Santa was good to you!
I have a couple of questions for you:

• When in the coding section for the rear module, can you code in seat heating and or convertible roof?
• Don't suppose you're located anywhere near the mid west are you?

Cheers,
Julian

 

Sorry, I don’t have answers for either of you, but I do have another question.

I‘ve seen the Foxwell mentioned several times on this forum (with good reviews) but how does it compare to the Durimetric and why would someone choose one of the other? I don’t know much about either at the moment. Maybe the Durimetric is Porsche specific and with the Foxwell you can get other makes/models?

 

@Apexhunter987 - Yes, there are entries for the seat heaters and for the convertible top. The seat heaters are in the "Vehicle Electric System" section, which seems weird, but whatever. Mine are active, as I have the feature... I suppose I could disable them if you wanted proof that they "work"?

Rear module does have an entry for "vehicle type" which is probably what handles the top operation stuff. Is there something specific you're looking for in there?

Sorry, not in midwest - I'm in Connecticut...

@Torquenut - My understanding is that Durametric is expensive. The Foxwell has been recommended by many (including resident expert @deilenberger among others) because it does most of what Durametric can, but for FAR lower cost. Of course, if things go awry, then you may need a Durametric to fix it (ala the REAR module coding I mentioned in my OP). But for most things the Foxwell can do it (ABS bleed, oil reset, and all sorts of reading/programming).

Yes, you can also get other makes on the Foxwell... my wife has a VW so I'm thinking I may get that add-on at some point... if it supports coding features like this. I'd have to do more research on that before diving in... because there's no guarantee that "all" makes will support "all" programming capabilities, of course. From what I see the NT530 supports up to 5 makes of capability. They have other models that may offer more makes, but they seem to lose the programming capability... so be careful of which one you look at. There's a comparison list near the bottom of the page here: Foxwell NT530 Multi-System Scanner adds Renault/Mitsubishi/Nissan (funny that the page says the 530 doesn't do control module coding/programming, but clearly it's working on my Porsche, unless I'm misunderstanding that feature... also, "none" of the ones shown there do this, based on that list... maybe a typo?)

Yes, I think Durametric is Porsche specific. I think VAGCOM is the "equivalent" for VW and Audi... but, again, that's pricey as well.

 

@Apexhunter987 - Yes, there are entries for the seat heaters and for the convertible top. The seat heaters are in the "Vehicle Electric System" section, which seems weird, but whatever. Mine are active, as I have the feature... I suppose I could disable them if you wanted proof that they "work"?

Rear module does have an entry for "vehicle type" which is probably what handles the top operation stuff. Is there something specific you're looking for in there?

Thanks for looking into that. I had to change out the rear comfort module (wonky tail lights, spoiler etc) when I first got my car and ever since the seat heater buttons are inactive and so is the roof. As we head into (eventually?) winter here in Kansas City it'd be nice to have a warm butt. I'm hoping the replacement module just needs to be told this car has heated seats and a convertible top.

Looks like I need to sell my iCarsoft POR2.0 and invest in a Foxwell NT530.

 

Thanks Schwinn for the detailed response. I also have a VW (GTI) that is throwing an error message that is unique to VW that I would like to be able to identify and clear (it relates to a chip on the radiator that is going bad and the ECU throws the code even though the radiator is physically fine). So having the ability to read both cars with their unique factory error messages with one device would be a benefit.

Thanks again.

Mark

 

I found a list of things that the 530 can do for Porsche on one of these forums, so there are lists of capabilites somewhere.

That being said, I found a list here that covers the capabiliies for each brand: Foxwell NT530 OBD2 scanner user manual
You could look in there to see if the thing you want to test is in there... I'm happy to look with you but I'd need to know the year and the name of the sensor/chip that you're talking about.

I wish they'd let us download the list, but it's blocked from basic copy/paste/download...

EDIT: Found a better list here: Foxwell NT530/NT510 Elite Function Car List and the VW one there does appear to allow downloading...

 

Hi Schwinn. You won't be able to activate any mirror tilt because as you state, it requires the optional cost memory package that uses buttons on the drivers door to hold the settings. You place the car in reverse while parked and then tilt either mirror down into the position you want, then save that setting into one of the memory buttons. You dont have the buttons to set anything, so I'm not sure what magic gremlins if any you might let out if you were to activate this on a non memory optioned car?

