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SUPPORT

Before purchasing

Is Service Monitoring an OBD-II remote diagnostic device, or a tracker?

Service Monitoring’s main function is remote monitoring of the car’s condition. Our service is built on hardware that reads the car’s ECU data, compatible with OBD-II protocols. Through this it also reads data remotely (it has its own data connection), even when the car is parked and you’re not in it. You don’t need to connect via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. The hardware is just a few centimeters long, barely sticking out of the OBDII connector, and mostly accesses brand-independent general engine data (ECU): temperature, pressure, RPM, mileage values. It doesn’t have the full access of expensive diagnostic equipment found in service garages (e.g. TCU, BCM, ABS, airbag) and doesn’t replace careful, regular service maintenance.

We collect data via the OBD-II port. The OBD-II standard was made mandatory in the United States from 1996, and in the European Union from the 2001 model year for gasoline cars and from 2004 for newly manufactured diesel cars. If your car has an OBD-II port (typically lower left or center under the steering wheel, around the glovebox, or possibly at the right-hand door), we can definitely monitor route, location, sudden braking and cornering, vibration, collision, certify the distance traveled based purely on GPS, and track the car’s battery voltage even in your absence. That’s already 25-28 data points, and that’s the worst case, assuming we have access to these for a 2004 car. By comparison, for a 2017-2021 car we can already monitor over 50 data types, even every 2 seconds while driving, with details such as air and coolant temperatures, pressure values, pedal position, RPM, EGR values, engine load.

The newer the vehicle between 2004-2024, the more detail appears, but it’s model-dependent which ones we can access. Models manufactured from the late 2000s already show fuel level (%) or quantity (liter) data, the car’s own range estimate (km), even consumption, distance traveled with the engine fault light on, the time or distance since the fault code memory was last cleared, absolute load, engine load, intake manifold pressure, short-term fuel trim and similar. These are simply the online data we call “status data” (PID: On-board Diagnostics Parameter ID), and we measure and record their values even several thousand times a day. In contrast, we can read and interpret fault codes (DTC: Diagnostic Trouble Code) far more generically. Of the 10,000 DTC fault codes we interpret, roughly half are mandatory, brand-independent standard codes whose support was already expected in the early 2000s, provided the car had the appropriate sensors. The big difference between status values and fault codes is that statuses can be measured continuously, while fault codes are mostly absent — their absence means the failure isn’t detectable, and their appearance signals a symptom, but only a service garage can determine the exact cause (mechanical, damage, sensor fault, electrical network fault). In the Service Monitoring Certificate we summarize the first appearance and clearing time of every single fault signal. However old your car is, if it supports OBD-II, you’ll learn about a fault code’s appearance sooner with %s than in any service garage or with any manual code reading. We read out fault codes potentially thousands of times on a day you drive the car, while a manual reading by a service garage typically happens once every 1-3 years, if at all. Many people only face their car’s fault signals when they want to sell it, and a potential buyer commissions an expert who discovers that the particulate filter has been dirty for 1.5 years, misfires occur, or a sensor is faulty. In broad terms, if your question is whether %s is useful for you, the answer is definitely yes. However, access to status values becomes increasingly detailed over time, depending on whether your car is 5, 10, 15, or 20 years old.

We can read more detailed data from thousands of models; you can find the list of supported car types here: service-monitoring-compatibility.pdf

Look for it at our contracted service partners, or ask at your service garage.

Setup and usage

First you need to pair the Service Monitoring device in the Service Web interface (only your service garage can do this). You only need to add it once — with either of the 2 QR codes on the device. To activate the service, the first year’s service fee needs to be paid by card through the system. Pairing only succeeds after payment; after that you need to plug the Service Monitoring device into your car’s OBDII connector. The first time you plug it in, park somewhere with reliable signal coverage. It’s best to be out in the open. With the engine off (no ignition), plug the Service Monitoring device into your car’s OBDII connector. There’s only one way to plug it in, you can’t get it wrong. After plugging it in, wait about 1 minute, then start the engine and use your car as usual. In the first few minutes of starting to use the car, the Service Monitoring device automatically downloads your car’s manufacturer-specific settings from our servers; after that the full range of data extractable from your specific model becomes available.

During pairing, your service garage creates your user account, and once you download the Service Monitoring app and log in, you’ll immediately see your car.

