Why is the 1995 Windstar OBDII compliant?

And how technical are we getting about that?

http://www.obdii.com/connector.html

In that list it claims that neither Windstar in 95 is "FULLY" OBD2 compliant.

http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=672854 - the sticky says 95 is compliant.

I wonder how loosely these terms are used "fully compliant" vs "compliant" vs "Ford just made it as much OBDII as they could" vs .... what i was just thinking....
"OBD2 compliance did not start being issued until 96 vehicles..... therefore while Ford made the 95 OBDII compliant maybe it wasn't acknowledged as such because of a technicality..... that only vehicles 96 and higher were allowed to attain the FULL COMPLIANCE sticker under the hood despite any vehicle 95 or 94 actually being full OBDII compliant.

Not trying to challenge anyone's knowledge base here. I just wanted to know for purposes of diagnostics. I'm clearly able to use an OBD2 cable and program to get OBD2 related sensor information, but someone in another forum I went in told me that my vehicle was not OBD2 compliant because it did not answer with data to certain manual commands he had be send to the PCM via a OBD2 command line.

I was looking for calibration ID or any other vehicle specific information to ensure my PCM is flashed right for my engine setup and everything came back "NO DATA". Now, I'm wondering if that is just because the new PCM installed is from a 3rd party PCM remanufacturer or manufacturer..... since it isn't a FORD PCM....but a PCM "for a FORD" perhaps thats the pickle huh?:)

Peace out.

The 1995 windstar is OBDII compliant, the protocal was available then, just not manditory until 1996.
As the Windstar was a new model in 1995, I would guess that they just designed it in.....saving them from making a change the next year.

That said, OBDII does require that ALL parameters meet a standard protocal, but states that certain specific protocals meet it.
There are still some manufacturer's proprietary protocals, such as ABS activation, and certain test protocals.
This is why a special, vehicle specific, reader is needed to activate the ABS or to run certain transmission test routines.

PCM programing, I would guess, is still open for the manufacturer to have as proprietary.

I'd like to add that recently someone told me that Pins 4 & 5 being grounds on the OBD data link connector means that its OBD2 as does the number of PINs on the PCM connector being 104. On the 95 3.8L Windstar Pins 4&5 being grounds and 104 pins existing on the PCM is the case.

So I think its just like Wiswind said in the previous post.