With the recent purchase of a '99 V70, (my first FWD and OBDII car, but my 9th Volvo), I have been researching sources of shop information and OBDII scanners.

My neighbor who is a GM mechanic told me about the Alldata on-line data base. He claims the shop information for the cars he has repaired using Alldata has been very good. Turns out there is a diy side of Alldata (alldatadiy.com) that is available to use backyard mechanics for as little as $15 per year. Has anyone out there used alldatadiy, and what is you impression of the information available? Is it a reasonable substitution to the Volvo green books?

Also have been looking at OBDII scanners. One system that caught my eye is the AutoEnginuity OBDII Scan Tool which uses a laptop computer. This has me imagining sitting in the driveway down loading DTCs and accessing Alldatadiy to do the trouble shooting via my wireless network. Anyone have any experience/comments on the AutoEnginuty lap top based scan tool?

One of the limitations I am finding with the various scan tools is access to the Volvo specific codes. While the generic codes will give me a lot of information, access to the Volvo specific codes could be useful in trouble shooting things like the transmission, ABS, AC, Cruise Control, etc. Is there a source of information on these codes available to us? Does the Alldatadiy site have this information?

I know this is a lot of questions, but I am finding getting into OBDII kind of facinating. (I know, I have to get a life. Maybe I should work on my 1800 for a few days)

Thanks,
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Gary D