I guess I will play Devil's Advocate for the moment.

 I have seen new ie; 2003 automobiles with the engine blown up, the computer stored the tach. history that showed over 10,000rpm on a car with a 7,000rpm redline. It is not the manufacturers fault that the idiot can't drive and missed gears on the downshift, and they should not have to warranty something caused by driver error. The ability to record this information is not to spy on us as much as it is for diagnostics, they need to know what the car was doing when the problem occurred if they are to be able to repair it. The driver claimed to have been just driving along when the engine died. Death came with several broken valves, two destroyed pistons and connecting rods, and matching windows on each side of the block. Warranty denied!

Mark in AK

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, Scott Walker wrote:

> It gets better.  Read recently where ECUs made in the last year or so can
> record throttle input, brake input, vehicle speed, etc for up to 20 seconds
> or so.  Much legal debate about using this info in court following an
> accident.

Hey, it's good enough for airline pilots...