Each vehicle is recognized as it arrives at the dealership. The dealership's service department has already evaluated each vehicle's status as it was in route and selectively addresses issues on those vehicles that require "service" attention. Each vehicle passes through new vehicle prep and is parked. The dealer's onsite wireless solution tracks each vehicle through its arrival prep and into its parked position. Any authorized dealership personnel can identify and locate any vehicle in the dealerships inventory, even those that are on their way, from anywhere on the dealership's premises.

The status and position of every vehicle is maintained on the dealership's server database until the vehicle is sold at which time a segment of the vehicle's "tag" is either removed from or permanently installed in the vehicle at the customers option. Tag cores remain in all vehicles after they are sold and are installed in legacy vehicles as they return for service. These tag cores identify all vehicles entering and exiting the dealership as well as provide rudimentary tracking of the vehicles as they move through servicing journey. The vehicle's "tag" is read as it enters the dealership's lot; the identified vehicle is associated with a particular customer in the dealer's database; the vehicle is associated with either a scheduled service or unscheduled visit. All of this customer information is provided to the dealership's "greeter" and to the appropriate service personnel.

The customer is greeted at the door and escorted to the customer lounge. The greeter begins reviewing the customer's service request record with the customer on the greeter's PDA. The customer asks to speak with his personal service representative. The greeter speaks the service representative's name into the PDA and in a few seconds the service representative answers. The customer and the service representative engage in a short conversation regarding a particular vehicle issue. The service representative makes the appropriate notes in the customer's service request record. The greeter reviews the updated customer's service request record and asks the customer to "electronically" sign the service request on the PDA. The vehicle drop-off is complete, the customer leaves in his waiting "tagged" loaner vehicle.

The dealer has an option of offering customers a dealer branded "Vehicle Maintenance Service"(VMS) by permanently installing the vehicle's "tag" and augmenting its Wide Area Network capabilities. The customer would purchase the augmented "tag" as a vehicle option and subscribe to the VMS plan over some period of time, a year for instance. The subscription fee could be as little as $10 / month.

The dealership's VMS extracts vehicle information from the installed "tag" at fixed intervals as well as on-demand. Based on analysis of the extracted data the dealership will alert the customer, through the vehicle's on-board messaging system, when normal or event driven maintenance is required. Normal maintenance includes things like scheduled vehicle service, tire rotation, etc. Event driven maintenance would include things like detection of low fluid levels, engine run-time anomalies and trends, low tire pressure, remote diagnostics, etc. The customer might even have the ability of capturing the vehicle's status during a random problem and sending it to the dealer for further reference in a future service call.