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With the Openbay app, you can monitor (and pay for) car repairs from your phone

By Andrew Hard April 8, 2016

Openbay — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Generally speaking, if your car needs service, you take it to a shop and let the mechanics do their thing. What exactly happens back there though? Magic wench-wielding repair gnomes? Mystical fix-it spray? A stack of Easy Buttons? With a new smartphone application by Openbay, you can keep tabs on the entire process right from your phone.

Openbay is an online marketplace that allows customers to locate, schedule, and purchase auto repair services in their area. The company’s new Openbay app — now available for Android and well as iOS devices — builds off an already established community of service professionals by allowing them to communicate with car owners. With Openbay, the wall between mechanic and driver has been broken down.

“Until now, there’s been no other native app for consumers to handle the end-to-end process of getting a vehicle serviced via Android,” said Rob Infantino, CEO of Openbay. “More than 40 percent of Openbay consumers book auto repair services via their mobile devices, and we see the trend toward mobile continuing, and look forward to exposing the platform to an entirely new market wherever and whenever they need automotive service.”

Related: Let your car describe its symptoms directly to the mechanic with OpenbayConnect

The Openbay app goes far beyond pictures and messages though; it also tracks service history, allows users to generate Openbay Rewards credits for future services, and even helps customers process payment with their mobile. The program can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Last year, Openbay announced another smartphone app called OpenbayConnect. The program expands on the company’s online services by adding an OBDII plugin, which opens a line of communication between your car and your phone. If there’s an issue with your vehicle, the app will find it, diagnose it, and list local repair offers with prices attached.

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