[john from Staffs]

Yesterday I followed the link given by A8tech to the US firm that supplies the hardware and software to let you see what's going on with the car's internals.

I'm handy enough with the spanners in an amateurish way, even down to being able, successfully, to hand scrape white metal crankshaft bearings, and produce an engine that runs well. I also have a lap top that's powerful enough to handle the software so my expenditure would be limited to say 4 or 5 hundred quid.

I was trained as a (very bad) programmer in the days when computers had valves and water cooling so hexadecimal is not a complete mystery.

Therefore the question seems to revolve around "Do I intend to keep with VAG group cars for a reasonable length of time and is my B7 going to prove unreliable in any way?"

Assuming that the above is the case, do you experts think that I would be wasting money, and also, are the bits of hardware generic and could therefore be used on other manufacturer's vehicles, since we have in the family an amorphous collection of transport from everywhere?

with best regards to those who have had the patience to read this rubbish,
john from Staffs