Winter Cabriolet

I do most of the maintenance on al of my cars myself. My question is how do I get the maintenance reminder to reset?

Please don't tell me to take it to the dealer or buy a vag-com. If I need a vagcom I will buy one if reasonably priced. My problem is that I don't know a thing about them. What should I buy? What's the difference between it and a Can and OBD11 scan tool.

If I sound ignorant I am!.

Thanks for helping one that is lost.

Myron

NABS4

Vag-com from Ross-Tech. Any other cable is a Chinese knock-off. An OBD scanner won't do anything. Perhaps you can find someone near you with cable who will reset the interval for you. The good news is that it works for all VAG vehicles, Porsche excluded.

Telate

Yea unfortunately you do either need a vag-com or the dealer. The Vag-Com is very easy to reset the service reminder though, there is a specific function in there to do it. When I bought the cable I think it was around $400, but I used it quite a bit (I rebuilt my vehicle after buying it off the insurance company - had to replace airbags and "reset" the airbag computer, as well as read off all the codes that the car had)

The cable is a very good investment if you plan to stick with Audi or VW. You can get rid of that really annoying LED DRL turning off when you signal :P

Winter Cabriolet

Is it safe to assume that the knock offs do not work? $10 vs $300+ Makes no sense.

snagitseven

Actually, it does make sense.The eBay knock-offs are single state, reverse-engineered from older VCDS cables. They cannot update firmware and will be almost useless for newer car models. Most of the cost of a Vag-Com cable is for the Ross-Tech software/firmware development which is continuously updated to include new car models with newer technology and the latest module revisions.

Finally, it's like buying any counterfeit product in that it deprives revenue from the manf, in this case, Ross-Tech, which provides the resources allowing them to invest in the development of the latest revisions and updates of their product.

As to the simple OBD readers on the market, they are good for basic problem reports but cannot provide the detail of VCDS or make modifications to the car's coding.

Winter Cabriolet

If I want to read codes and reset the service minder will a OBD reader work? Which one?

snagitseven

AFAIK, readers only read/scan; they can't modify or reset anything. They also don't provide the comprehensive scan report detail as the VCDS.

AudiQ5sleeper

cant be cheap on the vagcom. its worth the money. see if anyone is selling their vagcoms since some owners on here had traded their Audi.

MP4.2+6.0

And, if OP (or anyone else on the board) hasn't realized the simple diagnostic value to then identify and get things fixed under warranty, check it out more. That item that is an obscure fault code today in the memory at less than 4 years and 50K miles, can be a minimum repair bill = to the price of the cable for life, and could be literally thousands of $ in due course. BTDT on my last two Audis from MY 2000 forward. Literally thousands of $ saved, or alternately having my "nice" Audi start to turn into a another beater/used car with lots of "problems" because it was "too expensive" to fix when I as the owner had to pay for the now obvious issue to be fixed post 4/50. Candidly, I also have little reason to think the Q5 will be different on many of the same systems, which have trickled down the model lines over time.

And no, 1) the rip off counterfeit cables and engine OBDII code reader stuff won't even begin to find many of the items (electronics, HVAC, motor mounts, door, window and seat controls, and lots of others), and 2) the Audi dealer service will not just scan the all the accessible systems on the car routinely and proactively fix other stuff lurking only in codes to start.

Redd

Can an OBD2 dongle be left in the socket, without draining the car's battery? I ask because I have a Bluetooth OBD2 "reader" and was thinking I might as well just leave it in place, that way if I want it, it already is there instead of cluttering up some drawer. Then I thought, maybe they draw power all the time?

Or does the OBD2 port also cut off all power to the readers when the engine is turned off?

I'm used to a much older simpler car, where the engine computer literally couldn't count to ten, so I've got some learning to do too.