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"DriverSide, the Web-based service for helping you keep tabs on your car health and maintenance, has announced its acquisition of fairBenjamin in order to expand on its own technology and access to local mechanics in a given area.  The amount of the acquisition has not been disclosed, but both services are fairly new, having been launched in 2007, with DriverSide raising an undisclosed amount of funding earlier this year.  \n\nYou may recall that DriverSide offers a Web-based tool to help you keep track of your current car's needs, but it's also a localized search engine that helps you find reliable and trusted mechanics in your area.  One of DriverSide's main objectives is to connect users with mechanics, offering points of comparison for everything car related, from the prices of various automobile parts to the maintenance schedules of your vehicle according to the manufacturer versus actual maintenance reports.  \n\nAn important part of DriverSide's growth on this end is its ability to offer an easy-to-use platform for sharing things like actual maintenance data so that consumers can have a factual set of information to work from, while also connecting them with the mechanics in their area.  fairBenjamin has a patent-pending process for connecting these consumers with local mechanics, and its this access that DriverSide finds valuable in its long-term goals.  \nThis acquisition will help DriverSide provide better estimates to consumers for repair costs, and offer overall value to end users.  When it's all said and done, the most useful car maintenance site will be the one that presents accurate information in a format that lessens the amount of time a given user will need to spend doing the research, and DriverSide has acquired fairBenjamin in an effort to move towards this direction."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/08/25/driverside-acquires-fairbenjamin/>