OBD Block

When OBD was introduced, it was an amazing achievement in the automotive industry and manufacturers made it easy only for their own workshop technicians to be able to quickly diagnose faults and carry out repairs. This was achieved by each manufacturer having their own shape of diagnostic port and their fault codes had no standard meaning. The fault code 1675 for Ford had a different meaning to a 1675 fault from a Subaru for instance.

As fuel injected vehicles became more widely used, privately owned workshops struggled to diagnose and repair these technically advanced vehicles and were losing money having to send the vehicles to dealerships to be repaired.

After a big uproar from the automotive trade to governments around the world, they were finally heard and from 2000 onwards, all manufactured vehicles were to be fitted with OBDII, and had to meet a worldwide standard.

This now made the shape of the diagnostics port the same across all manufacturers, and a set of fault codes and meanings must also match and line up equally for all vehicles. This allowed a fair playing field for workshops big and small.

Nowadays the OBD port can support diagnostics of more than 50 control units in a single vehicle. It can also allow a technician to code or program new modules to vehicles and also, program new vehicle keys quickly and easily.

This is the part where it becomes easy for thieves to take your pride and joy. By using cheap online key coding tools,  your vehicle key can be cloned and a new one made in seconds, allowing the thief to bypass the factory immobiliser without breaking a sweat.