Accurate Diagnostics on 01 Prius

Any problems with the NHW11 getting 'spiked'?

Does it auto-configure for the OBD protocol or do you have to preset it?

Price of the TechStream Lite?

I just found the list of TechStream Lite errors at:
https://techinfo.toyota.com/techInf...chinfo/html/prelogin/tsrss/ts_known_bugs.html

Compared to Auto Enginuity 'support', this is brilliant. I don't expect anything I buy to be perfect but I do expect my supplier to at least acknowledge problems even if they won't or can't fix it.

I'm unhappy with Auto Enginuity used on our NHW11:

• clueless support - "we don't have a problem"
• ProLine Connector spikes the OBD bus - leading to false errors
• ProLine Connector stops data collecting - the first time, it runs for about 2 minutes and stops collecting data. Restarting and it runs for a variable period up to 10-20 minutes and stops collecting data.
• Obvious data errors - MG1 torque has more in common with a random number generator. Other 16 bit values frequently show number errors suggesting one or more bits were lost.
• Absence of sub-codes - we can get major error codes from the controllers but no one has reported a sub code, yet.
• ZVW30 support not there - the current release handles only emissions values. Fortunately, it appears to read these values correctly and shows no evidence of hangs

I have no idea if Auto Enginuity will refund any part of the purchase price. Getting rid of the aggravation will more than make up for any loss. They must suffer from that common malady, too many customers. If not, there is always Ebay.

Bob Wilson

 

I cannot sympathize much with your situation. Prior to purchasing the Autoenginuity, you recommended it to more than a few people on this forum, and - despite having no experience with it - raised hell with anyone who pointed out its well-known problems. Why you chose to do this, one can only imagine.

I'm guessing that there are a few folks out there whom you advised, who also want their money back.

People who come to this forum for assistance are generally using up their spare time to work on projects which have modest budgets. It is imperative that they be offered advice which is clear, concise, relevant, free of ego, and - most important of all - accurate. Anything else will only waste their time and money.

 

$1,345. https://techinfo.toyota.com:443/tec...hinfo/html/prelogin/docs/tsliteflyertinfo.pdf
It's unclear whether you have to maintain the annual subscription at $1,095/year, to keep the diagnostic software functioning after the initial one-year term has expired. If so, I'd say that cost may be suitable for a Toyota independent shop but not for a casual DIYer.

Thanks very much for letting us know that you've found the Autoenginuity product to be inadequate for Classic and 3G Prius.

 

At present, you do not.

 

Thanks Patrick,

I had a browser get confused and eventually rebooted.

OWCH! I'll have to start my Christmas fund.

I would not call it inadequate as much as usable but buggy:

• NHW11 best of a bad lot - compared to the COTs units, it is head and shoulders above although it has problems. I've tried to document them but I'm distinctly disappointed with their 'support' staff. The byte sized values appear to be OK. Larger ones may or may not have problems. Their support staff are totally clueless. If the choice is no scanner or the AE, the AE is better than nothing.
• ZVW30 stock emission values are OK - with this small set, I can record and calculate MPG and other major functions.
• NHW20 no data - I don't have an NHW20 but I think Hobbit and W2co have positive experiences with it.

Like any product, it takes hands on testing to get the facts and data. TomFreed got a lot of good use with his and within its limits, it works with the NHW11. However, it was about 1/3d the price of the TechLite.

We're not getting much useful information from Toyota about past technical changes. A one year subscription might be just the thing to 'raise the bar.' I've held off on a subscription based upon Hobbit's description of a poorly organized, standards hostile service. I think you've subscribed to it in the past. Your thoughts?

Bob Wilson

 

Hi Bob,

Yes, I've subscribed to TIS a couple of times in the past. I know that you in the past have preferred to purchase the paper manuals. I also bought paper manuals for my 2001, but I found that the prices of those manuals covering more recent model years to be excessive.

My initial subscription was for a one-month period and I downloaded the TSB and NCF info for all Prius model years and for my HiHy, as well as substantial repair manual info. I recently had access to TIS for a two-business day period and again downloaded TSB, NCF and certain 2010 repair manual sections.

I found that the NCF and repair manual info for the 2010 Prius model was less comprehensive than that for the 2001 and 2004 model years. Further, it is more difficult now to download and save large repair manual excerpts. My method was to print to .pdf files but this does not work for the electrical wiring diagram manual.

I assume that the user-unfriendly design of TIS is deliberate, since it is getting harder to use as time passes. The good news is that the access charge for two business days or one month is very moderate, so the pricing is DIYer-friendly. The bad news is that you have to work pretty hard to obtain comprehensive info.

The TIS design is probably OK for an independent shop with a professional subscription. The tech is presumably interested only in downloading the few pages that relate to the particular problem at hand, since s/he can count upon uninterrupted TIS access.