 

@ICNU makes sense... there has to be memory "somewhere" to make this work, so it shouldn't work for me... but I had to try

I wonder, is it possible to get just the memory-button device and install that into the door, and then get this functionality (even if I don't have seats)? After all, the programming actually has two separate entries for these two features... and it would be easier to install versus entire seats, haha.

 

Good question! Yeah, it seems this is 99% software other than the button hardware. I imagine the connections for the buttons are likely already in there one way or the other for cost/efficiency reasons. The mirror tilt function has two parts for my 981. I can save the mirror function as described above, and then either mirror will tilt if I press the button manually. There is another setting in the cluster however that allows me to make it happen automatically when in reverse. Just a simple checkbox activates that feature.

 

@schwinn Can you tell if the Foxwell NT530 will re-calibrate a PDK? Their list of capabilities shows that it can reset the learned adaptations, but I have been unable to determine if it can complete the calibration sequence. FWIW, I asked this of Foxwell and received no response. Just looking for more intel.
Thanks,
George

 

@schwinn Can you tell if the Foxwell NT530 will re-calibrate a PDK? Their list of capabilities shows that it can reset the learned adaptations, but I have been unable to determine if it can complete the calibration sequence. FWIW, I asked this of Foxwell and received no response. Just looking for more intel.
Thanks,
George

I don't have a PDK so I can't test it for you. I can certainly dig through the options and see what's offered if that helps in some way.

I did find a thread on the "other" forum that has a post from a guy who did it with his NT530... on a 991.

 

Not critical, but if you do find anything in the options I'd appreciate knowing about it. Thanks for the tip about the 991 thread. I must have missed it before. Will look again.

 

Great review stuff snipped..

So, I have a few questions. To repeat the ones above:
1) Is there an auto-unlock feature I can activate, so when the key is pulled the doors unlock automatically?

Nope. None that I can find, it would be nice, but it doesn't seem possible.

2) Is there a way to get a horn sound when you lock the doors with the key?

Again - nope. Seems sort of dumb. I often walk back to the car to check if it's actually locked. Funny thing is - the beep does sound if something isn't fully closed and locking fails. Having it the exact other way around (like my Cayenne has it) would make much more sense. It's Porsche..

3) Is there a way to get mirror lowering to work without memory-seats?

As others mentioned, not without memory seats. And adding it is likely quite difficult since I suspect the wiring simply isn't there for the door-button assembly so you get into a can of worms trying to add the wiring.

4) New question - while looking around in there, I went into Programming/PAS/Coding Adaptations/Basic Coding and saw that my car is showing "Automatic Transmission" here. Everything in the car seems to work, but this seems odd... any ideas on what this does or why it might be wrong?

I found a few things like this. There is also one for the rear lights - where it has options of nothing (blank), LED, halogen. Mine was set to halogen despite my car being a 2009 with factory LED lights. I changed it to LED and immediately got a fast-blink for the turn signals, the usual sign of a bulb out on a halogen light assembly. I put it back at blank and that went away.

5) Second new question - in a few places, the vehicle type shows "---" instead of the Boxster 987 that I have... is this normal? I can dig into where this was again (I forget at the moment)... but it seems weird?

It does seem weird, but the software is evolving. I've had 2 Porsche updates since I got mine and one system update. I've emailed sales@foxwelltool.com/ with a few things like this - and no response but in a later version, it was fixed. The interface used to be really a PITA to use the keyboard function in - there was a 1-pixel wide box around the selected letter, barely visible, as you moved from one letter to another. I pointed this out - and now the box is several pixels in thickness, much easier to see where you are on the "keyboard" - I really wish the selected key would simply reverse dark/light, but that's probably too much to ask..

Overall - IMHO it's a better value for the 987 owners than the Durametric Enthusiast version. The Durametric can't do the programming and doesn't have all the activation capabilities for the 987 (or 958 - my other Porsche) that the Foxwell does. As far as I know - the Durametric software hasn't been updated in several years which is pretty sad if you own one and buy a newer Porsche. I own both (and a Launch X431 dongle tool) - and it's my go-to tool now.

