In lieu of readable gauges...

[workingonit]

Originally Posted by workingonit

I tried the K-line USB adapter again, yesterday, on all three of my Android devices, including the tablet. The cheap ($100 three years ago), spare phone, an AT&T-sourced Samsung Galaxy J3 (2017) (J327A) was the only one able to connect. It still locks up on "service functions" and must be disconnected to restart. So, it is not very useful, being only able to give me coolant and oil temperatures (Torque Pro gives me coolant temp); while engine oil temperature isn't really useful as long as I know the coolant temp, I still want transmission temperature, unavailable by any method I've tried so far.

Results

• OBDLink app - free with OBDLink LX $60 dongle (this app only works with this dongle, but unable to give me any BMW info),
  
  
• Torque Pro - $5 app, using the OBDLink LX dongle (or Bafx $16 dongle) (gives me coolant temp on all devices),
  
  
• Bimmer Tool full version app $16, useless using either of the above listed dongles, but now the USB K-Line direct connection $31 gives the best results (only on the cheap phone)

....

It's been awhile since my lost post on this thread; sadly, my "progress" is marching steadily backwards.

Using the set-ups listed above, here are my worsening results:

• 1) OBDLINK LX dongle with OBDLINK app...no connection ever, just connection faults,
  
  
• 2) On my last 3-4 trips in the X5, I tried using OBDLINK LX with the Torque Pro app, thru the "old phone", with coolant temperature and short-term & long-term fuel trims (both banks) as my "dashboard gauges". Three problems:
  • a) it is taking me up to 15 minutes to get the Torque Pro app to connect, even though the OBDLINK LX dongle is already paired to it,
  • b) short-term fuel trim bank 1 cuts in/out, then finally doesn't register at all,
  • c) the app loses connection with the dongle, sometimes, and won't reconnect 'til I spend 15 minutes working on it, after arriving back home, and
  
  
• 3) Bimmertool app via K-line/OTG direct plug-in to "old phone" never connects, either.

I thought I had made enough progress to hold me over until I could get the Resler Ibus adapter & the Ibus app, tap into the Ibus wire under the console (at connector X4545),

and use my 8" tablet to display the data needed. But, I'm running back & forth to doctors everywhere lately (just discovered I'm diabetic), so I'm gonna have to reconfigure my bluetooth dongles to see if it's a bad phone or a bad OBDLINK LX dongle (I have a spare LX, plus a BAFX).

A question: why should the short-term fuel trim bank 1 PID suddenly, and permanently, go away, and not the others? Anyone know if it's the O2 sensor going wonky, or the DME not transmitting the data to the Torque Pro app.? I'm still getting P0171+P0174 after every second start/drive cycle.