Years ago the MBCA magazine had an advertisement for software you could buy to record all the services done to your car. Does anyone know of a company that sells software like this.
Dave

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1970 220D, owned 1980-1990
1980 240D, owned 1990-1992
1982 300TD, owned 1992-1993
1986 300SDL, owned 1993-2004
1999 E300, owned 1999-2003
1982 300TD, 213,880mi, owned since Nov 18, 1991- Aug 4, 2010 SOLD
1988 560SL, 100,000mi, owned since 1995
1965 Mustang Fastback Mileage Unknown(My sons)
1983 240D, 176,000mi (My daughers) owned since 2004
2007 Honda Accord EX-L I4 auto, the new daily driver
1985 300D 264,000mi Son's new daily driver.(sold)
2008 Hyundai Tiberon. Daughters new car

That would be a very simple application. I would expect that there would be some things available as freeware, but I'm not into freeware, so I don't know where to tell you to look.

In the earlier days of the PC, you would see such simple things as commercially available applications. Today most folks would just build a spreadsheet for such things. It would also lend itself to easy development with Visual Basic.

I would suggest you do a search for something like "vehicle maintenance scheduling."

Best of luck,

As Larry says, I use a spreadsheet for this - namely Microsoft Excel. I list out each fill up, oil change (or top off ;-) ), and part swap out/repair on the car. I list prices in a separate column so its easy to see how much I've spent on the car during any particular point.

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Tjohn

82 300 SD
77 450 SL (gone)

Any spread sheet (Excel, Lotus, Works) will work fine. These programs are easy to set up. I've used Lotus 123 for a long time and track every cent I spend on my cars, except fuel.

When I sold my wife's 190D, the buyer was impressed with the maintenance I performed on the car over 17 years (and how little it cost).

I keep parts and labor costs seperated and also track repairs and big ticket items like tires and batteries.

As with any programming, deciding WHAT you want to do is the hardest part of the process.

I do also use excel. It works very well. I do keep record of every repair, partnumbers for parts I replaced, fuel consumption aso.

The best part about it is that you can customize spreadsheet for your own needs.

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'87 MBenz 190E 2,3 8vlv

Computers are great, but for large tasks. The business of keeping one's auto maint. is easily achieved with a spiral binder that fits in your glove box and a .25 cent pen.

My 2 cents.

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Mike Murrell
1991 300-SEL - Model 126
M103 - SOHC
"Fräulein"

I was given a service shop software once, for mb, you put in yoru car's info and as much as you can int he program about what was done when, and then it reminds you of services, and then you check off and put notes on what is completed. Cool program, Can't remember where it is though.

Alon

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'92 300CE - Sold
2004 C240 - 744 - C7 Wheels - Android Radio
2002 C320 - 816 - Sport Wagon

Try this links:
http://www.tucows.com/business/preview/232644.html

you can search for other programs on car maintenance at:
http://www.tucows.com

I like Mike Murrell's reply best.

I've been closely involved with computers and software as a profession since 1974. The first computer I worked with was a DEC PDP 8. It was a 12 bit machine used for real time work. 4K of Core memory cost $2,000. I did some hardware interfacing with this machine and some some straight forward assembly language programming that related to the hardware.

In spite of my appreciation and understanding of the evolution and value of the computer, a notebook and pen still have their place. Each of my cars have a notebook in the glove compartment. In this notebook I record every fillup, oil change, tire service, parts replacement, etc., This is in chronological order and because I am recording mileage and fuel quantity, I can tell early on when fuel mileage is waining, or oil consumption is increasing.

Before electronic ignitions, the fuel mileage info was more valuable because you could tell when it was time for points and plugs.

Additionally whenever I sell a car, the notebook usually seems to really seem interesting to prospective buyers.

Good luck,

Try autozone.com sign up as a user, Under "Myzone"...you can put in all your vechicles information and enter service records as well as future services...you can even tell it to email you a reminder if it's due.

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BJ

09 GL320 Bluetec 65K+
07 E320 Bluetec 43k+
05 Nissan Frontier NISMO 4X4 72K+


07 Kawasaki Vulcan 900 5k+ gone
87 300SDL 158k+ gone
91 300D 113k+ gone
83 300SD 220K+ gone
89 300E sold
87 190E sold
83 380SEL sold
http://banners.wunderground.com/bann...TX/Houston.gif

Matter of fact you can log on to MBUSA:
http://www.mbusa.com/brand/index.jsp
and sign in on the owners online and under service, keep all your records in the service history.

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I have used a little expense book made by "At-a-glance", that is tailored for automobiles. It is only about 4 by 6 inches and fits nicely in the glovebox. I find it easier to record the mileage of all my gas receipts if I have the book in the car.
It has different column headings depending on what tab you have turned to. There are sections for Gasoline, Lube, Tires, Repairs and Maintenance. It is about $8 at the Office Max near me.

Larry,

I use the notebook(s) also in all 4 of my vehicles. Have for years.

Found your PDP note interesting. I worked for DEC for 15 years, starting with PDP-8's, then 11's, then Vaxen, then Alphas. After the 8's were no longer common we would occassionally get a request for some consulting on one. We would steal the Sales secretary's DECMate word processor ( an 8), take out the wordprocessing sw and insert OS-8.

The old PDP's were the 240D's of the computer world. I had a call from a salesman one time asking how to tell the OS version of a PDP-11. I said reboot and it will come out on the console printout (yeah I'm way old). He came back later, said they didn't know where the console was, the machine hadn't been rebooted in 3 years, and oh-yeah, it was running all the parking lots at Washington National Airport.

Chuck

PDP8? Geez I don't feel so old anymore. The oldest computer I remember programming on was 486 with 4MB of RAM. I guess that's probably about as old as my 300E (1988). Of course I've had the honor to work on some VAX 4000's running OpenVMS. VMS like Mercedes is rock solid if you take care of it. Also being a software developer by trade, I continually see people who think they need a software solution for every data collection duty in their lives. For me, I let the receipts speak for themselves. Just put them in an envelope (relational of course). If you must keep records for your Panzer on the 'puter, make a backup. They just don't make things like they used to.

My 200 bytes...

this morning (01/08/03) on ZDNet, there happens to be a lil' story on using your PDA to track auto-related items:

http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2908111,00.html