Vibe in Germany

[JSCampbell]

Hi All,First let me thank you for the warm greetings. Thank You.Next, I am moving to Germany in July and will be taking my vibe, (maybe I can keep it cleaner there. lol) I have looked on the German Toyota and GM sites, (they sell Under the Opel name) And they have nothing like the vibe. This brought up a question of parts supply. I am retired Airforce and therefore can shop on base including US and British ones. I wondered if any of you had spent time overseas. Will it be possible to have car parts shipped to a base there or will I have to import the parts. My thanks to you all,Cheers,JS

[urbanmonkeygod04]

one word for you: Opel Astra. Comparable to a Vibe, they're little 5-door hatches that are reasonably good looking. Then you pick out your engine: 200-bhp 2.0L turbo 4 cylinder Ecotec. It's the mack daddy of German cars. Why are you moving to Germany, anyway?

[JSCampbell]

I have seen the Astra, and driven it. My Brother in law has one, nice car. But I have a Vibe and am not in the market for a new car.Going to Germany because my German wife wants to go home. I spent 4 yrs there and loved it. One word.Autobahn hehe I had a 2002 Honda CBR 1100 XX Blackbird there. It does 282Km/h (175mph) Not that I normally travel around at that speed but it was interesting to go that fast.Anyway, I just wanted to see if there was a cheaper way to get parts than to import them. I know that I can buy US products and have them delivered to the bases there without paying extra shipping but I am not sure if that applies to car parts too.Thanks,JS

[Raven]

I have seen many Ebay parts listings that ship to US bases for a small premium, usually about the same as shipping to Canada from the US. You shouldn't have a problem.Viel Glück

[vibe owner]

Engine parts should be no problem. The Toyota 1ZZ engine (2ZZ if you have the GT) is in lots of models from Corolla to Lotus. Toyota dealers will have no clue what a Vibe is, but they know 1ZZ and 2ZZ.

[Stang2Vibe]

Yeah, getting most parts from a Toyota dealer shouldn't be much trouble, but I'd be more concerned about diagnostics and electronics. The Vibe's engine and tranny are Toyota, but the electronics are GM. Toyota's diagnostic code readers probably won't work on a Vibe. Hope that you don't have any accidents either because many of the body parts are different too. I'd probably drop dead of a heart attack if I saw the price of shipping something like a new Vibe bumper cover overseas .

[ragingfish]

IIRC, OBD II is a global standard in that all makes and models have the same basic diagnostic system, no? In other words, there shouldn't be an issue with code readers...

[Stang2Vibe]

I thought that OBD II is strictly GM, but I could be wrong. I don't know if it is the same around the world or not. If it is, then you would have to go to a GM dealer for diagnostics and then to a Toyota dealer for parts. Unless they were electronic parts. Those would probably have to be shipped over from the States.The universality of OBD II might just be in the design of the interface where the adapter plugs in. Every car maker uses it's own ECM and related parts, so I doubt that there is complete universality in reading codes across all makes around the world. We have a scan tool at work and it comes with different cards that plug into the scanner depending on the year and make of vehicle. There is one for GM, one for Ford, one for Chrysler, and one for all Asian imports, and each one is only good for a certain range of model years.

[ragingfish]

Appears we're both right.Quote »The Three Flavors of OBD IIWhile the parameters, or readings, required by OBD II regulations are uniform, the auto manufacturers had some latitude in the communications protocol they used to transmit those readings to scanners. Naturally, each felt they had the one true way, so we have three different OBD II communications protocols in use.The big scanner consoles costing thousands of dollars include the decoding software and firmware for all three protocols in their units, making them universal. Less expensive units, for home or small shop use, are usually customized for a specific communications protocol. Be sure the scanner you are using suits the protocol of your car.What Communications Protocol does my vehicle use?As a rule of thumb, GM cars and light trucks use SAE J1850 VPW (Variable Pulse Width Modulation). Chrysler products and all European and most Asian imports use ISO 9141 circuitry. Fords use SAE J1850 PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) communication patterns.There are some variations among captive imports such as the Cadillac Catera, a German Opel derivative, which uses the European ISO 9141 protocol. If you have first hand knowledge of other such variations, please send them in and, together, we can build a more complete listing.On 1996 and later vehicles, you can tell which protocol is used by examining the OBD II connector:J1850 VPW--The connector should have metallic contacts in pins 2, 4, 5, and 16, but not 10.ISO 9141-2--The connector should have metallic contacts in pins 4, 5, 7, 15, and 16.J1850 PWM--The connector should have metallic contacts in pins 2, 4, 5, 10, and 16.If your vehicle has this style connector, but doesn't have these pins populated, you probably have a pre-OBDII vehicle. To add some confusion, even having the connector with the contacts shown above is not a guarantee of OBD II compliance. This style connector has been seen on some pre-1996 vehicles which were not OBD II compliant.

[Stang2Vibe]

Sheesh. Could they make things just a little more confusing?I remember on my mom's 1985 Pontiac 6000 to read the codes you had to take a paper clip or something like that to use as a jumper and ground out certain prongs in the diagnostic adapter. Then you'd turn on the ignition and watch the check engine light and it would flash and you had to count the flashes and watch for the pattern (sort of like morse code). Then you look up the pattern of flashes in a Chilton manual or something and usually the code indicated a problem with one of about 10,000 things related to the circuit. Most codes weren't very specific, but at least I could read them. A paper clip was the only tool I needed to do it, now you need some $900 scanner and all the cards (each is usually in the $30-$40 range). I sure hope for all the money that the new scanners can pinpoint the problem much better than the old paper clip system.

[Merzbow]

That's awsome! Congrats. I had the chance to go to Germany last year but passed it up (too much money). I think it would be awsome to go to a country and be one of the only ones with a foreign car....lik bringing a Ford Excursion to Japan lol.