DaveInSaltLake

I've been using the freeware VWTOOL software (similar to an early version of VAGCOM) on my OBDII cars with an $80-something OBDTOOL interface for about 9 months now. http://www.obdtool.com/. However, OBDTOOL won't interface with my current OBDI projects...and I knew that when I bought it.

After a bit of research, I recently ordered 2 items from Autonostics thru their website:
VW/Adudi 2x2 OBDII Cable for $8.88
VAG-COM 311.2 Compatible RS232 Interface Cable for $11.88

Autonostics sells product thru Ebay, as well. People seem to have significant problems trying to get this product to work with the Rosstech VAGCOM software, from what I've read on several VAGCOM-related forums. Many of the problems appear to be related to the USB interface and the drivers required to run the thing. You'll note that I went with the old-fashioned SERIAL (RS232) cable as the clunker computer in my garage is set up for that.

My wife came home from her parent-teacher conferences last night as I was finishing up a timing belt service on my 1995 A6 project. She had the mail in her arms and passed me a package that had the Autonostics cables in it, so I decided to test them out. It was literally plug and play. VWTOOL fired right up and accessed all the controllers I asked it to. No searching for drivers, no installation of any software or hardware, or anything else.

It wouldn't, however, access any of the controllers on my 1990 100 with the same-looking black and white plugs in the driver's footwell...I'll be looking at that more closely in the future.

update: It works fine on my 1997 A6q OBDII car, too.

As noted before, I recognize that I'm a dinosaur by using VWTOOL, but it does everything I could ask it to do on my 1999 and older Audis...also dinosaurs by some standards. It has run all the diagnostics spec'd in the Bentley manual that I've tried, even the output tests on the 1999 A4 tiptronic automatic transmission.

When I first started using VWTOOL it took me awhile to find all the dll files it needed. I think I spent a total of about an hour on Google finding them. Error messages kept popping up saying it couldn't find a certain dll, then another, and another. Eventually I got the thing running and now I keep a folder on my flash drive now that has all the necessary files to run it on any comptuer. The folder is about 1 MB total.

I'd be interested in hearing from others who use VWTOOL and their impressions. Has anyone identified any significant limitations or "missing" features with respect to 1999 and older Audis? I'd also be happy to email anyone a zipped file of VWTOOL if you want to try it out...just make sure you email me from an address that can accept a zipped 500 kb attachment.

Disclaimers: I've never actually used the real VAGCOM before so I can't really compare. There is no tech support (something RossTech excels at from the reports I've read) from the developer of VWTOOL and the software hasn't been updated since about 1999....thus, it may be problematic to use on newer cars.

additional related links:
http://www.planetfall.com/~jeff/obdii/

http://www.geocities.com/darkyp/eng/ecuemulator.html

and, of course, the de facto state of the art in Audi diagnostics: http://ross-tech.com/

austinado16

Great info and finally an accurate and cheap way for folks to do their own diag.

DaveInSaltLake

providing me my original copy of VWTOOL and the referral to OBDTOOL.

E-Town

I couldn't get VAGCOM to work on my 93 100 because I was using the connectors behind the radio. Turns out they were missing a wire. Works fine on the ones under the hood.

DaveInSaltLake

Update: It works fine for the OBDII cars, too. ran it thru the paces on my 97 A6 last night.

austinado16

Nice job Dave! Or should I say, DAV-Com