Keep your car healthy with your iPhone

Normally you use iPhone to make a call, send a message, watch a video, play a game, or take a photo. But how about use your iPhone to monitor the health of your car?  Whether you realize it or not, to keep your car healthy, you should install an OBD II app in your phone and start to monitor how your car is doing. There are both free and charged OBD II apps in the app store for you to choose from.

Before you can take the next step, you have to prepare an OBD II adapter for connecting your iPhone with your car’s on-board computer. Make sure the adapter supports both your car and the app.

When everything is ready, plug the adapter into the 16 pinout OBD II port on your car. It is usually under the steering wheel. Connect your iPhone with the adapter according to the user manual.

Now you can get access to the whole data of your car’s on-board computer, such as engine coolant temperature, fuel economy, intake air temperature, manifold absolute pressure, torque, horse power and so on. Monitoring those data will help you sense a potential problem before it gets worse.

Whenever malfunction indicator lamp is on, you can immediately read what the trouble code is and figure out the problem with the detailed code meaning showed by the app.  If you cannot find the code meaning in the app, you can either search it online or consulting a mechanic. If the problem is not worse, you can store the code information in the app and clear the code by yourself. If the problem is more than you can handle, you have a rough idea what is wrong with your car before you go to the repair shop. In this way, you make sure your car is running in good condition at any time.

With more and more effort on developing the OBD II app, you can do more than just monitoring car engine data or reading a trouble code. You can try a speed performance test on your car, track your trip or share what you find about your car on social media like Facebook or Twitter.

Download the free iOBD2 app on app store and try it out on your car.