Why advancing vehicle technology represents an opportunity for dealers to really grow their service business
Since the 1970s, the pace of vehicle technology has evolved rapidly. Driven by the need to bolster fuel economy, reduce emissions and deliver safer passenger cars and trucks, the automobile today, from a service standpoint is almost unrecognizable compared with its counterpart from 30 years ago.
For dealers, this rapid advancement in technology also presents its fair share of challenges, from new equipment and tools required to service modern vehicles, to the training processes and skills necessary for technicians to keep up to date with latest changes. Additionally, growing expectations of service requirements from dealers’ customers, who want repairs done right and in a timely fashion, are also becoming an increasingly important part of fixed operations.
Identifix’s Direct-Hit has proved to save both time and money.
Furthermore, with the electrification of today’s vehicles, profitable jobs that were once a staple of dealership service departments, such as annual tune ups, exhaust replacement and even coolant flushes are either no longer necessary or if they are, the service intervals are greatly extended. Additionally, with the advent of battery electric cars and manufacturers pushing toward a future of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, the concept of “service” as we know it is likely to be very different, a generation from now.
LEVERAGING OEM RELATIONSHIPS
But it’s not all bad news. The complexity of modern vehicles requires new solutions to diagnosing and fixing problems, but those who can adapt to these changes and fast, stand to reap considerable benefits. In order for that to happen, however, it requires support and coordination on both the OEM and the dealer side.
Tim Franklin, senior manager for product planning at Nissan Canada Inc., says that the advances in technology from a manufacturer standpoint, are largely driven by demand. “In many cases, a lot of recent developments are designed to make the customer’s life easier.” He refers to such features as push-button start, in-car connectivity, the proliferation in CVT transmissions, and AWD systems, designed not only to improve convenience, fuel economy and safety but also peace of mind.
Tim Franklin
However he also acknowledges that dealers will have to work hard to keep up as the pace of technology quickens, both in terms of sales (understanding how it works so they can effectively address customer queries before and during the purchase process) and also on the service side once the customer has driven it off the lot. “The service aspect of the business is really one of the better customer retention tools dealers have,” says Franklin.
He also says that dealers can use the progress of vehicle technology to their advantage when competing against independent repair shops. “Although independent shops still get a lot of lower end service business, such as tires, wheel alignments, oil changes and brake inspections, as vehicles become more complex, the tools and techniques required to service them become more complex and specific.” He says that while advanced diagnostics and repairs usually require specialist training and dealers can leverage their relationship with the OEM to provide genuine replacement parts and technician training, he says that even when it comes to jobs such as replacing struts, dealers can have the edge. “There are many nuances on each vehicle. The fitment can be different from car to car, so one model might need shims and one doesn’t. For an independent shop which markets its business around the notion of servicing all makes and models, in many cases it is more difficult to carry the exact parts needed, especially if you are servicing such a wide range of vehicles.”
Franklin also says that as features once reserved for premium and luxury cars have been trickling down to more mainstream, higher volume models (he cites Bluetooth, voice activation systems, built-in navigation and multi-media displays as some examples).
Connectivity is another area where he sees that dealers have an advantage. “Customers are increasingly demanding greater connectivity in their vehicles and even before the car is delivered, dealers have to sign on and set up an account, it’s now part of the delivery process for our dealers,” says Franklin. “If you don’t understand how it works and how to fix it the first time it goes wrong, then your customer will find somebody else that will.”
Speaking of fixing it the first time, the proliferation in vehicle electronics can also appear to make diagnosing and repairing a problem, difficult and very time consuming, which in a world that demands instant results, can prove particularly challenging for dealers. Adding further difficulty is that OEMs often make running changes to a vehicle during its life cycle, quite often within the same model year and also use different terminology to describe those components. As a result fixes on an early model of one vehicle might not be applicable to a later version.
Also, without real world information and experience it can be hard for technicians to correctly diagnose and fix problems, which in some situations can lead to an endless source of frustration by both the dealer and the customer, with a net result that if similar problems surface on multiple vehicles it can significantly impact a dealer’s ability to retain service (and future) sales customers.
