EVMAN said "I think it's a good idea. If I leant my car to other people I'd want to know if they'd been thrashing it or not."
Does anyone else remember hearing how back in the late eighties when Corvette had the up-spec LS1 fitted with a "Valet Key"? It was a keyhole under a cover in the center console, and used a seperate key to the ignition key. It did something to the fuel injection computer and cut the power output by half (I think from something like 250kw down to just over 100kw) and also activated a speed limiter, so, presumably, when you hand it over to some spotty 17 year old parking attendant, you can activate it and he can't go and rip **** out of your pride and joy...of course, it would work equally well with your own kids..."Hey Dad, can I borrow the Corvette?" "Sure son, here's the keys...snigger...":yeah:
But yes, nowadays it's scary at how simple it would be to fit a cheap data logger into any car with a computer in it...I imagine a cheap piggy back wired-in memory chip of a few hundred kilobytes would be sufficient, and probably cost as much, mass produced, as a simple memory stick does now...and don't think some pricks wouldn't be constantly thinking of a way to do it and pass it into legislation for our "own good", and it'd be a part of the random roadside breath-test/licence check system. "Have you been drinking tonight Sir? No, can I please check your licence? Thank you. Now would you mind popping the bonnet so I can quickly download your data logger details for the last month. Thanks..." The program in it wouldn't have to even be that complicated. the main part would probably be determining where you were when you were doing a certain speed...but then again, subsidised production of GPS chips would be easy too...a simple locator chip could be wired in, and then it's a matter of logging where you were, as is already done with a lot of anti-theft devices...I'd better shut up before I give them ideas...:ranting: