Predictive Maintenance and Predictive Repair of Road Vehicles—Opportunities, Limitations and Practical Applications

With drastic increases in the complexity of road vehicles, increasing environmental and cost pressures have led to the obsolescence of previous fixed-schedule maintenance systems. The aerospace industry, following the road vehicle industry, is also beginning to use the predictive maintenance method increasingly widely. A possible next step for critical breakdowns could be a predictive service. While preventive maintenance is able to be used more frequently, the possibility of preventive repair is also limited to the fault symptoms, and is unsuitable for preventing fast-running breakdowns. Due to the current state of technological development in this area, it will take a few more years for lower-priced cars to catch up to the sensor and data structures of current premium-series vehicles, such that the mass use of these methods in road vehicles can become widespread.