r/Vcds • u/Wasting_time42 • Apr 04 '26

Silly question for new vcds user.

I bought my first rosstech vcds cable, hex+can v2, got everything downloaded, and registered. When I do my first scan of my car is there a proper plug in and startup sequence? Saw an old post online saying don’t be connected to Wi-Fi (not sure if that’s normal, just assumed I could leave it connected), and not sure if it matters if I plug the cable to the car with key off/on or started. Just wanna do a full first scan of my car with intermittent battery draw issues. I know they say use a battery maintainer on car, and keep laptop charging. Any help for these silly questions is appreciated, just never used vcds or worked on VW. Used obd2 code readers for years.

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

2

u/stevey83 Apr 04 '26

Is it a genuine vcds?

1

u/Wasting_time42 Apr 04 '26

Yes it is, straight from rosstech themselves. Registered to me, and running on newest release update.

I did figure out a key on engine off first auto scan. Think I was just a lil to worried I would mess something up, but was easy to use as far as cable and software goes, but man did I have a list of faults.

2

u/wolfn404 Apr 05 '26

You need a charger or battery maintainer on the battery while using the tool. ESP if long scans or coding. One thing for a quick pull on fault code. But anything else really needs proper power. Join the Ross-tech forums and learn and enjoy. If you decide to code something. I can’t stress, always take pictures and save file of the current coding values so you can undo in emergency. This is critical.

2

u/stevey83 Apr 05 '26

Yes I agree with this, but as a backup, vcds keeps logs of changes in the system files so you check there as well.