything tool and for the difference in price the faultmate was worth it everytime

Also forgot to say but Colin the owner of Black Box Solutions (who make Faultmate) is a memeber on rangerovers.net forum, so you can PM him and have a conversation about the product before buying. Also worth asking for a discount if you did decide to go with that product. His username is BBS_SPY. Hope that helps

[Ally V8]

You could also look at Testbook T4 from Omitec - which was the dealer tool.Its now alot cheaper - considerably cheaper than Autologic or Rovacom.It can also do Rover MG too,but it only goes to 2005.5,you need their UCM for later cars.(If you are brave or daft enough to want to get involved with D3's / RR Sports etc.)

[R_Lefebvre]

The hawkeye got awful reviews from the RR owners, but this may be due to comparing it to what the Faultmate could do, the general consensus was that the hawkeye was an OK general diagnostics tool, but the faultamte was a do everything tool and for the difference in price the faultmate was worth it everytime

That's one of my questions. I believe that the initial bad reviews might have been due to them overpromising and underdelivering, but the situation might have improved with the later firmware releases. They're on the 4th or 5th revision now and have added features as they go. I'd just love to hear from somebody who has one and how well it works on a D2.

Can anybody confirm if an Autologic can repgrogram the engine ECU for manual transmission? If that's the fix, then I'll just pay the guy $200 to do it.