Many people own a car nowadays. An OBD2 scanner is an essential device used to find any issue you face in your vehicle. So, keeping this with you makes it easy to maintain your precious automobile. Many think this OBD2 scanner harms the vehicle’s ECU or Engine Control Unit. Let us see if it is true or false.
Can the OBD2 scanner damage the ECU?
First, I would like to tell you that the OBD2 scanner is a human-controlled device that helps you find any issue in your car before any alarming situation happens. This scanner is a must-have item for every car owner. An OBD2 scanner never has any impact on the ECU of the car. This is not only my personal opinion. Every car owner agrees with this statement. Many people have used this scanner for a long time and still don’t face this issue. The OBD2 scanner doesn’t damage the car’s ECU system even while driving the car.
Why do people say that OBD2 scanners ruin ECU?
You must wonder why people are talking about this issue then. At first, I told you that the OBD scanner is a human command follower device, which can only read the case and doesn’t have any power to re-write to the ECU. If you face any issue with this, then the failure of the ECU is you or the car mechanic. An OBD scanner is the cheapest device on the market to find any errors your car may have in the ECU with the help of a mobile app. Sometimes you can program the ECU with this scanner, so total responsibilities are at your command.
The OBDII scanner’s communication interface never writes data on its own but only operates them with the help of Bluetooth. So it’s true this scanner can mess up your ECU but on its own. If you accidentally flash the wrong firmware, change config data, or do any of this work, you can end up with a ruined ECU because of the OBD2 scanner. But looking at the torque, it doesn’t know how to do this job, and it’s like mistakenly sending the wrong data to kill the ECU.
And when you go to fix the car with the mechanic, they also attach their device to your vehicle to communicate with your car’s ECU. And all of their software is more powerful than torque, and it’s also good to know every command you can send through the OBD2 in the ECU, including dangerous ones. In the end, they just accidentally messed up your car’s ECU, but all blame goes to the scanner. And it’s tough for you to know this reason yourself if you are not an expert in this area.
Another killer of the ECU is destroying it electrically. Let me explain this method, and you must know that the OBD2 scanner interface can execute various data buses with different voltage levels. If these bus lines accidentally connect with a +12V power supply, it could destroy the whole ECU system. So if you give bi-directional protocol in the OBD2 scanner, that can easily alter the program of the ECU, and sometimes it’s also possible to screw up a perfect working ECU in the car.
Conclusion
So you see, OBD2 is just a human order follower device, and the cheapest one can read the only issue in the car. It doesn’t have any self-detecting sensors to fix any bugs in your car. So if you mess up with your car’s ECU, you or the mechanic are the actual reason behind this.