Stan's not quite right there. Most modern (European anyway) cars use a protocol such as CANbus or Carline (VW/Audi/Seat/Skoda) which AREN'T the same as your old-fashioned serial protocol. If you want to communicate with any of them you will need a CANbus-to-serial converter, or similar. The cool thing is that then you will be able to communicate with all the microcontrollers in the car - motor control, ABS/ESP, instrument panel, air conditioning, sound system (at least in new Audis), security system, etc, etc! Would be quite cool to be able to collect and view this data on an empeg (especially as commercial (DOS!) software and the serial converter costs over 1400DM here in Germany) but if you mess up one of the controllers say good bye warrenty, and expect to pay LOTS for a replacement - the diagnosis software can also change the settings in the microcontrollers, which can make your car do some really strange things.

(list 6284, S/N 00299, 4 gig blue)