The car Bibles product reviews: BrightCar mileage tracking software.
BrightCar mileage tracking software
Tested March 2007 
Website: www.brightcar.com
Hot on the heels of GasDandy (below) I was sent a copy of BrightCar for review. This is another vehicle mileage tracker, but it has more complexity to it than GasDandy. BrightCar should be considered more of a car maintenance tracker than just a simple mileage tracker. The major difference between it and GasDandy is that BrightCar has an available online database of over 10,000 vehicle service plans. So how does it work?
Setup is pretty simple and only takes a few minutes. Once the software is installed it prompts you for your vehicle information, year first, then make, then model and options. An initial quirk I noticed straight away is that on first starting, BrightCar expands to full screen. On a 2560x1600 monitor that's quite a smack in the face especially as most of the intial screen is whitespace while you set up the first vehicle. But once you make your selection, it connects to the BrightCar servers and downloads a vehicle service plan specific to your car (you can check on their website first to make sure they have one) then you can resize the window however you like and it's persistent between sessions. The service plans that get downloads are quite, quite comprehensive. When you dig into the details, it gives you everything from the timing of simple oil changes right down to when the track-rod ends need greasing and the window tracks need a lube. Because of this, BrightCar is not so much for the casual mileage tracker - more for the driver who's serious about keeping their car in tip top condition.
The interface is nice to use with the main 'home' page showing a user-definable graph as well as any services due. Entering petrol stops is fairly straightforward and you can put all the usual stuff in there - odometer reading or trip-meter reading, petrol station, price etc. On the home page there's a print function that prints out some basic info on your vehicle. A separate print icon prints out the mileage graph.
One of the plus points about BrightCar is that they seem to be very receptive of customer feedback. The initial version I was sent for review had a couple of ridiculous bugs in it and a particularly annoying mpg graph that stuffed everything close together and overlaid the whole graph with mpg figures. It made it near impossible to read. I mentioned this to their customer support and in the service release that came out a couple of weeks later, they'd modified the mpg graph to have a more laid-back appeal to it, with the mpg figures appearing for any given point when you hover the mouse over it. In this day and age of get-it-done-now-and-bugger-the-customer, it's nice to come across a company who still takes the time to listen to its customers.
Summary
BrightCar or GasDandy? I'd say if you're a casual driver who'd like to keep track of basic cost and gas mileage, either would do - probably GasDandy simply on price though - BrightCar is $39.95. That being said, if you're serious about tracking full vehicle maintenance and all the other miscellaneous expenses to boot, then BrightCar might be more the piece of software for you. It costs more but then it's more feature-rich. QED. Fortunately, both offer trials from their site so you can try before you buy. One last thing with BrightCar - it worked perfectly at home on my DSL connection but at my office where we have firewalls and proxy servers, it had a bit of a panic attack trying to reach the BrightCar servers. I think it was our proxy server that was messing it up.
Special offer
If you're interested in a license for BrightCar, car-bibles.com has negotiated a 20%-off deal. Click on the coupon on the right to get the deal. When you click through to their "buy now" page, you'll see the discount applied to the total cost.