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About Us

This site is primarily the work of myself, Rob Brandt.  I am a long time software developer and project manager who is more than a little obsessed with my 1979 Porsche 928.  Although I've won a local PCA Concours with it, it's clearly not a show car; rather it is my hobby and also my primary driver.   I do as much work as I can on it, although that's not much and only the easy stuff; the rest I take to my wrench, Peter.  This site however is largely my own work for the core maintenance features, although I have gotten a lot of help from Garth Humbert at :http://www.hellomay.com with graphics, and use an open source social networking platform for many of those types of functions.

The WrenchReminder.com Vision

This site is for people who care about their vehicles.  I am such a person, and accordingly associate with other owners of Porsche 928s.  Over the years I have seen various maintenance and inspection schedules floating around that were compiled by experienced owners, mechanics, and collaboratively by the communities of owners themselves, mostly as simple lists of items or at best a spreadsheet.  One day I thought "wouldn't it be great to have this in a program that would automatically calculate item due dates and notify me when something was due?".  I knew that such programs existed already, but being a programmer I really didn't like what was available; it didn't look like how I'd do it.  So I started thinking about how I'd do it.  The thought process went something like this:

  • This needs to be online, on a web site, so that I can get to it anywhere.
  • If it's on a web site, anyone else should be able to use it too.
  • It should be able to tell me when something is due based on either the passage of time or accumulation of mileage.
  • It should remind me to update my mileage from time to time. 
  • Sometimes you have to do follow up items after doing a job; it should remind me to do those at the proper time.
  • It should tell me what else I should do "while I'm in there".
  • I should be able to group maintenance items into schedules, such as an inspection schedule, regular maintenance schedule, restoration items, etc.
  • Each item should be able to hold notes and documentation about how to do something. 
  • When something comes due, I should be able to create a "work order" that I can take when I do the work, or that I can give to Peter.
  • When an item is completed, I should be able to mark it so, with the date, so that I have a history of what was done when.
  • When an item is completed, if it's regular maintenance, it should automatically schedule the next time it should be done. 
Then I started thinking, wow, that's a lot of data.  What can all the data be useful for?
  • You should be able to get started easily by copying existing maintenance templates already on the site
  • You should be able to go back in time and add maintenance from the past to build a complete maintenance history of your vehicle
  • You should be able to add previous owners and locations so that you can show where your vehicle has come from over the years.
  • If you buy a car that already has a history on WrenchReminder.com, the seller should be able to transfer it to you so that you have the past history on the vehicle to continue to build on.
  • You should be able to search the site for cars like yours, and for information on maintenance items others have done that you will be doing
  • You should be able to search for particular parts and components that others have used so that, for example, you could see how someone's use of a rebuilt water pump worked out.
Now this is getting exciting!  This would be really cool, and there might be a whole bunch of enthusiasts who would like to use this.  What can we do once there's all these people on the site?
  • You should be able to track what your friends are doing on their cars
  • You should be able to comment on and ask questions about what they are doing
  • You should be able to rate other owner's cars, maintenance schedules, proceedures, etc
  • You should be able to use the ratings of others to help you maintain your own vehicle, such as to select an existing maintenance schedule, choose a component, maybe even choose a mechanic.
  • You should be able to tag vehicles, maintenance and work done so that others can easily find them.
  • You should be able to join a group of owners who have similar interests as yours, such as Mustang owners, local clubs, or whatever
  • You should be able to easily create your own group for whatever purpose, including just to organize a fun run.
  • You should be able to have forum-like discussions with others in your groups
  • You should be able to mark other users as "buddies" so that you can more easily track what they're doing on the site
So that's the "vision".  Not all of it is done yet, there's quite a bit to go.  But what is here now is already quite useful, and more is being added quickly.  Please join up and help me grow this thing.  It's free, and I plan to keep it that way - at least for regular people who don't own dozens of vehicles or aren't professional mechanic shops.  Eventually, probably, there will be appropriate advertising and/or sponsors included to pay the bills.  But the data will never be sold; I am a great respecter of your privacy.
 
And if you have suggestions, let me know!

Rob