In Europe they are working on standardizing all diagnostic and calibration communication for cars, i.e. a tester (that workshop thingy) can connect and diagnose a car, no matter who the manufacturer is. The standard is called ASAM-MCD uses OBD and is supported by new cars from BMW, AUDI, DAIMLER, CHRYSLER, PORSCHE and VW. (yes, I work in the core group for this new ISO standard).
It is also used by manufacturers to produce cars from different companies in the same plant (see VW and AUDI). No different hardware or software required.
Unfortunately you need the XML-Data for each car, which the company lets you pay for.
This was done to preempt a new law in the European Union from forcing the manufacturers to comply with a standard created by the union. By creating their own standard, the manufacturers could design it themselves. Which of course led it to be very useful for them and still leaving the local workshops without a solution, as the xml-data is not readily sold or cheap.
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In Europe they are working on standardizing all diagnostic and calibration communication for cars, i.e. a tester (that workshop thingy) can connect and diagnose a car, no matter who the manufacturer is. The standard is called ASAM-MCD uses OBD and is supported by new cars from BMW, AUDI, DAIMLER, CHRYSLER, PORSCHE and VW. (yes, I work in the core group for this new ISO standard). It is also used by manufacturers to produce cars from different companies in the same plant (see VW and AUDI). No different hardware or software required. Unfortunately you need the XML-Data for each car, which the company lets you pay for. This was done to preempt a new law in the European Union from forcing the manufacturers to comply with a standard created by the union. By creating their own standard, the manufacturers could design it themselves. Which of course led it to be very useful for them and still leaving the local workshops without a solution, as the xml-data is not readily sold or cheap.