Thursday 18th October 2007

Paperless Mercs

Full service history goes digital

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Owners of Mercedes Benz will be moving with the times – their cars won't come with a paper service book.

Instead they are to be issued with the Digital Service Booklet (DSB) which is being progressively introduced across the model range.

The firm says it will bring convenience and efficiency with the vehicle service data being electronically recorded by the retailer so that over time a full digital history is created as each subsequent service is performed.

Customers will be provided with a service folder that replaces the standard service book and which is able to accommodate DSB print-outs. Equally an owner will be able to request an official print out of the vehicle’s service history covering when and where it was maintained.

[Fusion-Ed]

"Oops...

Access Denied"

Nice...

[Mr E]

I assume the software to write to these electronic service books will be freely distributed to anyone who asks so they can *stamp* it when the service is done.

Not at all an attempt to keep the cars serviced within the dealerships then.

[Bizzle]

Mr E said:

Not at all an attempt to keep the cars serviced within the dealerships then.

My first thought...

"Haaawww do veee stttop zoosse blarsted english mecanics fruum steeeling all our deeeiiler money"

[steve_n]

So when you get it serviced elsewhere it gets conveniently stamped on....??

[Li Moo Bai]

'Computer says No'

[drivin_me_nuts]

...the most blatant attempt yet at stopping cars being services outside the network.

[Parrot of Doom]

My car says 'exceeded by 20,000 miles' whenever I start it up Which means it hasn't seen a Mercedes dealer for 30,000 miles

[The Hitman]

Well, since these DSB's will have some sort of software framwork that the Merc dealers can access...then someone could be able to hack it.

Some guy in the US hacked an iPhone within a couple of weeks of it coming out, so might not be as big a problem as you might think.

[Insight]

Saves on paper (re: trees!)

Imagine having an online life of your car, all owners, all services, all pictures, all insurance details, all tax details. That would be really convinient! and interesting because then you could in effect HPI check your own car from some big database and see if it has been crashed etc... no more lost reciepts and stuff like that.

Open to fraud etc... but then again aren't online bank accounts and they seem to work well enough in my experience.

[Rob_the_Sparky]

Level of confidence in these in a few years once dodgy dealers work out how to program them = zero. What happens if you break it?? In 10 years time it will also be such old tech that there will be no one left that can even read them.

What a dumb move...

[AMG Merc]

Is this much different to the current electronic tax disc and MOT DVLA situation?

[sad61t]

You can quickly check if the dealer has stamped a service book (& I'm sure I'm not alone in finding they've forgotten), but checking a DSB will be a lot harder. Presumably only the dealer will have a reader.

[Turbobanana]

"Saves on paper (re: trees!) "

Will it?

If every used car dealer checking the car as a potential PX requests a print, how many pages would that be? More than a service book, eventually.

[Wayney]

sad61t said:

You can quickly check if the dealer has stamped a service book (& I'm sure I'm not alone in finding they've forgotten), but checking a DSB will be a lot harder. Presumably only the dealer will have a reader.

We all know how friendly and useful Mercedes Benz dealers are, So I am sure they'll be more than happy to provide a print out, when it come to selling your car. ok may be NOT then!

To be honest, this system has been around for a while, VW & Audi have a centralised mainframe system, where by all servicing records are centralised, hence you can walk into any franchise main dealer and request a full service print out, of any car, across the county. I can’t see how this, is cutting edge stuff. I guess Mercedes is just moving with the times.

I think they should pump any excess spear cash, from there £3 Billion a year, Global profits, into RND and manufacture the car right in the 1st place, with out it constantly having to go back to the dealer for silly niggly repairs, under warranty!!

Edited by Wayney on Thursday 18th October 14:52

[Digga]

Paperless Mercs.

Paperless offices.

Paperless lavatories.

...all completely unworkable ideas.

[Twincam16]

Oh brilliant.

Not only a ploy to keep it serviced at main dealers, but also so very easy to fake a service history. No copying out the pages painstakingly, you just unencrypt and copy the CD.

All you need on top of that are a set of false numberplates and suddenly selling on a stolen luxury Mercedes becomes a very easy take indeed

[cptsideways]

Depreciation city

How to kill off one thing that adds value to a car, a proper paper trail. Now it'll be no service history unless its goes to dealer. Not good.


in 10 years times those cars will be almost worthless IMHO

[shadowninja]

Parrot of Doom said:

My car says 'exceeded by 20,000 miles' whenever I start it up Which means it hasn't seen a Mercedes dealer for 30,000 miles

You sure an indie can't reset that??

[SL Boy]

If you look in the manual it will probably say how to reset the ASSYST system.

[flattotheboards]

why not have both? and if the service book was lost then it could be issued with all the correct history.