Hi, First time poster, long-time lurker. My "service engine soon" light came on after stalling on the freeway. I hooked up my OBD II scanner, and it has trouble linking. First time using this scanner on my G35. It works on my other vehicles. It's a Cen-Tech CAN OBD II, Item # 98568. Anyone have this problem? No desire to go to the Stealership!

 

Swing by auto parts store and have it checked, to make sure it's not your reader.

 

I thought my scanner might not be working right, so I plugged it into my 2011 Jeep, and it worked great! When plugged into my G35, it just reads "waiting for response" and then nothing? I only have 33,000 miles on the G35, and drive it for leisure only. First time I have really ever had a problem, other than the power windows and CD Player, which has been a problem for many with the 04.

The stalling problem I incurred, from what I have read on this forum, sounds like a cam position sensor. Just want to know for sure before replacing them.

 

pardon me for the stupid question, but are you turning the ignition to "ON"? the scanner won't connect if you just have the ignition turned to "ACC"

 

Yes, I turned the ignition on. In fact, if you don't, the scanner tells you to turn it on. As I said in my previous post, I hooked it up to my jeep, and the scanner worked great. I have used it many times on other vehicles, but first time on my G35. So I can't figure out the problem. I don't want to buy another, and then find out that it won't work either.

 

Try to use a different scanner. You can get a cheap Bluetooth (or wifi) dongle and use an app on your phone to check the codes.

 

Cen tech- harbor freight item which has been known to work on majority of OBD2 vehicles but not all. There has been a lot of reviews on these OBD2 diagnostic scanners. And the Linking error seems its most common downfall. Try a INNOVA or ACTRON and i'm sure it'll link up with your ecu. I still personally use a INNOVA 3100 purchased back in 2007 and still works til this day. Still can't beat cipher though... ABS... datalogging...BCM..idle adjustment...etc.

 

While a hand scanner is nice to have, better tools are available for less money if you have either an iPhone or an Android smart phone or tablet.

I've used a cheap as chips generic Elm327 Wifi OBD-II adapter (search eBay or Amazon, about $20-25) with my iPhone in my 05 G35 and it works very well. I have had several OBD-II equipped cars over the years and have collected a few iPhone/iPad apps to use with it. All of these apps offer so much more than a simple scanner it's ridiculous. My over all favorite is Rev2, but it was like $40-50 when I first bought it. It is the best at showing pending codes, monitor readiness and clearing codes. Next is DashCommander (now about $10). It has the best gauges and gas mileage readout/tracker. Both have track mapper functions that will use GPS to overlay braking/accel/coast over a satellite image of a road/track. Both offer data logging and export to .csv format for import into a spreadsheet.

My least favorite comes originally from the Android world and it shows. Torque is the least expensive of the three ($6) has most of the functionality but none of the aesthetics.

Once you have the OBD-II wifi adapter there is another fun tool if you like to track your car or carve canyons. Look for an app for iPhone called Track Addict (it was like $6 when I got it) . This will let you take live video (upto 1080p on newer iPhones) of you driving and overlay GPS and OBD-II data onto the video. So you can overlay RPM, throttle, speed or whatever on your video. It's pretty cool and useful too.

If you have either an Android or an iPhone smart phone you can make up a great OBD-II reader system for under $30 that is WAY more sophisticated and intuitive than the Handheld units. If you don't have either you can usually find used Android smartphones/tablets on FleaBay for $30-50. You DON'T need to have cellular account to use the phone with the OBD-II reader.

I have an Actron CP9135 handheld that just sits in a drawer now.

I know I got a little off topic here, but if it comes down to a problem with the OPs reader, I suggest going smartphone/apps rather than handheld.

 

Couldn't agree more, I have a cheap $10 obdII scanner from ebay just to play with the torque app and its worked wonderfully for next to nothing.

 

Thank you all for your suggestions on scanners that work well with our cars. I will buy a new one. I just wasn't sure if it was my scanner or my car....looks like both, just not compatible with each other.
I have an Android tablet, so maybe I'll go with one that works with that.
This forum has been a great help! Thanks again!!