Car Tools
 

We've talked about torque wrenches, battery ratchets, etc in various threads, but I can never find them when I am looking for a reference. I thought this would be a good place for tool questions and recommendations.

My first question: Anyone have experience with Foxwell OBD tools. I'm thinking of picking up an NT510 or 630 so I can replace and recalibrate my Steering Angle Sensor on the X3. Any suggestions on which unit to get or something similar that will allow me to not use INPA/ISTA or Progrmam and hopefully will be somewhat compatible with the wagon and porsche.

I thought Durametric was the only game in town for Porsches, but maybe that's not true anymore (or was never true?) :lol:

I have the Foxwell, Carly, GT1, and ISTA. Neither the Foxwell nor the Carly are anything like I'd call reliable. Useful in emergencies (since they can stay in a car), but otherwise they suck.

I have a Carly adapter now, but it seems less and less useful with each software revision. Is the Foxwell any better? Do you have the "bmw specific" model (Nt510 or whatever) or a generic one?

I have the GM version because I needed it for my truck, so it is true that I haven't used it in full up BMW mode. My experience with it on the truck, though, is that it offers much more limited functionality than I was lead to believe, AND it's a lot more annoying and opaque to use than ISTA.

I bought an iCarsoft unit for the Porsche, and it...doesn't really work. It's fine for resetting service lights but it doesn't interface with the DME the way it's supposed to.

A Durametric is what I should have gotten, but I didn't have a Windows laptop to plug it into.

That was definitely the case when I had my '07 TT.

The nice thing about Windows laptops is you can get an incredibly capable one for cheap on eBay. I have one that I use for the Haltech tuning software (no Mac version) and I used it for the Durametric when I still had the Boxster. It was $200 a couple years ago.

Yes. I have three old thinkpads for various car related applications. It’s way easier (and ultimately cheaper) than trying to keep parallels going on a Mac.