BlueDriver Vs Torque: Which One Should You Buy?

If you suspect that your car could have a problem, it’s worth being able to diagnose it yourself.

Even if you’re not good with fixing cars, any information you can gain from car scanning tools will be useful to cut down on the cost of repairs.

How do scan tools work? These tools connect via the OBD port in your car so that they can gain data from the car’s computer system. But, many make use of apps.

Being able to access data directly on your smartphone device is invaluable and convenient.

Two excellent apps worth knowing about are BlueDriver and Torque. Here’s what you should know about them.

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BlueDriver Vs Torque: What Are They About?

Let’s take a look at BlueDriver and Torque in greater detail to see what they’re about and what features they have to offer.

What Is BlueDriver?

BlueDriver is a professional scanning tool that is perfect for you if you’re an auto enthusiast or DIY mechanic.

It’s a small tool that you can sync to the BlueDriver app via your phone or tablet’s Bluetooth settings. Here are some of its most important features:

It reads diagnostic codes that other car scanning tools don’t read, so it will provide you with more comprehensive tests for your car.
It offers Repair Reports, which give you the solutions you need to repair the car’s problem. The tool will produce a report for your car that contains causes and fixes, so you don’t have to do any work to find out what’s wrong with your car.
These reports are also filled with repairs you need that have been verified by professional automotive technicians. This means that you won’t have to waste your time and money trying to fix your car without knowing exactly what needs to be done. This makes BlueDriver professional yet beginner-friendly.
It offers Freeze Frame data. This is a snapshot of the car when the error code was stored. This has become a popular feature on car scanning tools to help you be more in control of what faults are occurring and where.
To ensure that your car will pass its annual emissions test, which measures how many pollutants are being released by your car, this tool offers a smog check. This will prevent you from taking your car to those emissions tests and failing them.
It provides you with live data that captures and shares information about your vehicle so you can always know what’s going on with your car.
You can also get advanced diagnostics on a variety of different car makes, such as BMW, Mercedes, Honda, Volkswagen, Chrysler, Ford, and many others.
You don’t have to worry about dealing with add-ons or in-app fees. Once you purchase this tool, you’ll have everything you need forever. This makes using BlueDriver a stress-free experience.
BlueDriver is a diagnostic vehicle scan tool and its app is completely free to install. However, you do need to have a BlueDriver Bluetooth OBD2 Sensor so that you’ll be able to receive information from your vehicle. That is the one purchase that you will have to make before going ahead and using BlueDriver.
It has advanced test results for OBD system monitors, such as when it comes to misfire counts.
Since it’s a scanning tool that gives you access to information that only professional mechanics would use, this means you can use BlueDriver to read and clear error codes.
It’s compatible with both Android and iOS.
You can save the tool’s live data. It’s worth noting that this information gets recorded during the logging session but you can share it to external sources, such as your email or Dropbox account.

What Are Its Cons?

It’s clear to see from the previous section that BlueDriver has a lot to offer, and it has many advantages for car owners who want to have a comprehensive way of scanning their cars for faults.

However, it does have some potential drawbacks that you should know about.

BlueDriver doesn’t offer support for Windows phones.
Some people who have purchased BlueDriver have reported that sometimes the data readings tend to disappear if your device is in sleep mode.

What Is Torque?

Torque is a car diagnostic tool, but you can choose between Torque Lite or Torque Pro. Here’s what you need to know about both of them.

Torque Lite

You might be wondering what Torque Lite is all about and how it differs from Torque Pro. Basically, Torque Lite is the free version of the app.

While it will offer you various features, it won’t be as comprehensive as what you’ll experience with using Torque Pro. Here are some of its features:

It’s OBD2 compatible so most cars produced in or after 1996 will be compatible with it.
This app is versatile enough to work with a variety of car brands, such as Audi, Jeep, Subaru, Ford, Chrysler, Volkswagen, Kia, Honda, BMW, and more.
This is great for you if you don’t need an intensive app to scan your vehicle, like if you only intend on using it for some car diagnostics or you’re only going to be using the app once in a while.

