Find answers to frequently asked questions about BrightCar.
Come back to view our regularly updated FAQ.
- What does BrightCar do? BrightCar has been designed to take the stress out
of managing your cars. BrightCar can monitor an appropriate maintenance schedule
for your car, prompt you when maintenance or service is due, track your car's fuel
efficiency (also known as "gas mileage" or "fuel economy"), and track details of
your car's expenses, servicings, insurance, registration, etc. BrightCar acts as
a central repository for all the important information about your cars.
- Why is proper vehicle maintenance important? For most of us, our cars are
one of the most expensive things we own. It simply makes sense to protect our investments
in our cars.
Whether you're a car enthusiast or you don't know a sparkplug from a tire jack,
BrightCar helps you follow an appropriate maintenance schedule for your car, which
can provide you with significant benefits, including:
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Save you money.
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Improve the performance of your car.
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Extend the useful life of your car.
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Increase the resale value of your car.
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Reduce emissions that harm the environment.
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Prevent your car's warranty from being invalidated by the manufacturer.
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Decrease the chances that a preventable parts failure leaves you--and your passengers--stranded
on the road.
- Is BrightCar only for car experts? No. In fact, we designed BrightCar to
be used by anyone who has a car and owns a computer. While car experts will find
BrightCar useful in tracking details of their cars, we believe average car owners
can benefit as much or more from BrightCar, especially considering BrightCar's automatic
reminder service informing users when service is due. With BrightCar, you'll never
again need to worry that you're missing an important servicing for your car, because
BrightCar will keep you informed as to what needs to be done, and when.
- Is BrightCar only for car owners? I own a truck, motorcycle, RV (recreational
vehicle), boat, etc. If you have a truck, motorcycle, RV (recreational vehicle),
boat, etc., you can still benefit from BrightCar. We have pre-loaded maintenance
plans for most trucks in our system.
And we plan to add pre-loaded maintenance plans for the other vehicles in the future.
But even if you don't find a pre-loaded plan for your specific vehicle, you can
always enter an appropriate plan yourself.
So take a look at our website and see what you think about BrightCar. If you like
it, you should be able to implement it for your particular vehicle. And if you have
any trouble along the way, you can always contact us
for assistance.
- I own more than one car. How many BrightCar licenses will I need to buy?
One. You can manage as many cars as you'd like within a single version of BrightCar
Software.
- Is there a limit to the number of vehicles I can manage in BrightCar? No.
- Is there a limit to the number of service items I can enter into BrightCar?
No.
- Will I ever have to pay more money to use BrightCar? When you purchase a
license for BrightCar, you will be able to use that version of BrightCar software
indefinitely, without having to pay any more money.
- What is your policy on upgrades? We plan to provide users with minor updates
and improvements to the software (e.g., all 1.xx versions) free of additional charge.
In fact, we've set up BrightCar to automatically look for these updates and update
your version, if a free update is available. But we've also got some pretty big
enhancements planned, which will cost a significant amount of money to implement.
So at some point, we may levy a fee for major upgrades to the software (e.g., version
2.0, version 3.0, etc.). If we do, you will be able to decide at that time whether
you'd like to pay the upgrade fee and get the new version, or pay nothing and continue
using your older version. Please note that we expect such upgrade fees--if any--to
be significantly less than the cost to buy a license of the new version.
- What types of data input values does BrightCar accept? BrightCar supports
data inputs in miles or kilometers and gallons or litres. You can also enter costs
in any currency. But you cannot mix-and-match input types. (For example, all distance
inputs must be in either miles or kilometers--you cannot enter distances in both.)
- What are the minimum system requirements for running BrightCar?
BRIGHTCAR SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
|
Operating System |
Microsoft. Windows. 2000, Microsoft. Windows XP, or Microsoft. Vista
|
|
Processor |
Pentium. II 300 MHz recommended, Pentium. 200 MHz processor minimum |
|
RAM |
64 MB of Random Access Memory (RAM) recommended, 32 MB minimum |
|
Free Hard Drive Space |
30 MB available hard disk space |
|
Speed of Internet Connection |
28k or faster modem, or other Internet connection (ISDN, Cable, DSL) recommended
for initial setup; A 56K modem is recommended |
|
Browser |
Microsoft. Internet Explorer (IE) version 5.5 or later |
- Does BrightCar work on Macs? BrightCar has been designed for the Windows
operating system. Mac owners may be able to run BrightCar on their machines using
a virtual PC environment.
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