Diagnostic Kit for my C3 Picasso

[Huskyxantia]

Tbh, dpf replacement stuff , forcing regen and so on is about all you need oh reseting the counters for the fluid pouches too.
Each to there own we buy what we can afford if it does what we need it to do so then its money worth spent in my book and not money going to the main dealers

[CitroJim]

Possibly worth a punt?:
https://www.i-bidder.com/en-gb/auction- ... c000d56ec2

It's too far away at the moment Mick... I can't travel that far currently... Shame it's not at Bedford!

Thanks all for the suggestions... I'll be going with Lexia/Diagbox as I have no need of diagnosing other cars on a regular basis - save perhaps my Pixo although she's never needed a session in 13 years of ownership - yet.

I'll go for the Rev C Full Chip and report back...

[Huskyxantia]

Looking forwards to your findings Jim

[CitroJim]

Looking forwards to your findings Jim

I think it'll be an interesting ride I'll be on an epic learning curve... Last time I used a Lexia/PP2000 was on an early C5 and a Pug 207!

Between then and now my old Citroen ELIT has been doing sterling service...

[electronmirror]

Hello Jim,

I too am looking for a Lexia since discovering the VCI I've got is 'not quite full chip' and won't talk to some of the ECUs on my 2010 C5 X7. It was ok for the 1999 Xantia that I fortunately kept after much thinking about whether to sell or not.

I did speak to Jim at Easydiagnostics this afternoon because their website shows the Lexia 3 still out of stock and won't be restocked. It appears that production of them in China ceased a couple of months ago and stock still being listed on Amazon and Ebay' may not' be full chip VCIs. He mentioned a new interface which is expected in mid Jan 2024 which depending on the licence has the functionality to cover several different manufacturers. Not sure I can wait that long because of a persistent 'engine fault' that comes and goes of its own accord. The car seems to go well enough but it is a puzzle all the same.

I'll post up anything relevant when I've done my trawling of potential vendors, it's a bit like chasing DX on 40m . Good luck with your search in the meantime.

73s
Ted G6IJK

[CitroJim]

Hi Ted,

I've just received advice to say mine is on its way. It claims to be a full-chip one so we'll see just what turns up...

As soon as it arrives I'll be trying it out on my Picasso and will report back... If it's all good, you'll be more than welcome to pop up and try it on your car...

It surely is a bit like 40m... There's a lot of QRM in that particular marketplace. I hope I've managed to dodge a bullet - I'll soon know. At least the eBay vendor has a 100% positive feedback...

Like you, I'm keen to have something a bit sooner and knowing how things can slip, it may well be well into 2024 before Jim has stock...

If it doesn't quite cut the mustard I'll go for one of Jim's new ones when they become available and flog the old one... At least in this way I have something in the interim

Watch this space

73 de G4MEZ

[CitroJim]

I'm all up and running now... My kit arrived next day - excellent service...

I didn't appreciate the software needed downloading and this was the worst bit of the whole exercise... Thew downloads are a WinRAR archive tool, a VMWare player and three huge (4GB) .rar files containing the VMware player image alog with a Youtube instructional video.

The VMWare player runs under Windows 10 provided your machine supports virtualisation. It takes a while to install...

Once the .rar files are extracted all is ready to go.

I was happy to see this appear on my laptop screen

After a bit of faffing around making sure the VCI (the bit that connects the laptop to the car) was properly connected to the VMWare player and Diagbox, I was rewarded with this:

Good to see no faults were recorded...

The vendor I bought mine from is now out of stock...

Hello Jim,

I too am looking for a Lexia since discovering the VCI I've got is 'not quite full chip' and won't talk to some of the ECUs on my 2010 C5 X7.

So Ted, if you want a diagnostic session, do please feel free to pop round and see me

[Paul-R]

[RichardW]

What, not even a P1351?? Must be broken....

[CitroJim]

What, not even a P1351?? Must be broken....

[Huskyxantia]

Rar files are they still being used ! Looks all good Jim.

[CitroJim]

Rar files are they still being used ! Looks all good Jim.

Seems so Husky... Last time I seriously used them was back in the day when I used to naughtily download music and videos from Usenet Newsgroups

[captainpugwish]

Very late to the party - glad you got sorted - I got mine last year from eBay seller "lifafadenmark" in Denmark, shipped to Ireland, and it's been brilliant. I can't believe I waited as long as I did to get one. Unfortunately, that seller is away until February.

For anyone who still hasn't found one or might be looking at alternatives (although there's no substitute for Diagbox really), but you might consider getting something to tide you over.

TL;DR If you're only buying one tool for your Citroen/Peugeot, it's a no brainer, get Diagbox and go through the pain of setting it up (it wasn't so hard) - it's well worth it. If you want a second tool that can handle any other brand cars you might be working on, then this Topdon Topscan (https://www.amazon.co.uk/TOPDON-Topscan ... B0C3QQYQ1B , the same model as Chrystalyne mentioned previously) is a great bit of kit. In my experience, using it a lot on my Peugeot 508 RHX and my wife's Fiesta, as well as a few times on other brand cars, including Ford, Mazda, VW and Skoda) it generally supports more than it lists, rather than less, and runs pretty well. It also fits in your pocket and is incredibly convenient. It works on a variety of other car brand/models I've tried it on.

---

Now for the long winded review of the Topdon Topscan I bought last year and my experience with it so far

I'd be aware of that TopDon system, no mention of Peugeot or Citroen and didn't work with Fiat according to reviews and not updatable. Can't telecode with it and I doubt with only 8 functions it can do anything with SCR (Adblue) systems. I think this is more aimed at the American market, but more Chinese sellers are infiltrating Amazon UK with their crap now as widely being complained about.

