Special support page for Subaru cars. Updated July 2020.
This support page covers the SSM support over K line
and CAN bus for Subaru cars using OBDKey. Feedback is welcomed via
OBDKey Support.
OBDKey was further updated
with Subaru SSM protocol support in 2017. SSM has been supported since 2010 using the 4800 baud rate serial
data communications on the K-Line (OBD J1962 pin 7) interface.
Many early Subarus
are not OBD-II compliant as they have been built before the US
requirements date of 1996, or the European requirements date of 2001 or
because they were launched in markets that did not require OBD-II
compliance, like Australia, Japan and the rest of Asia.
In these cars there
is still an OBD-II style socket but OBD-II is not supported. However,
there is a protocol unique to Subarus called SSM which OBDKey can use in
these cars.
Additionally, in
OBD-II compliant Subarus OBDKey can take advantage of the car's support
for both OBD-II for diagnostics and SSM for data acquisition.
Later, Subaru cars
switched to using the CAN bus based protocol for OBD-II diagnostics.
This came in about 2008 (to be verified) and has much faster data
access.
In the later cars the
original SSM protocol over K line was dropped and SSM over CAN bus was
introduced.
OBDKey Developments
In May 2014 the OBDKey Fault Code Reader for Android and Windows was
enhanced with reading and clearing fault codes from the engine ECU
using the Subaru SSM protocol.
OBDKey Fault Code Reader for Android Showing
Reading of Engine Fault Codes from the Subaru engine using the SSM (over
K Line) protocol.
OBDKey Subaru Support
Downloads, Videos and Documents
Firmware Support
OBDKey Firmware Supports Subaru SSM
Since 2017 OBDKey firmware will detect and connect to the SSM protocol without the need for any further configuration. There used to be a "OBDKey Subaru SSM Configuration Utility", but this is only used on older OBDKey devices purchased before 2017.
Downloads
OBDKey Fault Code Reader For Windows - Version 1.48 with
Subaru SSM (over K line) support added.
OBDKey Android Torque Tutorial for Torque. Watch from 1min 39s. Before this shows OLDER OBDKey firmware from before 2017.
If you are using Torque Pro (OBD 2 & Car) please install the latest Torque Pro update.
Documents
User Guide for using OBDKey with the Subaru SSM
protocol and Torque for Android (PDF - 998KBytes). Please ignore the SSM Configuration Utility, this is no longer needed. Only pages 7-9 are relevant for configuring the Torque application.
Special support page for Subaru cars. Updated July 2020.
