Continental had many new innovations on display at Automechanika Frankfurt designed to boost workshop efficiency and open up new business opportunities. 

Attracting lots of interest was SINDRI, an app designed by Continental for mobile devices, offering a smart solution for customer-focused and convenient direct vehicle acceptance. SINDRI can digitise the entire acceptance process and looks deep inside the vehicle. The app receives its data via a compact Vehicle Communication Interface, which accesses the ECUs via the OBD-II interface. SINDRI makes the data available much faster than conventional methods so that it can be used in parallel with a visual inspection. The workshop employee quickly gets a much more comprehensive picture of the vehicle’s overall condition. 

SINDRI covers over 80% of European vehicle fleets. It displays the scan results in a user-friendly way on a tablet. This creates customer trust in the workshop’s repair and service planning. Customers can view all the data immediately on site, and upcoming repairs can be discussed and agreed upon. SINDRI also supports workshops in their efforts to open up additional business because the system detects problems, such as a lack of operating fluids, and it indicates service intervals that would not have been noticed during a routine inspection. 

The SINDRI app is available for Android and iOS tablets. It can be downloaded from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. An annual license fee applies for its use. Workshops can buy the VCI directly from Continental stockist. The app can also be customised by integrating the workshop logo and contact details. 

Continental also introduced some new practical solutions for emission testing ahead of upcoming legal tightening regarding vehicles’ particulate emissions. Moving into this product segment for the first time ever, the technology company presented the DX280 DC and the CCP800, two exhaust emissions testers for car workshops. 

Niels Melcher, head of the Emissions & Special Tools program in the business segment Automotive Aftermarket at Continental commented, “Using our new service equipment, our partners can continue to offer mandatory exhaust emissions testing to their customers, even with stricter market-specific testing specifications, at a reasonable price. They thus not only keep their customers satisfied but can also increase revenue.”