A3 obd2 compliance

[urbonek]

Hi. I tried to google it. Spent many hours with no luck. I'm trying to establish if my audi A3 UK (September 1998) is obd2 compliant and what protocol it uses. Could anyone help please? Thanks. Slaw.

[NickPicks]

There is an OBD2 port by the driver's knee. With Vagcom, it uses the KKL protocol.

You're best off getting a dumb interface cable like this one from gendan for £20 delivered, and the shareware version of VCDS Lite (registration to a full version will be $99). This will let you do pretty much anything an Audi dealer can do to your car diagnostics system. The shareware version will let you do basic fault code reads.

Hope this helps.

[urbonek]

Thanks, NickPicks.
The presence of a port doesn't mean that the car is obd2 compliant. I bought obd2 bluetooth and torque software, connected it all but it doesn't seem to be working. It works fine in VW golf 2000 UK. I've tried many sources to establish if my car is compliant and if yes, which of the ISO protocol it uses. Your advise is very valuable but I don't have a laptop.

[Sam]

OBDII became mandatory for all vehicles built and sold in the USA from 1996 onwards.

It wasn't mandatory for EU (EOBD) sold/built vehicles until 2001 (petrol) and 2004 (diesel).

Logically, I think you can assume that it isn't OBDII compliant, but you can check for certain by looking at the port and seeing where there are contact pins present.

On 1996 and later vehicles, you can tell which protocol is used by examining the OBD II connector:

• J1850 VPW --The connector should have metallic contacts in pins 2, 4, 5, and 16, but not 10.
• ISO 9141-2/KWP2000 --The connector should have metallic contacts in pins 4, 5, 7, 15, and 16.
• J1850 PWM --The connector should have metallic contacts in pins 2, 4, 5, 10, and 16.
• CAN --The connector should have metallic contacts in pins 4, 5, 6, 14 and 16.

If your vehicle has this style connector, but doesn't have these pins populated, you probably have a pre-OBDII vehicle. To add some confusion, even having the connector with the contacts shown above is not a guarantee of OBD II compliance. This style connector has been seen on some pre-1996 vehicles which were not OBD II compliant.

Source

[urbonek]

Thanks, mycarsavw.
I googled it, too. It still doesn't prove that my car isn't compliant. Some models are compliant despite regulations as far back as 1996. Anyone who owns the car like mine and knows it for sure?
Cheers.
Or does anyone know how to reveal what's behind the connector?

[Sam]

Which pins on the port are populated?

[urbonek]

That's exactly my question. I don't know how to reveal them.

[Sam]

Aaaah!

I've just had a look at a 51 plate A3 thinking I'd be able to see the pins but I can't - I didn't realise

Drop the knee bolster (remove the fuse cover on the right end of the dash and undo a few torx bolts there - it's fairly obvious. There's a few more under the dash too) and you can get to the back of the port and, hopefully, count/track the wires to the pins.

[urbonek]

Thanks.

[urbonek]

Hi mycarsavw,
I've managed to get behind the connector. Pins populated on the port are: 1, 4, 5, 7 and 16. According to http://www.auterraweb.com/obdiipinout.html my car should be 'talking' to diagnostic tools. Yet it doesn't 'talk' to Android Torque. I'm totally dumbstruck. But maybe it's bluetooth adapter I got from ebay. And yet again it works fine with my friend's vw. Should ALL OBD2 compliant cars have ‘MIL’ or ‘CHECK ENGINE’ lights?