Why wont it read the codes? What will it read?

Or does it show a code and no info on the code?

All readers should work on a 2001 petrol car, possible the reader you have is faulty.

I have a load of code readers, cheap bluetooth one, MS509, F-Super and Fordiag and

a few others and have no issues reading codes.

 

Thanks for your response Purple_2L. It powers up from the OBD connector and recognises the Ford. Then there's a menu asking if I want to read DTCs, erase DTCs, read live data, etc. but when I ask it to read the codes it processes for a few moments then drops back to the welcome screen. Although it will erase the EML when asked. This comes back on after a few miles.

You may be right that it's a faulty reader, I haven't used it on another car yet. I was thinking to accept it as a loss and get a more reliable reader but this could prove time consuming and costly if I rely on advice from eBay traders as nobody seems happy to give a definitive answer on this year and reg.

I'm thinking about using an old spare laptop with windows XP, with the right USB connection and software. Nothing too sophisticated. What do you think?

 

Its a petrol they should all be OK from the late 90's, My P reg 1996 Mondeo 2L

petrol had no issues reading the codes with the ELM (320) back then and the

F-Super later on.

 

just out of curiosity, got any running problems, (misfire), or are any gauges reading high etc etc...? instrument cluster working ok?

 

There are no obvious problems, it's running fine, no misfires, nothing. And the D900 code reader doesn't say no codes stored when you check on the menu, it just doesn't acknowledge that it can read the codes.

Interestingly, I plugged it into a Rover 25 earlier with no EML on to see if it could detect it. In spite of Rover not being a listed manufacturer, there is an option to plug into non-specified 'other' manufacturers and it detected a misfire on cylinder 1. I think I'll try this setting on the focus later.