A
wireless piconet transceiver is mounted in a vehicle, and a complementary
fixed wireless piconet transceiver is mounted in a garage, service
station, police squad car, etc., for communication with the vehicle when parked adjacent thereto. The vehicle establishes a temporary
piconet network with the user's home piconet. Vehicle operational statistics are tracked and maintained in a centralized vehicle
computer database. This
database can be manipulated to store the data desired by the vehicle owner. Via a
wireless piconet connection, this
database can transmitted to another piconet device such as the owner's computer. This computer
system can be part of a
wireless piconet, such as
Bluetooth, This provides the computer with the ability to communicate with external wireless devices such as a
cell phone, PDA, computer, or a
cordless telephone. This invention allows for the configuration, or selection of desired vehicle data to be tracked. This configuration can take place on the owner's
home computer (or
laptop) and consequently transmitted to the vehicle computer using a wireless piconet protocol, e.g., the
Bluetooth protocol. Additionally, this configuration can be manipulated by a direct interface to the vehicle provided by the manufacturer. Exemplary vehicle statistics which may be tracked include, but are not limited to, miles per gallon, average
miles per hour, maximum MPH, miles driven per trip, driving statistics based on
time of day and / or on identified driver, rotations of the engine per minute (RPM), temperature of engine,
fuel gauge level,
oil pressure, tires, brakes, engine
coolant, wiper fluid, global positioning
satellite (GPS)
system, and / or even compressed voice from inside car
cockpit during operation of vehicle.