Use a mechanic? Please help and answer few questions.

[Aleksey]

Can you guys answer following questions, let's pretend all of you are using Maintenr or something similar to manage your vehicle history:

1. Would you 'check-in' your vehicle to your local mechanic and grant them permission to view your vehicles service schedules/job history/tutorials/part lists/etc?

2. What about allowing them to add new service to your vehicle (you come in for an oil change, they add oil change service to your vehicle and setup a reminder based on specifications)?

Keep in mind that you remain in total control of your records and they can't modify previous records unless they added them to your vehicle. You can also login and revise any additions they made.

You will also be able to 'check-out' after you get your vehicle back and remove any sort of visibility to your data the shop had, they would only be able to view your basic information (as a client) and data they added to your account.

Basically kind of like (health records + foursquare + carfax) = for your car, controlled by you.

Should I do this or?

[keine30]

i like the idea. i just think that if you're the type of person to use a site like Maintainer then you're probably not going to take your car to the shop for anything except very large, complex jobs, in which case you could simply put the job in yourself.

[Aleksey]

i like the idea. i just think that if you're the type of person to use a site like Maintainer then you're probably not going to take your car to the shop for anything except very large, complex jobs, in which case you could simply put the job in yourself.

True, the goal is to make Maintenr more 'user friendly' even if you are a car guy sometimes you need to get something done in the shop.

So what you would do is check in (in my use case) and say 'I want XYZ done, I already did it before and you can view my car (since you are checked in their account) and check out what parts and torque/etc you need to do this properly.

And if you don't do DIY you would go to a mechanic and they will create an account for you and then you can login to it later and see what was done (you own that account now) at the shop.

Plus they can set a reminder 'hey come back for oil change it, x months/miles passed!'.

Etc.

[Isostar13]

For the average consumer, I think just having a way to digitalize their car history (repairs/upgrades/maintenance) and easily share that with any shop would be a big deal.

Imagine not having to explain to a new shop about your last repair at xyz 50 miles away. Instead you could just show them what was wrong, what was done to fix it, and maybe or maybe not how much it cost.

For the users of this forum, we're more likely to just keep going to one shop over and over, or do-it-ourselves. However, even your local shop may not always remember off hand everything they've done for you in the past 6 months.