Fcar F506 24V OBD2 scanner

I recently bought one of these because it advertises the extra features of software for Hino, Fuso, UD and Isuzu trucks, besides the standard OBD2 for cars and diesel OBD. The price was good considering how much professional scan tools cost and it is a welcome addition to the workshop. So far it has managed to get into all the Japanese trucks I have tried it on. Today I had it connected to an Isuzu with a 6HK1 engine. It can scan and clear codes but has no special functions like DPF regeneration etc. All in all it is a nice scan tool for the money and has almost exactly the same interface as our $3000 Fcar, which is handy.

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BUT: When you first use it it’s hard not to be annoyed by the main cable which is much too short and looks and feels more like it’s for jump starting trucks its so thick and stiff to work with. It needs to be twice as long and less than half as thick to be more practical. My advice is to get and OBD2 extension cord to make life easier, plug it into the end of the cable and you have something much easier to work with. And the graphing function - I don’t think they did proper testing with that. The first time I tried to graph engine revs it looked like it was working fine, then I gave the engine a rev and the graph shot through the top of the screen and dropped back again at idle. No auto-ranging on a $250 scan tool? A $30 scan tool does a better job with the graphing function.

So would I recommend buying it? Yes, if you work on trucks for a living and charge out scan fees then at $30 a scan this will pay for itself quickly and it’s definitely cheaper than having a $3000 scan tool in each breakdown vehicle. But the Autel ML529HD at less than half the price is also a very useful tool to have on you and does a lot of what the Fcar does - apart from the specialised Japanese software. And the graphing function on the Autel works properly too.