Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) today marked the 100,000th installation of its proprietary Detroit Virtual Technician remote diagnostic system. Since its launch in 2011, Detroit’s Customer Support Center has personally assisted more than 13,000 customers with actionable and detailed service recommendations.
Virtual Technician reduces downtime and decreases maintenance costs by providing a technical snapshot of the powertrain’s status as soon as the check engine light comes on. Specially trained technicians at the Detroit Customer Support Center (CSC) immediately evaluate the fault codes to determine the exact issue, provide service recommendations and identify the parts needed for the repairs. To expedite service, CSC technicians can then identify and alert the closest authorized Detroit, Freightliner or Western Star service location in advance of the customer’s arrival.
“Virtual Technician helps our customers lower their real cost of ownership by keeping them on the road longer,” said Matt Pfaffenbach, director of telematics for Daimler Trucks North America. “We’ve collected more than 8 billion miles of data to provide our engineers real-world information that will continue to benefit our customers through our ongoing product improvement and development efforts.”
First introduced for the Freightliner Cascadia, Virtual Technician is now standard on most Freightliner and Western Star trucks equipped with Detroit engines. Virtual Technician is part of the award-winning Detroit Connect telematics solution from DTNA, which also includes Visibility fleet software and the forthcoming On-Board Tablet. Detroit Connect, the industry’s first integrated OEM telematics solution for commercial drivers and fleet operators, provides an essential link between vehicle and operator to improve individual truck and fleet performance.
