Hi guys, i just noticed that our car 2013+ GS are now compatible with carista, anyone ever used it on their gs ? if so do you guys think its worth it ?

Carista is a obd scanner thing where you can monitor and change some customization to your car, much like bimmercode.

 

I have one. I used it one time, found it to be pretty useless personally, as there's not much that needed customizing on my car. With that said, if you really want to use any of the options on it, it's easy enough to use.

 

I used it once and returned to amazon, didn't find it that useful. Then I paid $15 for and OBDII to usb cord with a cd containing tech stream. That was worth it's weight in gold, can do everything the carista app did, plus all sorts of tests/dealer diagnostics. I was also able to program new keys to my car.

 

It's a bit limited.... I used Carista to lower the windows using the remote fob after the dealer wanted $60. I wanted other customizations, but found out after the fact that they are not available (e.g. turn off steering wheel movement after engine shutdown and 5 blinks instead of 3 for turn signal). Also, during the trial period I used the carista app to add the window down feature to my friend's 2014 Camry, but only the Front Pass. Side window would come down. Weird.

Been meaning to get a USB connector and Techstream like peasodos.

 

You can change turn signal blinks yourself without any special equipment. Did you already do that?

I used Carista app and free trial to try it out. Many of the customizations were already available to do from within the cars settings and the rest were not particularly useful for me however the one that I thought was most worth it was to prevent rear sunshade from lowering when in reverse.

 

Yes you can change the directional signal from 3 to 5 or 7 blinks. No computer for this it's a manual procedure to change the setting. I did it a few years ago, there is a thread or post on this, use the forum search. I have mine set to 5 and it's perfect and should have been the default setting.

 

I changed it on mine as well. I thought the Carista would offer this functionality, but it doesn't. That thing was completely useless to me.

 

I bought Carista when it first came out. Used it thru several Lexus vehicles. But finding it less useful than it used to be and they want more money from me. I don't have any experience with the OBD cord/w USB and Techstream but I will be doing a search here and on the internet for that setup.

 

I have Techstream working on my Macbook air but it only works if you setup a virtual machine with Windows XP. I setup the Windows XP with Bootcamp. Windows XP actually works great on the macbook air, I also use it to open excel documents or anything that only runs on windows.

So XP runs in a separate window/page in my Macbook and you can seamlessly switch between OSX and XP.

 

Carista seems to be better suited for vag products.

 

I've been pretty happy with Carista. I bought it early, before it became a subscription fee, so I lucked out.

I've used it on my cars and many others in the family to set lighting preferences, turn signal settings, climate settings, door locks, power windows, etc.

 

For the rest of us it's not worth paying a continuous fee. Those settings are usually set it and forget it, everything can be done in techstream.

 

Absolutely agree. I was fine with it when it was a one time fee, but I would not be willing to pay a monthly fee for it.

 

Techstream baby, does almost everything on these cars or any Toyota for that matter.

 

Had the video saved from a while ago - here's the link to anyone who's interested: