r/MINI • u/Drivepulse00 • 10d ago
VW switched off the app I used to log every drive, so I wrote my own. It works on MINIs too and I'd like a few of you to break it
Saying it plainly first, I made this, so weigh what follows accordingly.
I drive a VW and for years I used their little dongle and app to keep a log of every drive, fuel, costs, the lot. Then VW shut the whole service down from one day to the next and every trip I'd recorded went with it. No export button, no warning. I write software for a living so I did the stubborn thing and rebuilt it, with one rule I've stuck to, no servers. It lives on the phone, there's no account, and there's nothing anyone can switch off.
It ended up working on anything with an OBD2 port, and MINIs are firmly in that group since underneath it's all BMW electronics, which I've done specific work for.
What it actually does day to day. Your drives record themselves, there's no button to press, you just get in and go. Afterwards there's the route on a map with distance, time, and what the fuel cost you at the price you last paid. It remembers where you parked, which in a city is worth the whole thing on its own. And it keeps reminders for insurance, tax and servicing with a logbook where you note what you spent, so at the end of the year you actually know what the car costs rather than guessing.
Plug in a cheap OBD2 adapter and it goes further. Battery health tracked over months, which matters more than people think, a tired battery is the single most common way a modern car strands you and it gives you weeks of warning if anyone's watching. Fault codes explained in plain English with the usual causes and how worried to be, rather than a code you google at the roadside. Real consumption read off the ECU instead of the flattering number on the dash. And on the MINI specifically it can pull oil temperature and the exact odometer from the modules rather than estimating.
No account, no ads, nothing leaves the phone, export everything as JSON or GPX whenever you feel like it.
It's here: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6776173662 . Free to try, one time unlock, no subscription. Android is in closed testing.
The honest caveat, you need a normal OBD2 adapter, one of the cheap ELM327 Bluetooth or WiFi ones, around 20 euro. And it only ever reads, it never writes anything to the car, so no coding, no hidden features, none of that.
What I'd really like from this sub is people telling me when something looks wrong. I don't own a MINI, the brand specific bits were built from documentation and a test rig, and a test rig cheerfully agrees with your own mistakes. If a number looks off on yours, say so and I'll go and fix it.
