Patent ID: 7477968

Claim:
A method of monitoring a set of operational characteristics of a vehicle, comprising: (a) wirelessly receiving, by a wireless appliance in a vehicle, a software component configured to identify a subset of a set of operational characteristics that are monitored by an on-board diagnostic computer of the vehicle; (b) processing the received software component; (c) collecting from the vehicle's on-board diagnostic computer data for the subset of operational characteristics identified in the received software component according to a first frequency; (d) wirelessly transmitting to a base station the collected data according to a second frequency; and (e) wirelessly transmitting to a base station data indicative of the vehicle's location, wherein the software component comprises an address that describes a location of a diagnostic datum in a computer memory in the vehicle, wherein the software component comprises said first frequency for collecting from the vehicle's on-board diagnostic computer data for the subset of operational characteristics, and said second frequency for wirelessly transmitting said collected data to said base station, and wherein the operational characteristics include at least one of the following: diagnostic trouble codes, vehicle speed, fuel level, fuel pressure, miles per gallon, engine RPM, mileage, oil pressure, oil temperature, tire pressure, tire temperature, engine coolant temperature, intake-manifold pressure, engine-performance tuning parameters, alarm status, accelerometer status, cruise-control status, fuel-injector performance, spark-plug timing, or a status of an anti-lock braking system.