The lifetime updates Foxwell includes with the NT530 are what makes it a really better value, it's not as likely to become out of date as cars change, and there is some hope that bugs once reported are fixed in later versions. The support is a tad spotty, once in a while I'd get responses from the sales@foxwelltool.com - sometimes just a response that the info was sent along to the engineers, but no confirmation that it was acted on.

Are there better tools? Maybe. Depends a lot on the model Porsche. There is a $600-1000 version of the Launch tools that's excellent for use with a 958 (lots of programming capability, which the Foxwell really doesn't have yet on the 958 version of the software) - but that same tool is quite limited on the 987, basically no programming capabilities.

I bought mine for a specific purpose. I swapped in a "Sport" PDK wheel on my '09 PDK. There are displays in one spoke of the wheel for "Sport/Sport-Plus". I wanted them to work, and they didn't. Foxwell told me their tool could turn those on. The local dealer wanted 2 hours of time to do the programming (about $350). A local independent shop (which has a legal PIWIS) wanted $175 to do it. I paid $155 for my NT-530 and did it myself. Saved money and now own the tool, which has been quite handy on my Cayenne which had some error codes that needed sorting out. Plus I've turned on the auto-locking feature on my Boxster, which was nice to be able to do.

 

Great answers, Don, as always!

I did some more tinkering today. @George_L unfortunately I can't see anything in the PDK menu because I don't have that module, so I just get a no-communcation error, as expected (my car is a manual). So I won't be able to tell you what more can be done there.

I did some oil temp testing today. Unfortunately, the SAVE data function of the Foxwell doesn't put any time-stamps on the data, so I have no idea what the timing is of the data I'm seeing. I did take a bunch of pictures of the reader and the temp gauge as I drove, so I can back-track some of that info, so it will take a bit more time for me to figure out what that all is... but I should be able to get a decent enough idea.

That being said, my initial graphs show that the oil temp levels off at about 88C (190F). This is with an ambient temp of 44F tonight, so it may creep up a bit more over time, but this seems like a good place to consider the engine oil is "at temperature". My initial drive was to a restaurant for takeout, mostly city streets at 30mph posted. The 88C peak happened on the return when I got back home. This outbound trip ran from 6:25pm to 6:40pm, or about 15 minutes. During this drive, the engine coolant temp gauge hit "normal" (175 on the dash) at 6:32pm (or, about 7 minutes in). The oil temp showed 78C after another 8 minutes (according to pictures) which is when I got to the restaurant and stopped the engine.

I don't know what's considered "fully warmed up" for the car - is it oil temp or coolant temp? Either way, it looks like about 15 minutes from a cold start is what you'd want to be at if you're judging based on oil temp alone... or about 8 minutes after the coolant is up-to-temp.

Again, I'm doing this for my own info... just to understand how things operate on this car. Note that different cars may warm differently as well, so don't take this as gospel for "all cars". I generally wait for the coolant to hit 175 then I do what I want. This has worked fine or me on all my previous cars (honestly, I didn't usually even wait that long and never had an issue - all my cars ran to 150k+ miles without issue (I traded them out because I was bored of them, that's all). That's why I stick to that process, since it clearly isn't so bad.

Regarding the data from the Foxwell, it required a little massaging to get it to load and plot properly. They have some hidden characters in every line, and the formatting is wonky, which is silly... but easy enough to clean. The data is stored to the microSD card on the Foxwell, and takes up very little space - both runs took about 45k worth of space, in two separate text files... the card is 8GB so there's plenty of room (note the software is on the card too, so you don't get all the space, of course).

There may be a way to save multiple sets of data, so I'll have to figure that out - for now, these were both live-data sets from the "Temperature" section. I am hoping there may be a way to pull data from other sections as well, so you can plot temp with RPM or speed or whatever... but I didn't have time to play with that tonight.

Any questions or comments, let me know... I can share the data if anyone's interested, but I won't bore people with that otherwise.

Oh yeah, one more thing - the Rear module config is where I see the "Vehicle Type" is set to "---". Here you can select the vehicle model (987, 991, etc) but it's not setup on my car for whatever reason. Again things are working, but this seems weird... I haven't changed it yet, since the car seems to be running fine... but I would be curious to see what others find in this section on their vehicles.

 

Bunch of good stuff snipped..