You’ll typically find it lower left or center under the steering wheel, around the glovebox, or possibly at the right-hand door — the location varies by brand. The following website, not operated by Service Monitoring, may help you find it: https://www.klavkarr.com/location-plug-connector-obd.php

By default, new Service Monitoring devices don’t collect location data, only if you enable it yourself on the “Edit vehicle” page in the app. You can do this by turning off the “Fully disable location tracking” switch. However, even then your service garage won’t get access to the location data: we only share data related to the car’s technical condition with them.

The Service Monitoring device doesn’t interfere with how the car operates, so it cannot cause a fault. With some car manufacturers, any device connected to the OBDII port causes the car to block the brand service’s remote data access. This is normal behavior for that car model, not a fault. In this case, after turning on the ignition, a message may appear on the display referring to the factory data connection/subscription. The message can usually be dismissed by pressing the OK button, and it doesn’t affect the car’s normal operation.

It’s not good for internal combustion engine vehicles to be used for short trips during which the engine doesn’t reach its ideal operating temperature, i.e. it runs with a cold engine. In the Service Monitoring Certificate, short trips count as cold-engine running if the coolant temperature doesn’t reach 70 degrees even by the end of the trip. On the Certificate’s diagram you see the proportion of kilometers driven this way compared to all other trip kilometers.

For example, if the engine was cold for the first 2km of a 10km trip, but the car didn’t stop there and continued the trip, that 2km will NOT be added to the cold-engine running total. We only count trips where the engine was stopped before it even warmed up. That’s also why we don’t count it as cold-engine running if you drove 2km but the coolant hadn’t cooled below 70 degrees since the previous use of the car (for example, it was already 75 degrees at the moment of starting). Another example: if the coolant was 50 degrees at start, then (a) if it reaches 70 degrees during the trip, we don’t record cold-engine use, (b) but if you stop the car at 69 degrees, we do record that short trip.

Check the LED under the CE marking on the side of the Service Monitoring unit. If it’s lit continuously, you need to RESET the unit, which you can do as follows: unplug it from the OBDII connector, wait until the LED goes off, then plug it back in. About 1 minute after plugging it back in, the LED will start blinking (this is normal operation) — the RESET was successful.

If the car is parked or driving somewhere with no or patchy mobile network coverage (e.g. tunnel, underground garage, mountains, or valleys), the latest data in the Service Monitoring service (e.g. App) only becomes available once the data connection is restored; until then, the Service Monitoring device’s internal memory stores the data. If the car is somewhere GPS satellites aren’t reachable (e.g. tunnel, underground garage), the car’s position can’t be determined. The Driving Log displays the distance covered during the time until the satellites become visible again as a straight line.

If you’ve purchased multiple OBD-II devices, you can track multiple cars with the same user on the same interface in the app. In parallel, your service garage will also be able to monitor the technical data of all vehicles belonging to you.

If you’re not sure you’re seeing up-to-date information, tapping the Service Monitoring logo in the top-left corner once reloads the interface, along with the latest statuses of the data shown that we’re aware of.

Electric cars

Electric cars also have an OBD connector. However, they don’t necessarily follow the same standards through which we access engine status on combustion-engine cars. Fault code storage and signaling, though, is similar. Before subscribing/ordering, it’s worth looking up your car’s type and model year in the compatibility list. A typical example: our system doesn’t support the messages of the Renault Zoe’s 2018 model, but from the 2019 model onward we can already provide more useful data. From our electric test cars we can already read battery health/degradation, charge level, average cell charge, coldest and warmest cell temperature information, but these are still being rolled out in early 2025, and aren’t yet available to our customers in the Diagnostics menu.

For electric vehicles it’s important that the chassis number is entered exactly when you pair the car, because we read the manufacturer and model year from it. Check that you haven’t mistyped it. If you got it wrong, remove the car and recreate it. If your car shares detailed data with Service Monitoring, then a few minutes or at most a few hours after pairing it downloads the model-specific parameters, and depending on the model you can expect data such as battery pack wear status, charge level, possibly cell temperature, cell voltage. If you don’t see any of these, either the chassis number is incorrect, or we don’t yet support this model’s parameters (this typically occurs for EVs from before 2020).

Contact

If you’d like to share your experiences, report a disturbing issue, or ask a question, you can reach us at support@servicemonitoring.app.