I had similar concerns, but since I had an amazon voucher to spend, I decided to give the TopDon TopScan a try, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised - it's a pretty amazing bit of kit. BTW, when I looked into these lower-end tools, I saw that this does list Peugeot/Citroen support, otherwise I wouldn't have even bothered taking a chance on it. Of course, I have Diagbox and wouldn't recommend anything else for PSA group cars above it, but for portability, the TopScan is hard to beat. It sits in my coin tray in the centre console of my Peugeot 508 RXH, and it is even able to help diagnose SCR system issues (giving me urea fluid pressure readings, temps, conditions of authorisation of urea injection, etc., just the same info as I get from Diagbox, even worded the same way). I have Peugeot and Ford profiles downloaded to the TopScan app on my phone, and they don't even take up that much storage, but some manufacturer profiles do, so you can download them when you need to and delete them after. It is not as slow in operation as I was led to believe, either. My phone is not new - it's a flagship model of late 2018 - but is still well able to run at a good pace, so that's definitely something you should factor in. Run this on a low spec, cheap tablet with a Mediatek processor and less than 4GB or RAM and it might struggle.

The automatic VIN reading worked, which was contrary to some reviews I read.
It connected to ALL my ECUs, and I was able to see many DTCs that other readers like FAP (quite good in ways) and Car Scanner (best of the generic bunch for me) couldn't. Actually, it was finding EXACTLY the same codes as Diagbox was. On connection, it displays exactly the same messages Diagbox does too, suggesting it might be quite a close clone. The additional 2 digits after the DTC are displayed (Car Scanner captures this too, while FAP only provides the 5 digit DTC), along with any DTC details, which also match those I see in Diagbox. Probably due to all ECUs being properly read, I was seeing codes I was not seeing in Car Scanner, like intermittent VSS and parking sensor faults, key reader errors and a fault loose wiring in one of the number plate lights.
Apart from the many listed features and maintenance routines that are listed on the Amazon and official site product pages, it even has a few SCR related routines that I didn't expect it to, such as "Reinitialisation of the deNox System Faults" and "Reinitialisation following replacement of the urea injector", along with other checks and tests of the deNOx system (relay control, system flow, effectiveness, and bleed/refill). The Reinitialisation of the deNox System Faults was a strange one though, and rarely worked for me, because it came with a list of conditions that I couldn't imagine how to meet (especially in an automatic), specifically:
Place the vehicle in the following conditions:
- the speed of the internal combustion engine must be less than 10 rpm
- engine running
- engine stalled
- the speed of the vehicle must be higher than 5km/h minimum
I'm assuming someone at Topdon has a twisted sense of humour, because Diagbox never required those conditions. Despite that, I did find that it worked for me once or twice, anyway.
I'm specifically mentioning the SCR relates capabilities because never expected any tools like this that have this capability at this price point, and it's not even a listed feature.
Add to that many more basic tests and service routines (e.g. fan low and high speed relay tests), lots of live data I didn't expect to have access to (like auto-levelling LEDs and height sensor status and adjustment values), and I can see myself renewing the software license when the time comes.
At first use, it updated to the latest firmware, and (I think) one more time since - but you can check for available updates any time, and each of the brand diagnostic s/w have version numbers, so I assume updates can be received for them, provided you have a valid license (I'll need to renew mine later this year).
BTW, I haven't actually tested them yet, but I do see various ECU configuration options listed in the tool functionality list under ECU > Special Functions, so perhaps there is some level of telecoding available, but it might not actually work and since I have Diagbox, I'm not sure I'd even want to even chance using it for potentially risky stuff like that.

The main difference between these tools and Diagbox is, of course, the broad brand and model support you get. This has also been very good for my wife's feisty little Fiesta (matching the capabilities of the Forscan Android app), my cousin's Mazda CX5 (looked comparable to Forscan) and my neighbour's Tiguan (although VAG cars are very widely supported by most tools I've tried, so that's not really a challenge). All I'm usually doing is checking for issues, to arm people with a bit of info so they don't get stiffed when they bring the car to a dealer or independent. If I was doing the job of cleaning a DPF or replacing an adblue tank, I'd want a much more expensive and comprehensive tool. Even mobile mechanics find they need more than one tool for the job, as one routine will fail to work on one tool, but will work fine on the other, but that's the challenge of working on so many different makes and models of cars, I suppose.

As always, your mileage may vary: I think you could expect a similar range and level of features for any cars using the same BlueHDi 2.0 180 (DW10 family) engine and/or Delphi DCM6.2 ECU as mine, but even slight differences might mean lesser or greater degree of support. I would never recommend this as your only diag tool - just as a secondary, ultra-portable one.

If there are any particular features you're looking for support for on a model of car, feel free to let me know the model details/year and I can look them up in the tool (it has a function compatibility search feature). For example, I did query for "denox" (against TOPSCAN, CITROEN V1.30, C3 PICASSO [A58]) and found the same functions listed as for my RXH, but couldn't give any guarantees since I don't have a Picasso to try them out on.

[GiveMeABreak]

Thanks for taking the time to write up your review and personal experience of this tool. There's nothing like having a hands-on review after using it and describing some of the features it does and does not have.

It should help others in future and at present VCI clone kits with Diagbox seem to be on the back burner now given the amount of work they have to do to 'modify' the cloned versions to keep up with the official versions.

We're awaiting to here from Jim at Easydiagnostics about the new kits he has coming in this year.

[CitroJim]

Most interesting and informative Captain Thanks for that!