I did some oil temp testing today. Unfortunately, the SAVE data function of the Foxwell doesn't put any time-stamps on the data, so I have no idea what the timing is of the data I'm seeing. I did take a bunch of pictures of the reader and the temp gauge as I drove, so I can back-track some of that info, so it will take a bit more time for me to figure out what that all is... but I should be able to get a decent enough idea.

More snippage

Regarding the data from the Foxwell, it required a little massaging to get it to load and plot properly. They have some hidden characters in every line, and the formatting is wonky, which is silly... but easy enough to clean. The data is stored to the microSD card on the Foxwell, and takes up very little space - both runs took about 45k worth of space, in two separate text files... the card is 8GB so there's plenty of room (note the software is on the card too, so you don't get all the space, of course).

There may be a way to save multiple sets of data, so I'll have to figure that out - for now, these were both live-data sets from the "Temperature" section. I am hoping there may be a way to pull data from other sections as well, so you can plot temp with RPM or speed or whatever... but I didn't have time to play with that tonight.

Curious - did you look at the data with the Foxwell App? FoxAssist (V1.12.002 so far)? This is the same tool you use for installing/activating and updating the software on the NT-530.

I seem to recall it eliminates the odd data delimiters and stuff on each line, and sorts out the formatting. I also seem to recall it requires taking the card out of the NT-530 and putting it into a card reader attached to a USB port on your computer for it to actually work.

I'll have to go grab mine from the Cayenne (it has been living there for a bit due to an oddball power-steering issue that appears solved now..) and see if I can do any screen captures of data displayed in the application.

Just checked - apparently I have nothing saved.

One important thing using the FoxAssist software - on my system it only works correctly (recognizing the scanner and checking software versions and downloads of updated software) if I remove the memory card and put it into the card holder that came with the scanner, and then plug that into a USB port on the PC. It doesn't work correctly if I connect the scanner itself to the PC via a USB cable. That is contrary to the updated user instructions that claim FoxAssist can be used connected via a USB cable (with the memory card left in the scanner.) I have no idea why this is - it may be specific to my PC - there are some odd lockouts on the USB ports for external devices (like a camera) that I haven't been able to clear. I blame them on anti-virus software... but if you can't see updates and data using a USB cable, give a try to the card-reader that comes with the scanner. It's a bit odd in that the memory card is put into it on the USB port side.. takes a bit of figuring out the first time.

 

Thanks for the oil temp data!
I have a 2.5 mile 30mph road to my barn. My water temps just about get to the 175F when I reach the Stop sign. So I'd guess about 6 minutes and my gauge has reached its perch and never moves again. I limit my shifts to 3000RPM for this first portion.

I always felt that still wasn't long enough for oil temps, so I wait until my next "landmark" before I exceed 4000RPMs. At that point I'm 3 more miles down the road at 45mph.

And then it's on! I'm itching to hear the 6000rpm wail of the Flat6 symphony. I can live with artificial self-imposed redline without pouting too much. It won't be until much later that I will consider the car good and hot and then no longer be wondering if it's up to temps.

With your data at least I know I wasn't too early. Or at least I know the oil is likely over the 140F line where I believe it would be flowing and lubricating really well.

Just typing this gives me the itch for a ride. I didn't get out today except for supper and that was a meal for 14. So I took the 15 passenger Ford Transit. Lol

 

Yeah, I have asked this question for years from various people and forums and cars, and no one has an answer. I'm too cheap to install an oil temp gauge (I didn't need it for my relatively basic vehicles) so I just left it alone. I was excited to hear this car had a gauge, but of course Porsche never bothered to have it read ANYWHERE. And it's not available on basic OBD either. I'm glad to see the Foxwell can get to it, at least... and it's cool that it records it as well.

I agree, once it reaches coolant-temp, I'd say it's fine... that's how I've driven all my cars without issue. But officially, it's probably good to wait the extra 6-ish minutes in your case, and that's probably "good enough" for oil temps. Of course, your car might be somewhat different... and ambient temps will affect this too (eg, I had the heat on, so some heat was going there)... but, again, I think it's all close enough. Also, remember, my car is a non-S, 2010...

I'm glad it was helpful! I love data, as you can see... and science/engineering as well, of course!

