thanks for the replies.
emplode v1.02, car v1.02a
i switched to usb, and then recieved the error 10 about the tags. ran a tag remover and re-added them and the errors all went away.
the usb seems a bit clunky - sometimes it doesn't find the empeg, etc. does it make sense to ugrade to v2 of the car code? any downsides?