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GM Offers OnStar Diagnostic Service by Email

Your Car Will Tell You How It's Feeling

September 16, 2005
If your car carries the General Motors OnStar satellite-based communications system, the world’s largest automaker knows where you and probably how fast you are driving. Now the automaker is pitching OnStar as a service that allows your car to tell you how it's doing.

GM is already capable of performing diagnostic checks on vehicles by remote control, when owners ask for them. Now, U.S. customers who sign up for OnStar Vehicle Diagnostics will have a battery of tests done automatically and will get an e-mail generated by their own vehicle roughly every 30 days.

The information will include feedback on a car's engine, transmission, anti-lock brakes, air bags and other vital vehicle systems. The emails will also include reminders of when a vehicle is due for an oil change or when customers actually have to visit their dealership for scheduled maintenance.

The OnStar global positioning device and technology is built into almost every GM vehicle produced since the 2004 model year.

The automaker attempted to turn the tracking system into a profit center promoting it as a safety feature that included automatic alerting of emergency services when air bags are deployed, the ability to assist authorities in locating stolen vehicles, and remote unlocking of doors when keys are left inside.

While not a flop, the emergency services options option was not a raging success either.

OnStar is offered free of charge to GM's retail car buyers the first year but costs $199 a year after that. GM says about 65 percent of its customers opt to keep the service.

GM executives hope the diagnostic service boosts customer appreciation of OnStar increasing the retention rate after the initial year.

GM plans to soon offer OnStar as standard equipment in all its vehicles.

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