Seems like the latest catch phrase on our trade is telematics. Everywhere you go people are dropping this 10-letter word about as much as John Travolta said groovy back in the 70s.
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While not a new concept, some believe this is potentially the next big challenge for the auto body and repair trade. Currently, there are multiple legislative efforts worldwide that are being looked at and enacted that will impact how cars get fixed and who will be fixing them. Should we be concerned or is this getting blown out of proportion by those who don’t know any better? Half the folks I talk to simply do not know if they need to run from telematics or embrace it.
One of the fundamental problems with conquering any telematics issue is no consistency on what telematics even is. Maybe we should start there!
Dictionary.com defines telematics as “the branch of science concerned with the use of technological devices to transmit information over long distances.”
The consensus of those within the automotive is to consider telematics to be anything getting broadcast out of the vehicle to a third party that does not own the car. For simplicity, we will be discussing just the vehicle aspects of telematics and how or if it impacts independent body and repair technicians in our shops.
In the beginning, there was OnStar. The company was formed in 1995, and products launched in 1996 for some of the 1997 model year Cadillacs. OnStar was picked up by five other manufactures from 2002-2005. During its early years, it was mostly used for turn-by-turn GPS and crash alerts. As time and consumer demand grew, more features were added including remote door locking, GPS tracking if reported stolen, remote ignition disabling if stolen and even video chats and streaming through WiFi, powered by Verizon. Because of its proven track record, vehicle owners may even be eligible for insurance discounts due to the theft recovery options. As far as impact on the auto repairer goes, OnStar is simple. With only a handful of wires, the OnStar system has been proven to be overall quite robust and rarely requires repair in the aftermarket.
Where OnStar does have an impact is in remote diagnostics and customer acquisition and retention. More than six million OnStar customers receive a monthly email with a health status report on their car, as well as service recommendations, including advising the vehicle be taken to a local OEM dealer for service.
We don’t see a high volume of OnStar-related problems as the systems are pretty robust, but we do see minor problems every once in a while. A year back, we had a job in for a customer who had received their monthly OnStar email and it was continually stating that their GMC 3500 needed to return to the nearest dealer due to an unspecified engine concern being reported. The customer contacted OnStar and they were unable to elaborate as there were no codes associated with the issue.
Instead of choosing his local dealer, our customer asked us to look into it. In a short time, we found TSB 08-08-46-004A, which indicated that aftermarket components could cause the resulting recommendation for service needed. After interviewing the customer, we discovered he had installed an aftermarket software upgrade to the ECM to improve engine power. Removing the software and monitoring OnStar emails showed that the issue was resolved. After two months, the customer decided that he wanted the extra power back, so he reinstalled the software and reported back to us that the engine concern returned in his monthly email report from OnStar.
As modern technicians, we already need to know how computers work in order to diagnose networking issues, but tomorrow’s technician will need to understand computers at a whole new level of wireless communication. Viruses, electrical interference and criminal hacking are a few concerns that no doubt will show up in our bays in the future. Get ready for a whole new level of training, but also a new level of opportunity in finding alternate revenue sources. Customers are buying connected cars because they want to be connected. As these cars enter the independent repair sector, it will be our job to keep them connected.
It is important to understand that telematics is not going away. In fact, over the next 10 years we will see it expand at an unprecedented rate. It will impact our trade significantly in the future. No more so than fuel injection, Supplemental Restraint Systems, emissions systems or J2534 all did. There will be a learning curve as with all technologies, but nothing to be afraid of and nothing our trade cannot adapt to. Our trade was built on finding ways to repair the automobiles that manufacturers produce. As long as we continue to embrace this philosophy, we should all do just fine.
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