Can someone explain to me about how Star diagnostics are used

[Brian23]

Hi Can someone explain to me about Star diagnostics are used. Are they the same as other diagnostic units or being dedicated, they are more accurate. For example. I have an ICar soft. It gives me an unknown code for an engine light that is on on my 2005 E200. If I go to Mercedes, will their Star tell me more?
Also is there a similar unit that will do things that it does?
Would the ICarsoft MB V3 be much better than my ICarsoft i980?

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Thank you
Brian

 

[Blobcat]

Star or Xentry are the Mercedes own diagnostic equipment. Whilst OBD2 is a international standard that only gives you some of the information. Star can interrogate all the modules on the car.

 

[Brian23]

Star or Xentry are the Mercedes own diagnostic equipment. Whilst OBD2 is a international standard that only gives you some of the information. Star can interrogate all the modules on the car.

Thank you

 

[Botus]

the amount of data transfer you can get over the diagnostic socket is massive - and the variance in capability of what you plug in is huge

dealer tools have the ability to do whatever the manufactures wants (within the capability they fit), and they don't have to provide this capability to other parties - under changes in EU law independent garages must to be able to maintain and service a Mercedes car without STAR/XENTRY - but what does that actually mean?

and what do Merc want to do to their cars they aren't prepared to share? The manufacturer builds in LOTS of vehicle development access including secret safety, security and vehicle performance functionality, and access to all parts of the car's electrical systems - and its thus how software updates can add more diagnostic capability at a later date, helping franchised garages find and fix strange issues swiftly, or to roll out improvements / resolve unknown bugs cars were originally sold with etc. And then where its really not working the manu can support with remote access and the full might of the manufacturers knowledge to find out what's broken - For manu based systems, where needed they have teams of dealer support super heroes that already know pretty much everything and can tell the tech what to do and or work on software fixes for the car or the tools - literally overnight in some situations where they think there's added value in fixing multiple thousands of cars.

For a small garage - they may not work on some stuff, so don't want to invest in silly money dealer level equipment - its £10k a year to have the Merc Kit but the strength is in knowing how to use, not just owning it.

Next rung down would be in the range of £3k for the kit and £1k a year in software updates - this will allow you to work on a larger range of cars at a much deeper level than the budget stuff. But now this is moving towards £5k and £2k a year for software updates so the later kit that can flash updates to some systems of the bigger manufactures cars (this is becoming essential on current vehicles as whats there, is that buggy, the only way to get a car to behave is to rewrite what it left the factory with) . However whilst big money aftermarket diagnostics may do most stuff on popular cars, the latest high end, just out stuff, can be unsupported for many years - and often its only supporting driveline stuff - engine, gearbox and brakes. And of course unusual problems with the tool or the car will leave them stuck - and unable to help

Then we drop way down to basic fault code readers and these can be very basic supporting just the ODB2 basic engine parameters and are almost no use to anyone, or the pretty decent ICarsoft stuff you mention. But again if its strange stuff they've never seen or don't know is on the car to find, they won't support it

Check the snap on flier just out - loads of stuff forgotten or still not supported.

Also mate's upset his pug tractor again - phone app and a posh adapter, and then his new rubbish gadget both say no faults - even thought the car's main screen bongs and throws a massive engine error warning and the service light stays lit. Put my snap on diagnsotics on it and it has 15 faults including 2 for the engine. His adblu has thrown its teddies again saying the pump is dead. And whilst I can go in deeper and tell it to bleed itself and to pressurise the systems and I can hear it run and get a pressure reading but its not getting over itself.

 

[supernoodle]

Agree a OBD 2 standard (ISO 15031) tool will never get a response from majority of modules on the vehicle, only those that are deemed to be emission relevant respond. When you read faults using this standard the diag tool doesn't query the modules directly, it just sends a message out with an ID which says I'm a diag tool, if you're OBD relevant you need to respond.

Manufacturers tools will use different standards, ISO14229 and ISO 15765 in the case of CAN, which specify diagnostic services . Here the tool queries a module by address. So the tool has to know what modules exist and their addresses. The services are specified by the standards, so for example to read a DID (used for live data) is service $22. The difficult bit is knowing what DID to request. Same for services like DPF regen, to run a service is $31, but what data to send and what the module responds with is not part of the standard.
Clearly the manufactures tool will know exactly what to send and how to interpret the results.
In the case of tools like iCarsoft, Autel, etc they will either purchase this information from the manufactures, reverse engineer the manufactures tool themselves or buy someone else's efforts. So these third party tools will normally suffice for many tasks, but there are likely to be some holes in their functionality.

If you have a MIL lamp on, I would expect that would be coming from the engine control module or transmission control module. Your icarsoft should be querying those, so it should at least be be able to read the codes even if the tool doesn't know the description. I expect both of those modules would in fact respond to an OBD read codes request too. Same applies, even if the fault is manufacturer specific, it should be able to give you the code.

 

[LostKiwi]

Star can not only read codes it can set up modules, code them, read all the live data, delete modules, add modules etc. In short it can do more than any other tool.
It's also hard to use, complicated and dangerous in the wrong hands, even more so in developer mode...

 

[Brian23]

Thank you. The reason I asked is that I have an intermittent engine light which will turn it's self off at irregular times and the i980 gives a code it does not know and as the car is not worth a lot I do not want to spend a fortune on an MB diagnostic session. When I last googled the code it said that it was a MAF problem, so I replaced that and one of the air pipes with an MB one around a year ago and again light out then it will reappear and then stay on for..... and then go off. OCCATIONALLY the car will miss for a split second when the light comes on, but that is normally at traffic lights etc, but it will also come on whilst going down the motorway. The car runs fine as such, but it is a pain at MoT time of course. I am taking it to a local Indy this afternoon for them to plug it in and see if they get anything different.

 

[LostKiwi]

If you're not too far away I'd be happy to put it on mine to read off codes.
I'm near Northampton.

 

[Brian23]

If you're not too far away I'd be happy to put it on mine to read off codes.
I'm near Northampton.

Hi thank you. I am in Aylesbury. Just come back from the Garage and neither of their 2 code readers would communicate with the car. The first one was autel and the next one that I do not know what it was, was a bigger wifi version. So I came home and connected my i980 which read the car, but showed no codes apart from on the ABS. Engine light still on.

 

[LostKiwi]

If you don't mind a drive I'm happy to do it this weekend if you want.

 

[Brian23]

If you don't mind a drive I'm happy to do it this weekend if you want.

Hi that really is kind of you, but a touch far, but thank you again.

 

[mattkh]

A bit more info of the lump under the engine please.
A photo will be ideal, especially if it shows the wires to the MAF.

 

[Brian23]

A bit more info of the lump under the engine please.
A photo will be ideal, especially if it shows the wires to the MAF.

This is a photo of the type of engine, but off the net not mine. Don't have a photo of the maf at the moment.

 

[AnthonyUK]

Don’t forget even the lowly i980 can read live data. Sometimes it is not just a case of reading codes but seeing what various sensors are reading and knowing what they should be.

 

[mattkh]

...... it said that it was a MAF problem, so I replaced that and one of the air pipes with an MB one around a year ago

Sooo changing the MAF cured the problem for one whole year.
How about giving the MAF sensor a clean with a cleaner spray.