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OBD-II is ancient

It predates the Porsche 911 GT1, Windows 95 and implementation of the Schengen Agreement.

I would have thought that SAE would be working to add more diagnostic coverage for features that are virtually essential to most passenger vehicles today, such as ABS, airbags and traction control, but can't seem to find anything.

There is OBD-III, but my limited research suggests that it seems to do nothing to enhance the diagnostic capabilities that are present in OBD-II today.

So are there plans afoot for something that can improve the diagnostic standards across the industry?

Zaid
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1 Answers1

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Your question need answered with another question. What diagnostic capability do you want?

While the generic side of OBD-II leaves something to be desired and has been stagnant since it's inception, the manufacturer specific side of OBD has made tremendous leaps and bounds from where it started in 1996.

  • My old 1996 Nissan Sentra had about 2 dozen pids. The last time I connected to a Mazda CX9 there were over 100. In fact there were so many that the scan tool (IDS) could not display them all at the same time.
  • The speed of the computers has increased a lot. The rate at which it catches sensor glitches is now astounding. With early OBD lazy sensors were often missed. Today there are usually several codes for the behavior of a sensor beyond sensor high and sensor low.
  • When OBD came out they could barely run the misfire monitor while running everything else. You could throw away a spark plug wire and drive the car for days before it throws a code. Now I've caught a single misfire event in Mode 5 data. The early GM 3800 had a very basic crank sensor. The current GM vehicles have up to a x54 crank sensor giving amazing resolution.
  • Freeze frame data now have more pids stored and can store multiple events.
  • Communication with the scan tool have improved. The speed of class 2 is like a snail when compared with CAN. There were instances where plugging in to a separate connector was necessary when accessing other systems in the car beyond the engine. Now every module is accessible through the network.

These are just a few examples of how while it seems stagnant the diagnostic capabilities have improved.

vini_i
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