There is a python CLI you should look into. This gets out of my comfort zone so likely not using the right terminology but you can connect via serial and they will dump very detailed logs over that connection. I am not sure if those detailed logs are saved though, or you would need to capture live.
I have used this for troubleshooting but there is loads of information being passed over.
Beautiful picture. My car setup if my handheld on my dash and a USB feeding it power if it needs to recharge. It has worked well for me
One addition, you do not have to break the bank on any of this. If you are tech savvy and can do basic soldering I would suggest piecing your nodes together yourself. If you are looking at the 100 dollar solar nodes you can do that for much much cheaper yourself with a bit of work.
I am in a similar scenario as you are living in a more rural location. I started with hand held devices that I would take in my car to see if it was worthwhile to continue exploring. I ended up finding many people around me but I could not reach them from my house. I ended up using an old TV antenna at my house to run a node up on that gave me access to my broader community. I live in the flat Midwest so went with a high DB antenna and it has worked great.
My thoughts are nix the dedicated car based module and go straight to a high location after hand held. Height is king for Meshtastic.
My last note is be aware of antennas you use as higher DB is not always the best. Higher DB means the sensitivity of the antena becomes flatter and more perpendicular to the horizon(in standard installations) where as lower DB radiates in a big bubble.
So if you are in very mountainous terrain very high DB antennas are not always best as they do not handle elevation changes great but rather blast out to the horizon which may not be useful. Also if you have a hill blocking you, your are out of luck. Think of Meshtastic as basically line of sight.
If you have any questions fire away and I can share what I know, I am not an expert by any means but I have got my hands dirty.
This is a staple of Menards. When I die I hope I wake up in a Menards store front, smelling cut pine with a Sprechers in my hand.