John Harmon Aims to Revolutionize Car Repair Industry with ObiiGo App

There are few things more stressful in life than seeing the “Check Engine” light come on in your car. You instantly feel concern for your safety and dread the potential costs of what repair will be needed and how much it’s going to cost you.

Even getting a diagnostic reading from a repair shop can cost more than a hundred dollars, and it can often involve visiting numerous locations in order to find a cost estimate you’re able to afford. However, a Fayetteville-based entrepreneur named John Harmon believes he has a game-changing solution for these vexing issues – thanks to a new app he’s designed called ObiiGo.

Currently pilot testing in Northwest Arkansas and Phoenix, ObiiGo enables customers to instantly check the diagnostic codes from their cars’ OBD2 plug-in ports and then instantly shop for bids on the best repair deals from an array of participating mechanics. The goal is to spare customers the hassles of driving all over creation searching for the right repair, and Harmon has been thrilled with the initial response to his creation.

“Our downloads are doubling every week and we’re in talks with one of the leading big-box retailers in the country to sell our own proprietary OBD2 reader, as well as a publicly-owned dealership company that has 179 locations nationwide,” Harmon said. “Most OBD2 readers cost $60 and up, while ours costs just $19.95 and is available already on our site (www.obiigo.com), Amazon, Wal-Mart and Ebay.

“Those readers find the diagnostic codes before communicating with our app to seek bids from participating garages. The key to selling this inexpensively is to make sure every car in America has one, and at this low a price, everyone can afford it.”

Harmon initially hatched the idea for ObiiGo while involved with a repair facility several years ago. A female customer sought help after being frustrated by having to pay for differing diagnoses from three different garages all over Fayetteville, and Harmon asked his team if there was any existing method around such hassles.

When he was informed there wasn’t, he started brainstorming the solution. He chose the name ObiiGo as both a play on the OBD2 device and his own love of Star Wars character Obi-Wan Kenobi after testing several possibilities on friends and family.

“Most common repairs for a car are things like the brakes and tires, ignition coils and spark plugs,” Harmon said. “The ‘Check Engine’ light comes on even if you get a low tire or your gas cap is loose. We have horror stories of people going into a dealership because they had a check engine light on and spent $2,000 on a bunch of repairs when it was really just the gas cap. We decided to bring together the customer and independent repair facilities where the customer would win.”

Harmon has found that his creation is also being welcomed by customers wary of interpersonal contact in a COVID world, as receiving bids via the app spares them unnecessary meetings with mechanics. Another bonus is that ObiiGo evens the playing field for people who have traditionally been taken advantage of by repair shops.

“When you’re on the app and they send you a quote, they don’t know if you’re female or male, black, white or Hispanic. They can’t tell what you are,” explained Harmon, who grew up in the small East Texas town of Elysian Fields before moving to Fayetteville to care for his parents a few years ago. “When I was working on the app, one of my good friends who happens to be black said he likes the app for his wife, because she’s black and when she goes to get her car fixed, they treat her differently.

“My stomach just fell because I didn’t think about that. I’d say 7 out of 10 college students, especially females, get told one price and then are charged more. One young lady told me that an oil change was $50 more than they quoted her, so she had them take the oil out of the car and put her old oil back in.”

Obiigo also works for routine maintenance; for example, users can plug in the code for replacing brake pads and also send out requests for bids. They can also schedule their repairs through the app and once repairs are finished, customers can also pay via the app.

“When you have a $500 car repair, one in six families can’t pay that bill right away,” noted Harmon. “Seventy-five percent of car owners will go with wherever they can find the best repair deal in each situation, rather than remaining loyal to one garage. Independent repair shops as an industry are growing at a 5.8 percent annualized rate. The time has come for people to have an app like this that offers endless solutions to their problems.”