Hunter Engineering vs UVEye

What to check before you choose

Check what each report covers and does not, how a finding becomes a repair order line and how it is shown to the customer. Ask about lane space, power and network needs, how many cars per hour each handles and what installation and support cost.

Get an answer on which DMS and scheduler it connects to and how images and measurements are stored. Ask for references from stores with the same DMS and similar volume, and ask how a customer disputes a finding.

It also helps to ask how each system behaves in a rush. A drive-through unit reads every car that passes, so ask what it does with a vehicle that does not need alignment or tires and how often a false finding is raised that an advisor has to explain away.

Find out how readings are turned into a quote the customer can approve on a phone, whether a tire quote draws on your own supplier prices and who in your store owns the follow-up on a declined finding. Ask for a month of results from a store with your volume, and compare sales of the services each system flags before and after it was installed.

Finally, ask each vendor what happens during a power or network outage, whether cars can still be written up by hand and how long a service call takes to arrive.

A final practical test is to ask each vendor for the installation plan for a lane like yours. The plan should state the space needed, the electrical and network work, the time the lane will be closed, who trains advisors and technicians and how results will appear on the repair order the first day.

Ask what the vendor will do if the first month's readings disagree with a technician's check, and who decides which is right. Keep that process in the contract.

Inside the shared categories, Hunter Engineering fields 4 named lines against it (Quick Check Drive, Quick Tread Edge, HawkEye Elite, Inspection Lane); UVEye fields 4 named lines against it (Helios, Atlas, Artemis, Vehicle Inspection Platform).