A buddy of mine told me that there is a computer in my 2006 coupe that remembers everything you do. Hard braking, speeding, rpm's, etc. And that if I took my car to a "track day" and blew the engine, the warranty wouldn't cover it b/c they would see the history of my driving behavior when the incident happened.

Is this true?

 

sorry. i suppose this should go in the "tech" section. I'll re-post there.

 

No, I don't think so. Your buddy's either paranoid or else he's just been talking to someone who was confused.

There is a "black box" tied to the airbag system that records most of those things for the last few seconds before an airbag deployment, but that's all.

 

Your "buddy" is stretching the truth just the tinyest bit. What your car has is what has been referred to as a "black box." Think of the "black box data recorders" that are on board commercial aircraft and record the last moments of flight and are so commonly referred to during accident investigation and crash reconstruction.

The Corvette's "black box" isn't black actually, It's silver with a big yellow connector. It is located directly behind your ash tray and it is called a sensing and diagnostic module or SDM. The SDM first and foremost is the brain behind your air bags and supplimental restraint system. It also documents about the last 30 seconds of your drive and stores data in a continuous loop which overwrites the previous data. It does know how fast you are going. It knows if you are on the gas or the brake. It knows what your rpm's are as well as the position of your steering wheel. It also tracks some other telemetry data from your engine and powertrain. These are most commonly used as a diagnostic tool in the event of a fatal accident.

Oh, and you're not alone. Black boxes have been in all Corvettes since the C5.

Here is a picture of the SDM in the Corvette C6.

 

Only car that I know the records all your info is the new Skyline. They have it to decide if they are going to do warranty work on the car or not..

 

Wow. Thank you for the information. So it is real black box (for 30 seconds)

 

It is. It is also the primary control for all of the airbags and active and passive restraints so no one is going to be removing it real easy either.

 

Doesn't it also retain the highest speed it has ever seen? Mine has a 140 or so in there, if this is true.

 

Mine has a 141.

 

Mine has a 142..........

 

As Paul stated, only stores the last 30 seconds of your drive. Does not save maximum numbers forever as far as I know.

If so, my top speed would be saved at 155 mph!

 

The lady took in our '06 LS2 GTO for a CEL when it was about 8 or 9 months old. Service mgr threatened to void warr as car had been driven to hard and rev limiter pegged several times. Stated he could see all of this from reading the "black box". Thinking quickly she demanded a print out of said box. His answer was that it had been deleted as a one time courtsey but next time your warranty is gone. Did some checking and like Talon 90 says it overwrites. Just BS on service managers part. She also told him it was a high performance car, and if we didn't plan on sticking our foot in it on occasaion we'd have bought another Honda.

 

Wow. Great info. Thanks, Talon90.

 

talon is spot on, it was called a derm (Diagnostic Energy Reserve Module)back in the day but has been updated to the sdm ( Sensing and Diagnostic air bag Module) and it does keep track of alot of things in the event of a collision. High speed is one thing they keep track of. I believe that the "valet switch" gets its high speed info from it as well.
Could it be used to void warranty? i guess but if speeding in your car is going to void warranty then you could argue why didnt they limit the pseed from the get go???
They do this on most cars these days as it is but its not a warranty thing its based off the speed rating of your tires. lower the speed rating on the stock tires the ECM limits your speed to that.take your wifes car out to top speed once you get to the point the rev/speed limiter slows you down then check your speed rating on your tires. it should be the same. Dont worry about warranty at the track ,maybe your insurance tho in the event of a collision would worry me more!! regards, paul