 

You're right and I still prefer the paper manuals. I have Vol. II for the ZVW30 and it is as detailed and complete as our NHW11 volumes. I hate the idea of needing some piece of information and having to go searching through an awkwardly designed web site. I might as well ask someone who claims to have knowledge yet refuses to share . . . showing they don't have any worth knowing.

I'm finding more and more web pages are less 'user friendly'. In the past, I could blame it on poor HTML encoders like Microsoft office. But any more, it looks like web designers are after 'eye candy' and the end user is the least of their consideration.

Bob Wilson

 

Because of my hands-on testing, I know it fills an important niche:

• $50-250 over the counter scanners - these units have barely enough to read the standard emissions values and are all but useless for reading codes from the Prius ECUs. Many can not handle the ISO-9141 protocol.
• Graham Miniscanner - no longer in production, these units work reliably and provide 90% of what is needed. But there are a limited number and I'm running a 'lending library' with two.
• $300 Auto Enginuity - buggy, it provides more data than the Graham Miniscanner, about 95% of what is interesting. It isn't as easy to use as a Graham Miniscanner because it takes a PC laptop but compared to the alternatives, it is brilliant.
• $1,200-1,500 TechStream lite - pricy, it may provide the missing sub-codes for NHW11s and correct the hangs and data errors. The spec sheet indicates it handles downloads and setting customization parameters. But I don't have one to test, yet.

In our case, we have two Prius and using cash accounting, they represent:

• $17,300 - NHW11
• $24,250 - ZVW30
• $41,550 - total Prius, cash purchase value

The dollar value of our Prius fleet makes a $1,500 TechStream-lite a practical, future expense . . . like tires. But I don't have to buy it today. Best of all, the scangauge 'cable', a recent posting, may provide a clue to how to solve some of the AE problems.

Bob Wilson

 

In this thread:

Which one is it?

 

As I've pointed out before, AE isn't half bad with the gen2 Prius.
It does most or all of the bi-directional tests and activations
we need. Jay and the crew over at AE had, perhaps still have,
a prius of their own to study and reverse-engineer a lot of the
protocol. Not so for the gen1, unfortunately, and based solely
on Toyota's sketchy protocol document they've got a lot of
byte-swap problems and missing stuff for that car. You can see
the battery block levels, which is useful when trying to go
after a possibly ailing pack, but some other basics are wonked.
.
I don't know if AE has even started on the gen3 stuff yet, but
I'm back at version 5.something where they're up to 8.x by now.
Bob would undoubtedly be able to clarify.
.
Did you *buy* TSL or pirate it and hook it up to a mongoose?
.
_H*

 

Actually, the Gen III NCF and RM are more informative and more detailed in many of the places that count than those for previous generations. The Gen III NCF and RM forgo descriptions of basic concepts.

True. Toyota's abandonment of the PDF format in favor of HTML was indeed regrettable, but not unexpected: the sheer volume of pirated TIS documents online, including on PriusChat, made it only a matter of time before they would start to make copying more difficult.

One can only hope that Toyota is not discouraged by the discussions of pirated Techstream software that can be found in these forums. It would be regrettable if they were to tire of such antics and kill the Techstream Lite and simply return the price of admission to ~$8K.

Other than the move from PDF to HTML, I don't see any serious issues. I think the site is easy to use.

I disagree. The site is designed for folks who will be using it frequently. It doesn't take much time to learn the structure of Toyota's service information, and it's well worth it for the folks for whom it is designed.

 

I'm using their ProLine USB interface. I'm 90% sure the hangs are from the ProLine and certainly spiking the NHW11 comes from it.

Bob Wilson

 

I know and I'd be happy to work with them but the last communication claims I have severe ABS brake problems. So when I was at Firestone, they used their scanner and I faxed the 'no problem found' report. Their answer, 'Firestone is wrong.'


The Monty Python 'argument' sketch is hilarious until you realize the other party lives in another universe . . . the secret to Detroit's success.

Mesa is about 1,800 miles from Huntsville or I'd loan them our 2003. If they want to fly out, drive it over and drive it back, I'd be happy to loan it to them. But near as I can tell, they really don't have any interest in fixing the NHW11 problems. At least for someone who lives that far away.

I've got the male connector and am thinking about getting a female and making my own diagnostic, breakout box, similar to yours. If I do, it only makes sense to share what I learn . . . to the benefit of the Scangauge folks. There is no copyright issue when I'm dealing with a broken product and am trying to get them to 'do the right thing.'

