Patent ID: 8907816

Claim:
A method for managing vehicle check in at an automotive service center and identifying a procedure to retrieve specific information including vehicle identification data and odometer data related to one or more unknown vehicles at the automotive service center, the method comprising the steps of: connecting a device to the diagnostic port of one of the one or more unknown vehicles; without user input to the device, automatically downloading the vehicle identification data and odometer data from the vehicle, wherein the procedure to retrieve the specific information including the vehicle identification data and the odometer data is unknown to the device prior to this connection step and is automatically identified during this connection step by the device; without user intervention, automatically transferring the vehicle identification data and odometer data from the device to work station, wherein the work station include a database; without user intervention, automatically programmatically populating the vehicle identification data and odometer data into the database; the work station, without user intervention, automatically retrieving information based on one or both of the vehicle identification data and the odometer; and displaying the automatically-retrieved data on one or both of a computer and a paper printout.