About 10 years ago my wife had an Audi that was on a long life service schedule. I had it serviced at an Audi dealer and it showed 10,000 miles to next service. (She only drove about 4,000 miles a year so 10,000 seemed about right).
Within 4 months the car had done less than 2,000 miles and the indicator was showing service due.
I booked an appointment and then went back to the Audi dealer to try and find out what was happening.
A guy came out to the car connected a laptop to the diagnostics port and started examining the data. I could see that it contained details of every time the car was started and stopped, how long the engine had been running and lots of other information.
He said that there was a fault and reset the service indicator.
What struck me was the amount of information stored on the computer of a (now) 12 year old Audi.
I believe that there must be a lot more information available on modern cars that is only being accessed and used by motor service personnel.
The problem seems to be that motor manufacturers and dealers either do not know or will not say what is in their cars.
I remember working on a kidnap case, about 6 years ago, in which a Range Rover was used. I located the on board sat nav and discovered that it was manufactured in Canada. Neither Range Rover or the sat nav manufacturer would help. In the end I resorted to the old method of taking screen shots of the head unit.
I wish you all the best with your investigation and would be interested in hearing how you progress.
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