Hi all!

I just purchased the IDTool from Britpart today and it should be here shortly. I wanted to start a chat for anyone that has one already or for me to put what I find out about the tool once I get a chance to play around with it. The youtube videos suck and I hope that I will give you guys some insight on how well it works.

I bought it for $398 shipped and I have a 2005 SEV8 with 130,000 miles and counting. I started to mess around with my wife's VW Jetta with the VAGCOM and it has saved me so much money being able to do things myself instead of going to the dealer for every little thing. The dealer would not even reset my LR3 service indicator without a price! What a crock. I also know that the IIDTool will let me put the truck in tight tolerance mode so my favorite tire shop can do a LR dealer level alignment. $76 vs $230 at the dealership. I can't wait.

More to come...

 

Any updates? What do you think of it?

 

Alright... I got the tool and I think it was worth the money. I was able to contain myself for only a few hours before I was in the truck playing around with it.

From initial order to delivery it took 10 days; 6 of those days it was in the customs office until a US mail agency picked it up, so only 4 days of actualy travel time.

When I hooked up the device for the first time after activation and an update to the latest version I found several faults stored in my truck. These faults are the ones Land Rover would charge you big bucks to clear and service. I cleared them in 5 seconds. I also re programmed several items like the navigation to allow me to input data while the truck is moving and 3 flash turn signal instead of holding it down. If you go to the website it will tell you what else you can do (www.gap-diagonostic.com). When I told the tool to update my truck it went through a shutdown and startup of the truck and all the instructions for doing it right was in the display screen on the instrument cluster. Very nice! I am going to schedule an alignment for my truck and give it to them in tight tolerance mode so they can do a dealer service alignment. My dealer charges $200 instead of my tire shop's $75. I think after the first week this tool will pay for itself. Even resetting the service indicator would cost me money at the dealer! Not any more. There are more things I can program with it; even add equipment that did not come with the truck because all they do is program the BCM for it.

It is very small and light and I can keep it in the truck so if I have an issue I can just plug it in and do my thang! I was going to get the Hawkeye diagonostic tool but did not like how you have to buy all sorts of junk to make it do the things this tool can do. Even upgrading it as the company comes out with new revisions (new revisions let you do more things with the truck). You just hook up the USB cable (you have to buy your own or use the one for your phone) andthe update takes 2 minutes. Very easy to use. Even if you mess something up it saves your last truck settings and allows you to fix it. I highly recommend this tool for those that like to service your trucks in the driveway and save a lot of money and time. I will keep updating as I check out the tool. Since I ordered directly from the UK you can even ask me about the shipping and customs issues and how to get it fixed. There is a USA rep and he is now capable of getting you the tool faster than it got to me. The learning process is gone! Cheers!

 

I read in an early beta manual that one can lower the 3 right down to the bump stops.

Have you tried that? It seems like a good feature when working on the 3 as one would then not have to worry about it dropping on you when you are under it.

Also for use in parking garages, dropping to the stops could save the glass roof.

 

You can lower the LR3 to whatever you need it to be at. I don't plan on lowering mine but everything else is fair game.

 

JokaRover, thanks for the review.

With the IIDTool, can you do software updates for the LR3, too? Or is it just firmware updates for IIDTool?

 

So far no ECM updates...

 

I noted that you said you were able to activate the 3 flash signal light feature. That surprised me as I assumed that feature is LR software related rather than tool software related.

My real question is if I can also get the clock function to show on the centre rectangular display or is that one of those "needs Land Rover software" things. One can do that with the Faultmate, (at double to triple the price), as the Faultmate seems to provide access to the required software from I guess Land Rover.

Below is a link I found to what I guess is the instruction manual for what you purchased. The instructions are called User Manual for IIDTool V2.11.14.11 and explain the software version of the IIDTool currently available.

Documents - GAP Diagnostic

 

Actually even the LR tool won't get you that because it only updates your ECMs to the known versions applicable to that model year. To get the clock function you need a Faultmate to force a later model year Instrumentation software pack over your current one. It's sort of like bringing part of your Rover from 2007 up to 2010 ;-)

I think the 3 blink thing was in all model years software but just turned off in the software "preferences" aka Car Configuration File, so it's entirely possible that IID tool can change that. LR tool can although the UI is crap and you'd have to fight your dealer to do it probably, or at least pay them $120. Faultmate makes it very easy. All those $120 do tend to add up by the way....

It seems the IID tool is still a work in progress with new features being added but I don't know if ECM reflashing/updating is feasible on their hardware. They have a USB connector so they could in theory allow a laptop pass thru to handle to download.

If you want to try the LR software, you can Google for JLR Mongoose coming from China <ahem, cough> which last I looked was about $150 with 3 day shipping to the US via DHL. Or so I recall ;-)

 

I took your suggestion and Goggled Mongoose and see that it runs about a hundred dollars on one site, five hundred or another so... Anyway, to me it looks to be some sort of translator between Land Rover language and some other more common language, (Chinese? if you watch the YouTube videos), but it seems that as you suggested, software from somewhere is very much required. The Mongoose appears to be sold as an interface device to replace the expensive T4 that a shop, including a LR dealer, can purchase and then they can subscribe to the LR pay as you go software download "service".

Unless there is free LR equivalent software somewhere on the web, the purchase price is just a first cost. That is how I see it anyway.

Thanks for clarification re the 3 flash feature - that sounds about correct, always there but LR decided early market production could wait and that the feature could show up on future years units - marketing it is called. The dealer would probably want even more that an hour if you could convince him to even try. I gather the T4 interface is some sort of pre Fortran hex language - well looks like that to most of the Techs - so finding ones way around the T4 is just no fun. Also my dealer does not have his computers on any sort of UPS so whenever someone turns the coffee pot on, well .... They are routinely doing the software downloads twice it seems.

As to the clock, yes that sounds right as well - something LR did not think of and the market did want - hence a later model year true upgrade that required rewritten software.

The IIDTool appears to me to be between the Mongoose and the Faultmate in both price and capability; the IIDTool handles the air suspension really well and a lot of other stuff; the Mongoose probably not without some extra cost software, and the Faultmate is the full meal deal with more features than the dealer T4 system, but at more cost than the first two, (T4 even more).