Would this work or not even close?
Did you even try compiling it?
if(Serial.available == 'A') //if steering wheel changed, do this using value above
Serial.available is the address of a function. It is highly unlikely that it will equal 'A'.
The code you had for reading data expects all the data for a packet to be between the < and the >. Sending data between the > and the < simply guarantees that it will be ignored.
could be sent. Then, when started and ended are true:
char ltr = ' ';
if(strlen(inData) > 0)
{
ltr = inData[0];
inData[0] = ' ';
val = atoi(inData);
}
Then, ltr will be 'A', 'B', or 'C', and val will be the numeric value sent.