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June 12, 2008
RepairPal Brings Auto Repair into the 21st Century
Bringing auto repair into the 21st century, client RepairPal is launching their new service today. While Americans make roughly two million visits to an automotive service facility every day, they are no better informed about these major expenses than they were 20, 30 or even 40 years ago.
RepairPal’s free service delivers objective, fair service price estimates, an extensive auto shop directory, and expert insights from certified mechanics. For the first time, consumers will benefit from proprietary industry data previously available only to professional automobile technicians.
Auto repair is fairly unique in that it remains completely non-transparent for consumers, even in the Internet age. The result of this information asymmetry is that pricing for almost all repair jobs varies widely, even for the same brand within the same city.
RepairPal leverages a unique, patent-pending system which relies on multiple sources of difficult-to-acquire proprietary data to provide accurate repair price estimates for more than 20 billion unique estimates on 94% of passenger vehicles.
“What Zillow did for home valuations and Kelley Blue Book did for used auto prices, RepairPal will do for auto repair. Auto repair is an industry where consumers lack basic information and pricing transparency,” said Matt Booth, Senior Vice President for Interactive Local Media at The Kelsey Group. “RepairPal breaks this paradigm by providing relevant information when consumers need it most."
The RepairPrice Estimator eliminates the risk of paying too much for a service or repair by delivering unbiased, market-based price estimates specific to a consumer’s car brand, model, service type and location. This helps consumers ensure they pay a fair price for each and every service. To ensure accuracy, RepairPrice Estimates are constantly tested against user feedback data and with ongoing market surveys.
Smart Shop Directory is a comprehensive resource for finding a great local auto shop by car brand and service specialty. The directory includes more than 286,000 independent shops and dealerships, tire, muffler and glass specialists, as well as collision repair facilities. RepairPal’s directory delivers a better way for drivers to find the right shop, and includes user ratings, reviews, and a unique feedback mechanism designed to assess each shop’s pricing practices and estimating accuracy.
Expert Advice section offers expert insights from our team of ASE certified and highly experienced mechanics. This arms consumers with the specific information they need to understand the services being recommended by their mechanic, and to avoid possible scams. It also tells them which parts and procedures are included before they bring their car in for a specific service, and if a particular problem is common for their make and model.
MyCar is a convenient maintenance and repair management tool for keeping all the records for each vehicle in one place. It also sends detailed email reminders for periodic services, like oil changes and scheduled tune-ups. Eventually it will allow users to schedule their repair visits online.
RepairPal’s patent-pending RepairPrice Estimates are driven by multiple sources of expert and proprietary data on cars, parts, procedures and problems. The goal is to eliminate the two major risks consumers confront when they repair their cars: pricing risk and diagnostic risk.
The RepairPal model forecasts labor rates for every brand, geography and service channel in the US, and generates a labor charge for each procedure using our proprietary database of the actual labor repair times used by the professionals.
Check it out and give us your feedback at www.repairpal.com.
June 12, 2008 in Client Announcements, On Technology, Web 2.0 | Permalink
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Comments
Have a look at http://www.FairRepair.com. Our service will generate an accurate estimate (No ranges) giving you the exact labor time with average labor rates in your area calculated from a 65K record repair facility. Our service also lists out the exact OEM Part # & Price. Our Parts & Labor Data, along with a majority of all repair facilities estimating software is licensed through MOTOR Information Systems. If you want an accurate vehicle repair estimate, check us out.
Posted by: Jeff | Jun 13, 2008 6:45:16 PM
I have been looking for something like this for ages. Being able to compare prices is great.
Posted by: car scratch repairs | Jul 3, 2010 2:36:54 AM
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