Cars maintenance and repair records

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

Mike - which program you likes more? Is any of the program help you to keep track on all cars? I don't care much on gas mileage, but keeping track when oil change, tire rotation or anything else were done will be beneficial.

George - you idea with notebooks would not work for me. But it give me idea to mark my calendar on iPhone with events and make it as repeat event with reminder. I am going to try it.

For our needs, one doesn't really cover all of it. Both my LOML and I like to keep track of the fuel economy of all our vehicles. MileageKeeper is perfect for that as it's basic like a little notebook and displays exactly what we are looking for. But for the Morris, I wanted to track how often I needed to add oil as well as mileage, so the Fuel Monitor fit those needs to a point. It also lets me track all sorts of repairs and service such as filters & fluids and I can add my own type of service name to fit my needs. It also has some nice charts & graphs.

Now that Gas Cubby/Fuelly have the ability to share an account (i.e. husband/wife share a car) I'm going to play around with that and see if it fits our needs. It would be nice to have it all in one app so we both have access to it!

When it comes to documenting it in your calendar, I have found one huge negative. I use the calendar to track critter issues such as when the goats were wormed, or when one of the critters had a health issue worth noting. You can only use the Search feature through the calendar up to 1 year back. Any data you input that dates back further then 1 year, you manually have to scroll through the calendar and look for it!

[Bruce Wrenn]

Each of our vehicles has a folder in file cabinet with records of parts purchases and servicing. We copy receipts, as thermal images disappear over time. Having "hard copy" saved my over $150 on a mass airflow sensor that went south while under warranty. For oil changes, along with file copy, on the sun visor is the tag from oil filter with mileage for next oil change written on it with magic marker. Not only do I know when it's due, but what kind of filter to buy. Everything runs full synthetic oil. We typically run a vehicle between 300K and 500K before having grave side services for it. Currently waiting for FedEx to deliver some front end parts for our 94 Areostar. Do need to replace rear seal when lift is available for a day. It's a five minute job once you get transmission out, which takes a lot more than five minutes. Our older son is a mechanic, but his specialty is heavy equipment. He is so good, local dealer calls him to come into their shop and fix some of their loaders for them.

[Mike Kees]

At my house we have about 6-7 vehicles to keep track of. I have a big notebook at the shop with tabs for all the different vehicles,I write everything down,just because I don't remember everything if I don't.

[Robert Payne]

I scan every service report to a PDF file and then keep them by vehicle and by year in folders on my laptop. I also keep a full set burned onto a DVD as a permanent backup. When I bought my used Tundra a year ago, that is what the prior owner had done and it was very useful to see every service record organized so neatly. No need to keep hard copy (many of which will fade over time or started out as carbon copies) so if needed, I can print out each one.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I just toss the sales slip for things I have done in the glove box.

Japanese cars are nice in that way because all you have is a bunch of oil change receipts...and one for new tires @ 50k miles.