PINPOINT ACCURACY
However, as vehicles become more complex, there are software systems that have developed to keep pace with technological change, a good example being Identifix’s Direct-Hit.
Jeff Sweet, president, Identifix Inc.
Identifix was founded during the dawn of vehicle computerization, in 1987 by an automotive service trainer named Bill Sauer. “He [Sauer], realized that even back then, there was a great demand for just-in-time automotive repair training,” says Identifix’s president, Jeff Sweet. “Theory sessions are all well and good but techs need the help to solve the problem when they’re actually under the hood.” In 2002, Identifix launched Direct-Hit as an online diagnostic and OEM information tool and since then its use by dealer service departments has exploded. “We’ve particularly seen it on the Import side with Asian and European vehicles,” he remarks. “Sales for these have grown significantly and models have proliferated, and that has meant a need to provide techs with the tools necessary to diagnose and repair vehicles they aren’t familiar with.”
The heart of Direct-Hit is what Sweet calls “a supercharged search engine. Think Google but automotive specific,” he says. With a database that now boasts more than 300,000 individual search terms and within that 160,000 synonymous relationships, a technician can type in a particular symptom, such as “the engine won’t turn over” and Direct-Hit will mine all the associated information contained within that database to arrive at the correct diagnosis and repair procedure for a specific vehicle problem. And the more technicians encounter and repair specific problems and log them into the database, the easier it becomes to pinpoint potential problems on vehicles, since there has already been a record of the same repair on a previous work order. “This becomes particularly important for dealers, especially as the vehicle gets older and the mileage accrues,” says Sweet. “Traditionally the only way to diagnose problems, especially on newer vehicles, was to go via the original OEM repair manuals, but these didn’t often take into account wear and tear. Let’s say that over time, that part of the wiring harness is exposed to heat, causing the wires to become brittle and then driveability problems result, or the location of the MAF sensor means its more susceptible to being coated by foreign objects. That’s something you can only learn once a vehicle has been in use for any length of time, because you need that vehicle operational experience in order to develop accurate flowcharts that address all potential processes, not just what might happen in theory. So with our system you’ll be able to determine that the solution lies with step 17 on the flowchart and you don’t first have to go through the previous 16 steps to get there.”
Sweet says that Direct-Hit is able to bring value to dealers in two ways — one through proprietary information and also by being able to deliver OEM service manuals at a competitive rate, especially important, since being able to diagnose and repair multiple makes and models can help dealers boost their used car business and attract new customers.
When it comes to the OEM service manual aspect, Direct-Hit has eight different manufacturers on board with the service manual program and Sweet says it is this aspect that could really serve to drive business in the service department, especially over the longer term. “Cars have a greater lifespan today than they once did.” he says. “And although statistics point to the fact that once the warranty expires a customer tends to not take their car to the dealer, if you have ready access to OEM service information as well as a proven database that identifies common vehicle problems, chance are that as a dealer, you have a much better chance of repairing that particular customer’s vehicle properly and in a shorter amount of time in relation to your competitors, be they independent repair shops or other dealers.”
In the field with Glacier Honda
To see how dealers are adapting to advances in vehicle technology we talked to one that’s using Direct-Hit in the service department. “Although we’re a Honda dealer, we do find ourselves working on more different makes and models,” says Al Sanders, service manager at Glacier Honda in Castlegar, B.C. “Direct-Hit is essentially like a second opinion. One of our technicians will confirm the customer’s concerns and with the system, enter in the symptom and if the fix is common or its been done before a solution will pop up.”
However Sanders cautions that in order to get the most out of using a software system like Direct-Hit, dealers need to be using it for the right reasons and that means diagnostics. “We use it as a diagnostic tool and it has proved to be a significant help. We’ve been using it for two years and although we have several diagnostic programs in the shop, I’ve found Direct-Hit easy to use. A good thing about it is that even if you input multiple words or multiple codes, it will still come up with the diagnostic procedure, so from that aspect it is good. Test procedures from OEMs don’t change — if you punch in the check engine code it will still ask you to do the catalytic converter test and then the oxygen sensor test. Direct-Hit offers an advantage because it is able to more finely pinpoint the problem than the OEM manuals and for us at the dealership, that saves both time and money.”
