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A modern vehicle consists of multiple controllers that communicate with each other on a network to orchestrate the various operations of the vehicle in a coordinated manner. Most often, such networks are based on CAN (Controller Area Network). CAN was primarily implemented to allow for exchange of information on the network to accomplish optimal vehicle functionality. However this information need not be confined to data required by other controllers on the network. This information may also be used to expose the internal functioning of the controller and may be targeted to a special debug node that can extract and decipher this information. Such information can be evaluated to vastly augment debug capabilities while a particular controller is installed on the vehicle. This paper chronicles the authors' experience in developing such a methodology based on the J1939 CAN protocol, and illustrates its use using real world examples.