Knowing that a small minority of lot jockeys do not treat the cars the way they should, is it possible to check the on-board computers for info that would show signs of abuse on a new car? Like top speed? Acceleration rate? Braking rate? Lateral Acceleration? If so, it might be a good idea when buying a car off the lot to make checking the OBD part of the deal breaking process.

 

Just, wow.

 

Meaning?

Is it possible to check these parameters? It might help a customer get a car knowing it was treated right, or help a dealer sell a car to someone who is concerned about buying a car off the lot.

 

I'm guessing PACETTR wasn't around for the white Boss "Test Drive" thread.

 

Shhhhh. ...or this thread might mysteriously disappear too.

 

I personally feel that is a very isolated case. Seems bad dealers get the press here, how many decent dealers don't get any. I never felt anyone would let this happen where I bought the Boss, I personally would not use a dealer like Sarasota Ford or the one with the white Boss but still I doubt this is a wide spread problem.

The earlier computers could tell investigators some simple things, like throttle position, speed etc. at the last moment(s) before a crash and has been used in some cases. I know technology moves fast and they may be able to store a little bit more info these days but I doubt it would be more then a few minutes at most, maybe seconds. They are not built for that, yes they store codes but not every parameter on the fly. However only Ford technicians or a police investigators may be able to answer this for sure and they use (from what I understand) very specialize equipment with the computer out of the car.

 

So they don't store things like Max speed achieved, or max revs, etc...

 

Not sure about about Ford but BMW supposedly does

Sent from my Droid via iPhone using TMS Forum

 

Maybe an easier way....have the cars keep the Low Performance shipping, tune,until the car is sold to the customer,then the dealer reflashes the computer for the full factory tune. They could do that now.

 

.... or ... maybe better management at the dealer, how people working in the back can do what we saw in the videos is beyond me.

There is a ton of info on this out there without going to far into it here is an article about a police dept. that has a mobile unit (who knows how factual the article it is) and one from a company that crash data retrieval.

http://galvestondailynews.com/story....f9ef79ba029918

http://www.crashdataservices.net/CDRDetails.html

 

Oh God, I knew that police abuse would come to light sooner or later. Got to love Big Brother This is the main reason why I will never purchase a new vehicle. And if I do, standalone ECU! All cars with a "black box" or "EDR" can gargle my nuts! It wouldn't surprise me if insurance companies are using this too. I know All-State is with a certain program.

 

See, that's where we diverge... I'm ok with it. I WANT them to know I wasn't doin' anything so wrong it 'has to be my fault.'

But then, I'm the kinda guy who will stand straight up and say "Yep, I screwed up, gimme the ticket/deny me the claim."

I probably won't need to do that in the first place, see, but my momma and daddy taught me to not shirk responsiblity for important things.

But hey... that's just me.

/Hear that squeak? That's me: clean.
//Oh, but I am NOT down for tracking ya about... you have to actually have access to the car's guts to get the info, plus a search warrant or permission. There's a limit to my black box tolerance, after all.
///Raises the question of how you stop the techs from readin' it though...

 

http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/edr.html

The information in the black box belongs to the car owner, unless there is a court order making you give it up.

 

That officer in the article stated that all he did was go to the junkyard. Granted if the police were to use the information that he gathered illegally without a warrant, it would be thrown out. I would probably just take the PCM and have it re-flashed anyways. Or destroy it. Or just avoid criminal charges of tampering with evidence altogether and use a stand alone. At this point it is purely hypothetical. Regardless Orwellian incursions like this are a real threat. It's easy to say, "Oh but I have nothing to hide." Relatively soon that could instead be, "Oh ****, I wish I had the expectation of privacy that I had back in 1990 or earlier. I sure hate having to wear a government supplied GPS tracking device." Inb4tinfoilhat