For my birthday, I got a bluetooth OBDII adapter. OBDII is the second revision of the on board diagnostic systems used in most cars today. It is probably best known in terms of the scanner that is used to figure out why the check engine light is on. However, it can also be used for all kinds of diagnostics.

The specific Bluetooth OBD11 adapter I got was made by BAFX. It is a fairly inexpensive adapter. I paired it with my Samsung Galaxy G4 phone and ran two apps.

The first app was Torque Lite. Torque seems to be the most popular app for Android devices talking with cars over OBDII Bluetooth adapters. My gearhead friends may find the information Torque provides interesting, but mostly, I used it as a test to make sure the adapter was working.

The app I was more interested in is MyGreenVolt. It is designed for volts, focusing on electricity consumption, battery temperature, Miles per kWh and stuff like that.

On my initial test, it seems not to run well in the background, which is how I had hoped to run it. The idea being that I would gather the data, and then analyze it later when I’m not driving. Fortunately, I have two cell phones, so I started running it on the phone I use less frequently.

So far, I’m getting about 4.4 miles/kWh. I’m not sure how that compares with others, and I’m not sure what I can do to get better mileage. I’ve only briefly looked at the data from the App and I expect that will be the next area I spend some time analyzing.

If any of you know other good resources on using OBDII with a Chevy Volt, let me know.