 

I'm a non-S as well, and I live in a rather tropical area, so even in winter the ambients are often mild to warm.
Again, thanks! Grateful for the datapoint and confirmation that my self imposed warmup procedure is sufficient. The car is so good to me that I would like to think I'm good to it in return.

 

No, I didn't use FA (FoxAssist) to look at the data. I connected the reader to the computer via USB, then I put the reader into "update" mode, which (as I mentioned) simply puts the SD card as a drive on Windows. From there, I navigated to the SD card and found the TXT files, and copied them over. I didn't even think about FA having an export feature... that's a good point.

Fact is, if I do this often enough, I can easily code-up something to re-filter the data myself... it's not a huge deal, but it's just silly to have that extra stuff in there... and to be missing the most important thing - timestamps! Maybe FA adds those... I'll have to look at some point.

Yes, virus scanners can certainly get in the way. I use Avast Free and it works well enough for my needs (never had an infection, and I have spent time on nefarious sites) and doesn't seem to get in the way...

I have attached my data raw capture file for the first-run as I don't anticipate trying this stuff immediately, so if someone wants a faster answer, they may be able to copy-in that data and can dig in with that... I'll get to trying it myself at some point, but I'm not in a rush since I already did my own filtering

 

I had some time to play a bit more today. First off, I pulled the SD card and put it in the computer (via microSD to card adapter, and then into the laptop card slot). The drive shows up normally, and you can navigate as expected.

I then tried using FoxAssist to see what it does with the data. FoxAssist sees the drive/card directly in the "Data Manager" section. However, it doesn't seem to do anything with it. You can run the "report" but that just plays back the data about once a second in the table. So stupid. I will stick to processing the data myself into an Excel.

I ran a 10-second capture to see how much data shows up. Unfortunately, it seems to show 13 data points. Sure, I may have been off by a second or so, but certainly not 3 seconds... so the data rate is unknown or variable. Again, so stupid that they don't put in time stamps.

I also tried to see if I could capture two different "pages" of data... ie the "Engine Speed" from one page and the temperatures from another. Apparently, this doesn't work either... you only get to save data from that one page. Maybe there's a way to create a custom list in there, so you can save what YOU want, but I haven't dived that deep.

I did two other drives, on cold days, to see how the warmup looks. First drive was 41 minutes long... the first half is at city speeds, the rest is highway. The car was fully warmed before the highway. This drive was run at 20F outside (1/4/22 in my area of CT). The 41 minutes took 3577 datapoints. Calculated out, this averages to about 1.45 datapoints per second. Engine temp leveled off at ~84C (183F) and then 323 datapoints later the oil temp leveled off at ~84C as well. 323 datapoints / 1.45 points per second = 222 seconds = 3.7 minutes.

Second run was today. This drive was much slower (slower than city because it was crazy icy in the morning, even though it was warmer). Air temp was around 32F.and I only recorded for 26 minutes... all was slower. Unfortunately, this captured 1750 datapoints, which comes to an average of 1.12 points per second. Again, so stupid that there is no timestamp. Anyway, going deeper says that this trip took 6 minutes to warm the oil to 84 (after the engine temp read 84).

Anyway, bottom line, if you want to collect data, we need to find a way to get timestamps. Beyond that, between 3-6 minutes after the engine is warmed up (7 minutes per my previous analysis) the oil temp reaches the stable point.

Let's look at it another way. If you look at the oil viscosity vs temp you can see graphs like the one shown here: https://www.kewengineering.co.uk/Auto_oils/oil_viscosity_explained.htm

The last graph (Graph 4 at the bottom) is most useful here. In there, you can see the oil reaches proper viscosity well before hitting 70-75C. That being said, I'd theorize that the engine is sufficiently warmed up when the coolant temp hits stability... because even with the oil at 70C, it's pretty close to what you want for viscosity at "normal" temp of 84C. Bottom line, I feel fine saying my car is "warmed up" when the engine is up to temp. Heck, I might even say it's warmed up well before that...

Sorry for the rant... just exploring the data (I'm a data ***** as you can tell) and making judgements based on what I see. I'm no engine or oil expert, but I think my conclusions are reasonable?


In other news... anything anyone else might be interested in having me dive into?

 

Thanks for your efforts on this! I have a question: does the unit allow you to disable the TPMS module?

