On 23/06/2005 14:59 wrote:

On 23 Jun,
Parish wrote:


Really? So if I took the Fiesta, or my Saab, to say a Vauxhall dealer or
(good, competent) independent that they'd be able to hook them up to
their diagnostic kit and extract as much info as the respective main
dealers? I would have thought that the manufacturers would make their
systems (both in the car and the workshop) proprietary in order to
(attempt to) force people to use their dealers.

and
the fault codes are available to the trade.

Again, that surprises me - for the reasons stated above.

BTW, I'm not being sarcastic, I'd be interested to know.

The fault interface is a standard (several standards actually) It is a legal
requirement to be able to monitor some things, and others, like microsoft are
proprietry. The american standards are older, and more standard than the
european ones. From a certain date new cars had to be fitted with standard
interfaces.


Ah, thanks for that. It wouldn't be due to anti-competitive legislation
would it? I'm sure it isn't something that the manufacturers would want
to do.

Parish