OREANDA-NEWS. October 12, 2012. From 1 October, an innovation that has proved extremely successful for Mercedes-Benz passenger cars has been extended to include the range of Mercedes-Benz vans, from the Citan and Vito/Viano to the Sprinter: the Digital Service Booklet (DSB). This replaces the traditional service booklet in which a vehicle’s service history is recorded. In future, all service and maintenance work performed on a vehicle throughout its lifetime will be documented digitally – without any gaps, accessible from anywhere in the world, and protected from data loss or falsification.

“The Digital Service Booklet offers customers and workshops significant benefits in terms of safety and handling”, says Volker Mornhinweg, manager of Mercedes-Bens Vans. The Digital Service Booklet was introduced for selected Mercedes-Benz passenger car models in 2007, and was extended to include the entire range of passenger cars in July 2008. For vans, it was introduced for the Citan, the new urban delivery van, in September this year, and has been rolled out for all van models as of October.

Odometer readings also recorded

One of the benefits for both customers and workshops is that workshop data can no longer go missing. All service and maintenance work carried out on a particular vehicle, together with its odometer reading during its time in the workshop, is recorded and archived in a central database, which Mercedes-Benz partner workshops, in both Germany and abroad, can view on-screen in just seconds. DSB has been introduced for Mercedes-Benz Vans in 68 countries, with the information always displayed in the predominant language of each country.

This quick, direct access to comprehensive and fully transparent data makes it easier for workshops to accept jobs and plan their work schedule. Customers benefit from getting help more quickly. “Thanks to DSP, the service records for your vehicle can be forwarded seamlessly, even if you’re currently abroad or have switched to a different workshop”, says Holger Suffel, manager of Global Service and Parts Operations. What’s more, the Digital Service Booklet also provides reliable protection against data manipulation, increasing the resale value of Mercedes-Benz models because customers know that these are used vehicles they can trust.

The customer receives a printed copy of each electronic service report. Should this be mislaid, printing out another copy is no problem. A printout of a vehicle’s full service history is available on request. Independent workshops can have access to a special version of the DSB.