 

I don't know for sure. I see "TPM" in the list, and you can also see the module in the "gateway"... but from some quick searching I have not seen people have success by removing the module and eliminating the warning light (I assume that's what you're looking to do). However, the user there did email Foxwell and ask them to fix this... so maybe it works now, I don't know.

Mine is working, so I don't think I want to delete it to find out. Besides which, since it's working I don't think deleting it will help me see if the warning goes away anyway?

My friend emailed Foxwell asking if his Mercedes convertible top can be tested, and they did tell him this does work... so you may try contacting them to see what kind of answer they can provide? Lastly, you can buy on Amazon and try it out... if it doesn't work, you can return it?

Whatever path you choose, it would be great if you can report back. I see that disabling the TPMS is something a lot of people seem to want to do!

 

I just got my 530 yesterday. my car is a 2008 987.1 non-PDK.
I have changed my steering wheel from the awful triangle with tiptronic switches, to a paddle wheel from a 2012 987R. I had to replace the EU module just to get the horn to operate. The airbag light was on but the 530 cleared this easily.

The paddles do not operate, PSM light is on.

How do I use the 530 to code the new EU in the steering?

 

I'm not sure how this is done, and you may be better off posting your own thread instead of posting within mine (though, I agree, it might be nice to have a single thread with these questions and answers for the NT530).

I don't recall if you were the same user who has posted this matter on another thread, but I recall someone saying that you may not be able to do this "natively" unless you have a PDK, as the paddles are designed for that?

The other user mentioned that they figured it should work the same, since it's just switches, but when dealing with a CANbus setup, they are not "just switches" and may issue different command structures to accomplish the task. Honestly, I'm not sure how the Tip or PDK operate, so I am just guessing.

That being said, if you wanted to swap to paddles, and you just want them to behave like "switches" then you may be able to rewire the paddles to emulate the "awful triangle" switches you describe (I don't even know what this is - that's how little I know about the Tiptronic)... but, again, that's not a programming thing but a wiring task. I'm happy to help but, again, this might be better suited to its own thread.

 

I would have to agree on the issue with the paddles vs tiptronic rockers - it should be in it's own thread.

And this thread probably should move over to the diagnostics forum, where we are going to try to gather all info on various diagnostic tools and their use with different Porsche models all in once place.

 

I'm fine with having it moved - didn't even know there was a diag subforum... now I do.

Granted, my OP wasn't really a guide, but I think it might be valuable anyway? I would suggest leaving a link-back to this forum, since that's what I tested on and where others might look for it (for now at least?) But I'll leave the decision up to you!

 

Yes I do have another thread but little help and before I got the Foxwell 530.

So now if I rewire the switch paddles to act like Tiptronics and put the old EU back in, then my horn won't work, because that's wired differently. Yikes. Looks like I need a wiring diagram for both systems. 30 years of working on and teaching 747 avionics, and a 'simple' gear shift has stumped me. So if it's a can bus it would be a word lets say 32 bits (This is just theory), then in that word two bits would represent up shift and down shift. A momentary ground on one wire to the EU for up and one for down. The EU then sends the word out, i.e. xxxxx00xxxx no shift xxxxx01xxxx up shift xxxxx10xxxx down.

 

Yes, true, it should just be a word (or whatever) but my guess is that the data may be in different locations. Ie, your example of xxxx00xxxx being the location might be for the PDK... it may be at 00xxxxxxxx for the Tiptronic. Alternatively, it could be command structures that tell the module what to do (eg "TP01" means shift up on a Tip... while "PD01" might be for PDK). Again these are just guessed examples.

In other words, I really don't expect the Tip and the PDK to have the same modules on the bus (assuming it's CANbus at all)... so they may have completely different data structures as well as different addresses. That's what I figure is really going on... but I could be wrong. Like you said, it would take a deeper dive to figure out... but it might just be easier to do the electrical wiring to the module, instead of breaking down the command words/structures/addresses.

 

Anyway, the reason I care about this is because everyone says to wait until the car is warmed up before getting on it... but no one can tell you how to know if you're warmed up or not! I hope

Hi Schwinn,

One way I found out about the car being warmed up is to do an oil level check. If it isn't warmed up, it will say "Engine Not Warmed Up" on the MFD.

This is for a 987.2 not sure about other models I'm afraid.

Cheers!