Shade Tree Diagnostic Software

[GrayT]

Has anyone ever heard of or used Shade Tree diagnostic software? http://www.shadetreesoftware.com/

I came across it when I was looking at VAG-COM cables on ebay for my laptop and found that this company has software for a limited range of PDA's (including the Palm Tungsten E2 - which I have). Aside from how well the sofware works of course there's the issue of a massive screen size difference between laptop and PDA...but I like the idea of the portability and not having to carry a laptop in the car.

Any opinions? No experience with VAG-COM but want to get something fairly soon and don't want to waste my money if you guys with more experience think the PDA idea is a waste of time.

Cheers

 

[m0rk]

What about Vag-check? More VW Group designed
http://www.arlab.it/vc/main.html

 

[GrayT]

Thanks m0rk - I'll look into that. I'm still unsure whether to go the laptop or PDA route - can see advantages/disadvantages with both. Be interested to hear opinions of anyone who has used a PDA for this - especially if they have had prior experience of using a laptop and can compare the two. Perhaps some use both in different situations?

 

[m0rk]

If you already have a PDA, and no laptop, then the PDA wins - because of price. but Vag-com is a 'better' tool as it can do more stuff (like log more at the same time)

 

[Feel]

vag-check (registered version) can log the same number of groups as vag-com, perhaps not as many data points though.

If you're pondering about PDA vs. Laptop - I find PDA to be much more useful in the car as it's smaller and easier to lug about. There are plenty of things that vag-com can do that vag-check can't (and is much better documented) but vag-check will do the "day-to-day" bits, including throttle body adaptation.

I would like to "hard wire" my ODBII cable, as the main PIA at the moment is digging out the ODBII cable and converter and Serial adaptor and plugging it all in. I got hold of a cheap CF Serial adaptor, but it doesn't work

 

[GrayT]

Thanks Phil,

I would have been looking to use a CF serial adaptor - you think it's down to the quality of your adaptor rather than anything else?

I beginning to think that as a novice I might benefit from getting a feel of VAG-COM on a laptop while I learn and later on maybe using PDA with unregistered VAG-check software (limiting cost) as an addition just to flag things up which I could later deal with via laptop.

 

[Feel]

Yep, definitely (the one I got was an eBay POS from China), the Socket CF Serial adaptor (Socket is a brand name) is confirmed to work with vag-check.

I still wonder if it's possible to use some kind of bluetooth doofer with either though.

You can check error codes, you don't get a full text description with the unregistered version, but you do with the registered one.