Bob Wilson

 

"no copyright issue" ... heh, you should have seen Jay Horak in
another forum totally *go off* at some Russian dude with a proper
CAN analyzer and the Toyota factory tool who clearly showed that
AE was sending a few wrong things. Jay's argument was "you are
ILLEGALLY reverse engineering our product" and similar BS and
actively wouldn't either help the guy work through his problem or
set to and fix the product. Kept claiming that any protocol analysis
in the interest of conforming to standards was ILLEGAL, ILLEGAL,
ILLEGAL. The guy clearly never saw the network sniffers we use
every day to debug internet problems and wouldn't live without,
and with which we find protocol screwups in commercial products
and systems on a fairly regular basis.
.
Well, that was back in the old days, and AE has hired a few more
people and hopefully gained a bit more perspective in the process.
But for those of us who grew up around the IETF and well-documented
open standards, there's a whole different philosophy around OBD-II
and the proprietary nonsense mixed into it. And it sucks, because
the poor indy tech is caught in the middle with broken cars he
can't fix.
.
_H*

 

Thinking about this last night:

Patrick, you are still in Arizona? Too bad you don't have an NHW11 or knew someone who had one and an interest in pursuing getting AE to 'do the right thing.'

Bob Wilson

 

Thanks! I've never met the man but certainly know the type. Potential brilliance poisoned by paranoia and other demons, they live in a world hostile to them. If they'd just stay in their 'universe,' no problem except to their families. But they sometimes wander about in public and make pests of themselves.

When I was in the Marine Corps, we had a young man fresh from boot camp and computer training show up at our unit. Bright and personable, he seemed OK for six months until his demons returned one night.

I visited him that Friday and he started telling me about a Louis L'Amour book he claimed to have written. Then he accused me of having 'injected him' with drugs and asking what I was supposed to tell him "to do next." Understand, I had a grandfather who 'went over the edge' when I was 12 and knew the pattern well . . . and to keep my distance. Well later that weekend, he called his parents.

Monday morning, I'm at my Marine duty station (1974 mainframe computer unit) and his parents show up. Everyone is surprised but more than willing to give them a tour. His mother asks to visit 'the facilities' and I escort her away. As soon as we are out of earshot, she asked, "Is <name> OK?"

I told her he is a paranoid schitzophrenic and she asked if there is someone in authority she could speak with. I took her to the officer in charge. By ~3:00 PM, he was in Bethesda Naval Hospital, psychiatric ward. But while he was there, some of the young Marines visited him and he told them of his fantasy world in which I and his parents were drugging him and manipulating his life.

We later learned he had been under serious psychiatric care before enlisting in the Marines. He did not reveal his medical history when he enlisted. It took less than a year for his symptoms to return. Within a couple of months, the Marines gave him a medical discharge.

A year later, I was working at a computer services company and I got a phone call, out of the blue, from him. His first question, "What do you and my parents want me to do next?" I told him to do whatever he wants and don't call me again. Near as I can tell, he has followed that last 'command.'

One tell about such folks is they suffer a selective reality. You can tell them something and in their next breath, they will ask a question that reveals they 'never heard' what you'd just told them. They are selectively in this world, which is why I typically label them sociopaths because we are nothing more than puppets and props to their strange reality.

In the early 1960s, my grandfather was at the cusp of psychotropic drugs. More for patient management, he was 'less bad' and lived the rest of his life in assisted living. But a clever if somewhat profane man was replaced by a walking body who was barely able to deal with reality. Now if I were paranoid, I would claim something attracts them to me . . . but that would be paranoid!

Bob Wilson

ps. Sorry for wandering off the reservation. I would much rather discuss Prius technical things.

 

I am, Bob. However I would not expect AE to fix any existing bugs that relate to NHW11. There were only 51K NHW11 units sold in the US and the cars are now 7-9 years old, they are really near end-of-life.

How many incremental units might AE sell if the bugs were fixed: 5?

Do you remember a few years ago when I polled Yahoo group members to see who might be interested in a last-time buy of the Ecrostech miniscanner. Graham Davies was willing to restart production if a dozen units could be sold. As I recall, there were only a couple of members showing interest, and the price point was <1/3 that of the AE unit.

 

Owch! That is when a quality tool is most needed.

The sad thing is I'm willing (and possibly a couple of others,) to accurately document the problems so bug fixes could be applied where needed. We're not talking about lazy customers who just complain without offering detailed, backup information.

I must have missed that one. Had I seen it, I would have put up enough to start production and guarantee purchase of every one ... especially if my favorite bugs were fixed (aka., header text for data fields in the log.) But you are right from a 'classical" business standpoint (fortunately Toyota ignored the Detroit practice.)

What would be nice is if say in 2013, Toyota would release the OBD definitions, open source, or at least at an affordable price. It would buy a lot of good will and the community could more easily keep the NHW11s, keepin' on.

So when is the 10 year anniversary of the NHW11 in the USA, November?

Bob Wilson