ATTN : Dervy

No you havn't, because i stole it :)

Does it have USB?

If so just get a USB obd tool from ebay, 70$ from states is the cheapest I can find at mo

You'll need to get yourself the necessary hardware to connect Palm with car. You can get generic solutions or something like R & D Harrison's gear. It wsa $200, so at the moment it's relatively cheap :) with the exchange rate the way it is.

:)

What, the Palm ? No, it connects to the PC with a Serial cradle.

Don't I need software and other such gubbins ? Where do I go to reasearch this stuff ? Googling just yields masses and masses of none-relevent pap :)

Hmmm, can it actually do anything useful then ? :)

Mine's a Mk2 406, complete with multiplexed CAN bus, so I guess I need to be going for something along the lines of the

Couple of good-read CAN links, if anyone's interested "There are several millions of CAN nodes installed last year in passenger cars. Each day, there will be produced about 100,000 ABS units world-wide, and nearly half of them are equipped with CAN interface. Other electronic control units (ECU) provide CAN connectivity as well. Bosch's ESP (Electronic Stability Program), an extension of ABS (antilock braking system) and ASR, is also mostly connected to the CAN-based in-vehicle network. While ABS and ASR prevent undesired slip longitudinally, ESP also reduces loss of lateral stability. In

1999, Bosch produced its one-millionth ESP unit, which first appeared on the Mercedes-Benz 1995 S-Class. Today, on all Mercedes-Benz cars, from A-Class to S-Class, ESP units are installed. ESP is also installed in the Peugeot's new 607 and networked via CAN to the automatic gear box and engine control units"

That's specifically the exact setup in my Coupe, shared with the 607, although obviously it's not networked to my none-existant-autobox. In practice, it works very well indeed. There's enough grip that it can't light up the tyres in anything other than 1st gear (even without a fancy diff), but I can pull out of a junction in 1st, in the wet, with my foot planted, and the Bosch kit happily manages everything - there's no detectable drop in power or acceleration, just a flickering light on the dash, and a quick smooth getaway. I was most impressed the first time !

The ESP is equally nice - there's a nasty switchback 90deg bend (left then right) into my village, just where the 60mph changes to 30mph. So if I'm hustling along, I'll enter the bend at 60mph, foot hard on the brakes. The Rover coped pretty well - ABS activated (as it always does, cos it's a mismatched surface, with a couple of large zero-grip drain grates in the middle), and I rumbled round the bend. The Pug's ESP is something else ! No drama whatsoever, and no ABS - again, the light flickers on the dash, and it just magically makes the bend. I haven't had time to do any real testing yet (there's ZERO runoff on the bend in question, nor can I see round it, so it's not exactly suitable for finding the limits), but I will when I get round to it.

And if I switch off the system, the central dot-matrix screen happily informs me "ESP/ASR Disabled", complete with a natty skid picture and a nice beep :)

Thumbs-up for advanced electromagical trickery !!!

ESP rocks :)

Specially when its linked to a 4wd car, I expecially like the YAW steering function, that cuts off power and applies the correct braking on each wheel to counteract the slide, what a great invention :)

On a 2wd car it would be invaluable i'm sure

Yes, that's exactly what mine does - it can still perform the appropriate braking, even though it's FWD :)