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Should we be worried? - Vehicle Data Sharing #

Posted by Peter Warman on February 28, 2017, 12:21 pm
Edited by board administrator March 6, 2017, 3:14 pm

Hi All

Something that may affect us all, not only Independents but owners as well

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39103150

It's not only the sharing of data that's going to be a problem, what about the lack of young people coming into our trade, with thousands of us older techs retiring or getting out of this trade over the next 10-15 years

It's not all about diagnostics and analysing data, where are all the young techs on the spanners going to come from? replacing cylinder heads, turbos and egr valves up the back of engines etc

Rising cost of fuel, road tax, now insurance going up, servicing and repair costs.....stats show that less and less young people taking driving tests and car ownership

Independent will slowly disappear like the Corner Shops

Never seen the motor trade change so quickly

Peter

Re: Should we be worried? - Vehicle Data Sharing

Posted by Graham Bullock on February 28, 2017, 4:47 pm, in reply to "Should we be worried? - Vehicle Data Sharing"
Graham Bullock

Another thing that I find worrying is the manufactures being able to read a breadcrumb trail of every item that has been accessed on the vehicle by anybody including independents and obviously with on-board GPS they will know where this occurred and after a quick look on Google earth street view will know the name of the garage. God help the people that create a fault on the vehicle by doing something wrong, or failing to code a part correctly after replacement because you didn't know this was required, you may have got away with this in the past but not in the future.

You say "Never seen the motor trade change so quickly" I think things are going to speed up drastically in the near future. Lasers, Radars, Cameras, Telemetry systems, Fuel cells, Autonomous vehicles, 3D printed parts, etc etc and all the new vehicles being pushed onto a lease with a manufactures servicing package due to the ever increasing costs.

Only last Thursday I attended an IMI event about new Volvo vehicles and was told about a windscreen replacement (which MUST be genuine Volvo) costing £1500 plus the coding and calibration. I lost count of how many different materials were used in the body production and Volvo are now doing deals to get the vehicles back in house after an accident to ensure they are repaired correctly with the right materials and procedures.

Fun times ahead? or Worrying times?

Graham

Re: Should we be worried? - Vehicle Data Sharing

Posted by sean savage on March 2, 2017, 3:53 pm, in reply to "Re: Should we be worried? - Vehicle Data Sharing"
Sean Savage

This is the exact reason i steered my business into bread and butter work 5yrs ago. installed an mot bay (best thing i ever did (other than getting garage assistant) i either farm out the large head jobs or just turn them away, i have a superb mobile autoelectrician with most dealer kits for in depth diagnostic work. So 90% of our work is now service,mot brakes and general repairs. If i can t do it and by some chance our sparky cant then we just send it to the agents.
You simply cant keep up with everything going on its not possible with every marque of vehicle or financially viable.
I think you either go down general servicing route and kill the headache jobs

specialise deeply in 1 or 2 manufacturers and invest in dealer tools

Become a diagnostics only garage doing few mechanical repairs

Or i think an untapped markey will be becoming a mobile diagnostic specialist just doing work for independent garages around a decent general area.
my autoelectrician charges me £60+vat for 1st vehicle and £50 thereafter on same day vehicles. he will probably get through 10/12 jobs a day from garages only.

sean

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