Originally Posted by Drrugby
I live about 7 hours from the nearest Morgan dealer and it has not been the easiest thing to deal with, and I think having my own scanner would make life much easier. Does Morgan use proprietary software on the BMW engines?
Originally Posted by Drrugby
Thanks David I just heard back from Melvyn Rutter and there are Morgan issued laptops to scan and update the engines. I think I will have to work with the dealer in Santa Monica to get everything updated and then use a generic scanner when I get her back.

The MMC mandates proprietary tweaks to the software they are given. Sometimes these become problematic.

BTW, you and Melvyn might have misunderstood each other. In the future, your best bet is Mark Baldwin, a very busy and very sweet guy at the MMC or even Larry Eckler at Morgan Spares, who is equally sweet and has dealt with the American variant (Series II) you drive. Almost all of them went overseas.

For your era of Morgans, (I was still tracking them back then), the dealers had to buy a bespoke Morgan diagnostic device that could deal with any diagnostically equipped EFI system made to that date. Though L-Jets and Hotwires (UK Plus 4s and Plus 8s from 1985 to 2000) can be diagnosed with a standard multimeter at the ECU (aka "brains" to the MMC staff) plug.

The difference between a regular OBD2 reader and these devices (according to their maker) is not merely the added 1000s to the price. These thingies can alter/re-install programming going far beyond cancelling out fault codes. Interestingly, as these devices must, by law, must be made available to the public on equal terms as the manufacturer's network, the industry devised a way of preventing owner/non-dealer access by packaging them importantly and asking huge prices for them from their dealers. LR's TESTBOOK, the original for GEMs) was sold at a price of 30,000$!!! However, the dealers were credited almost all of that, incrementally with each supply purchase they made. The method successfully skirted the law and put needed diagnostic technology beyond what the market could/would pay for it. New automobiles went beyond the normal garagiste's capabilities, at least until someone copied the software and by that time, the manufacturers didn't care much. That being said, the MMC's device cost was on the very low side of that type of ploy. They sold theirs to the dealers at (originally) £3000 IIRC back then.

I was curious so I bought one (below) from the supplier who made them at a very reasonable price. A few hundred pounds. The instructions are obscure. It comes with the connectors for all the Morgans it services. It handles all Morgans up to and past yours.

gmg

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