Bear in mind that Torque Lite is just a way for you to see how you like the app and to get a feel for how it will work. Here are some of the things you will be able to do with Torque Lite:

You will be able to view and reset engine fault codes.
The app will give you data logging features such as web uploads.
You can customize the dashboard with various themes, depending on what dials and gauges you want to see in the display.

What Torque Lite won’t do is give you important and valuable information about your vehicle, such as in the form of data graphs, MPG, advanced ABS support, map trackviews, and turbo boost support.

It also won’t be compatible on some vehicles, such as Nissan, Subaru, and Chrysler models.

Torque Pro has much more versatility as it is compatible with more vehicles. In addition, if you use Torque Lite you will have to deal with having ads on the app.

Torque Pro

This app version gives you a deeper look into your car and how it’s performing, and you can even get this information in real-time.
It gives you the OBD error codes you need so that you can diagnose your car yourself and perhaps even go ahead and do the repairs.
It offers you many ways in which to customize it. For example, there are themes you can use to make the app feel more personalized.
Torque Pro is much more than a car diagnostic tool. It will monitor the speed of your car and makes use of GPS so you can send GPS tweets to sites like Twitter. This can be useful in situations when you want to let your loved ones know where you are and track your vehicle.
It provides you with easy-to-read emissions reports so you can always ensure that your car’s emissions are within a healthy range.
Torque Pro is highly versatile. It will give you a large variety of universal fault codes for a variety of car makes and models.
It’s compatible with a range of tablets. These include Dell Streak, Motorola Xoom, and others.
If there’s a critical issue with your car, you won’t have to worry that you’ll be unaware of it. This is because the app offers voice notifications via alarms and warnings so that you will always be informed.
Torque Pro can work on a variety of cars. Basically, if your car is OBD2-compatible, meaning that it was made in or after 1996 in the U.S., then it will work with Torque Pro.
Torque Pro makes use of a Bluetooth adapter in order to work. This will create a connection between the phone and your car, but you can find a range of affordable adapters to use with Torque.
Torque Pro offers an MPG tracking feature for both gas and diesel vehicles. This basically lets you track your fuel consumption.
You can use Torque Pro on both Android and iOS devices.

What Are The Cons?

You might find that the app uses a lot of battery on your device.
Some people who have purchased this app have reported that sometimes the app lags. This could be as a result of other apps that are currently in operation on your device.

If you’re interested in Torque, it’s worth it to get the paid version so that you get the full experience of using the app.

Should You Get BlueDriver Or Torque?

As we’ve seen in this review so far, both apps have many benefits for car owners. This can make it difficult to know if you should purchase BlueDriver or Torque Pro. Here are some things you should consider.

While both apps offer you the chance to diagnose problems with your car’s ABS, airbags, transmission, and emissions, only Torque Pro has GPS.

When it comes to the information you can view on the apps, both of them offer data graphing. However, if you want repair reports you’ll have to choose BlueDriver as this feature isn’t provided by Torque Pro.

If, on the other hand, you’re looking for an MPG tracker, you’ll have to purchase Torque Pro as this isn’t provided by BlueDriver.

When it comes to the repairs you need to do on your vehicle, think about if you want to be able to get repair recommendations. This is valuable, especially for beginners.

It’s worth noting that BlueDriver does offer you repair recommendations but Torque doesn’t do so immediately. You will have to look up the error code in question in order to see what repairs you will have to make.

So, basically it’s a good idea to consider the features you’re really looking for in a car scanning app so that you can purchase the app based on those.

This ensures that the app and scanning tool will meet your needs.

And, of course, it’s also worth looking at device compatibility because this can sometimes be a deal-breaker and force you to choose a different app from the one you had your eye on.

While BlueDriver is available on Android and iOS, it’s not available on Windows devices. For that, you’ll have to choose Torque Pro.

Conclusion

If you’re not sure if you should choose BlueDriver or Torque, after reading this article you now know what they’re both about and how they can help you to better monitor your car for any problems.

While both apps offer valuable ways to monitor and diagnose your car of any problems, they do have some important differences in what they offer as well as their compatibility that is worth knowing about.

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