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It is 2024 now and it is now time for new year’s resolutions. Start working out, stop eating unhealthy foods, stop smoking and whatever else comes to mind with the “New year- new me” promise you made. Mine is to stop reminiscing over old cars. I promised myself not to start each blog with a nostalgic rant about the olden days of motoring. Well, as with most other promises made late in the evening on December 31st this one just rocketed out the window. 

Most of us are a bit young to remember but in 1983 Toyota made the ultimate driving machine long before the term was coined by a certain Bavarian manufacturer. You guessed right, I am talking about a small, simple, light machine which was able to do it all for the driver –take you grocery shopping, take you and your loved one on a date, drive your kids to school, but on a twisty mountain road this car transformed you into Keiichi Tsuchiya and it was pure fun. With its eager 4A-GE engine and a solid rear axle with a limited slip diff this little toy of a car was there to bring you nothing, but pure joy and it forced thousands of enthusiasts to exclaim, in a rather Richard Hammondy way “I am a driving God!”.  And we were, in a way – each corner was a pleasure and each time your right foot neared the throttle you got that great sense of immediacy which made the little 1.6 twin cam what it was – Automotive Nirvana. If you haven’t guessed by now, I am talking about the one and only AE86 – Hachi Roku! I mean sure – Toyota had the Land Cruiser – the absolute king of the hill – both figuratively and literally but it required specific knowledge, it required a specific set of circumstances to be enjoyed to its fullest. But the 86 was always there and you could always have fun in it.



Talking about the 86 and the Land Cruiser brings a strange comparison to mind – on the one hand we have AVDI – the Swiss army knife of automotive diagnostic scanners – everything you would ever need and then some, but you need knowledge, a particular set of skills (if you are Liam Neeson), you need to be a professional diagnostician or locksmith to exploit its potential to the fullest. On the other hand, we find MODI – the little tool – always there for diagnostics, always there to let you have a bit of fun and give you satisfaction each time you use it – coding, scanning for DTCs and monitoring live values like a pro. Making you feel exactly like a professional each time you use it. Sound familiar? Why yes, indeed! Late last year we managed to create a whole new section for the Abrites diagnostics for Toyota online software – we created a fully online independent software for standard diagnostics for all Toyota vehicles using OBD. After testing it we found that the software was completely on par with the best of the diagnostic scanners out there and we released it. But this standard diagnostic was available only for AVDI users, meaning that only the professionals had access to it. This could not fly so over the holiday season our developers took the time to incorporate all the functionality of Abrites diagnostics for Toyota/Lexus online into the MODI. Now everyone can have access to professional diagnostics for these cars. This builds on MODI’s ethos of democratizing automotive diagnostics and bringing it to everyone – from the professional who just needs a quick check to the enthusiast who needs an educated analysis of their vehicle.

We are now providing each MODI user the ability to diagnose Toyotas at home, or on the road. As long as your Toyota has an OBD port we are ready to assist you. As you know Toyotas are everywhere. You can perform diagnostics for your friend’s Toyota in a car park, you can monitor the live values of your GR Yaris on the racetrack and with the same tool you can diagnose a Land Cruiser during an off- roading trip out in the wilderness. There is nothing better than having the capability to perform complex tasks even for a piece of mind. Here is what you can do:

• Manual selection of vehicles. This allows us to perform diagnostics even when the vehicle has no ECU. Normally the identification of the vehicle goes through the ECU as this is the module containing the identification of the cars. This allows us to start diagnostics not only when the vehicle has no ECU but also when issues with CAN messaging are present. We can show a list of the supported modules in the car.

•  Live values support has been added and we can now monitor live values from Toyota vehicles to monitor the behavior of the Toyota cars in real time. This is a very good update as it goes through the Abrites diagnostics for Toyota online which is an outstanding platform to support just that. We still have it in the offline version but not to this degree of response and refresh time. This is a much more stable solution. Improvement is constant and we can add additional modules much quicker.

•  Actuator testing is also available as an improved ability when compared to the offline functionality.

•  Coding is now present, this allows many features to be activated, deactivated and is a very rare ability in today’s Toyota diagnostics landscape. This is perhaps the most important information you can take away from this.

• Comprehensive health report – last, but not least we have the ability to create an easy to read comprehensive health report which you can save for later analysis or send directly to your mechanic or other trusted automotive expert in order to perform remote diagnostic on the vehicle in front of you – this applies to situations when you are planning to purchase a vehicle but also in the case of an error when you need someone else’s experience or expertise.

As I mentioned in the beginning the comparison between the AE86 Corolla and the Land Cruiser applies strongly to the comparison between the MODI and the AVDI – where AVDI requires you to be a professional to use the full potential – MODI is so user friendly that you can use it all the time and receive the same level of enjoyment and satisfaction and it is there for every single person to use. Where the comparison falls short is pricing because the AE86 is now so expensive that it is prohibitive where MODI is so low cost that the price to start using it is negligible in 2024.

Until next week,
Alek