premium sedan flashes a service reminder on the dash. The owner books online, the workshop pulls up the vehicle’s history, and somewhere in the background a software version is checked against what the manufacturer says it should be. Three parties have just swapped data about one car. Only one of them paid for it.

That small scene is why luxury car services now raise a question supply chain and IT teams will recognise: who owns the data, and who gets to see it?

The answer decides where owners can service their cars, and how well the workshop can do the job once the car arrives.

Why luxury car services have become a data problem

Infor describes the automotive supply chain as a vast global network of manufacturers, suppliers and service providers, and sells its software on end-to-end visibility. The workshop sits at the far end of that network. It is also where visibility tends to run out.

A modern premium vehicle carries software that can decide whether a replacement part works at all. LKQ Europe, an aftermarket parts group with an obvious stake in the debate, has pointed to parts that became incompatible after a manufacturer software update. A technician who can’t see the software version is guessing.

Maintenance thinking is shifting the same way. Salesfive, a software firm writing about factory machinery, separates reactive repair after a failure, preventive servicing at fixed intervals, and predictive maintenance based on actual condition. Cars aren’t production lines, but the logic carries over. Condition data only helps if the workshop can read it.

Who gets to see the data?

“Ownership” is the wrong word for what the rules actually settle. None of the frameworks below hands the owner a login to everything their car records. They decide something narrower: whether independent workshops can get the information needed to service a vehicle, and on what terms.

That matters for luxury car services because the access rules are what keep the choice of workshop real. Without them, an owner’s options depend on who holds the data.

Three markets, three approaches

The same question gets different answers depending on where the car is serviced.

Europe

The European Commission says manufacturers must give independent operators easy, restriction-free and standardised access to repair and maintenance information, with no discrimination against authorised dealers. The argument has since moved to the harder cases. 

LKQ Europe wants multi-brand diagnostic tools to be able to handle coding and software updates, and backs the SERMI scheme, which governs secure access to security-related information. Security is the sticking point: sensitive systems need protecting, and SERMI exists to vet who gets in.

North America

The North American picture is more about service delivery than access rules. One Credence Research report notes service centres adopting online booking, contactless payment and real-time service tracking, alongside more diagnostic and telematics technology. That is the retail side of the same shift. Owners now expect a workshop to tell them where their car is in the process.

Australia and Melbourne

Australia has gone furthest in writing the rules down. The Motor Vehicle Service and Repair Information Sharing Scheme has been mandatory since 1 July 2022. Under it, the ACCC explains, manufacturers, importers, distributors and data aggregators must supply service and repair information to repairers at a price that doesn’t exceed fair market value. Safety and security information is handled separately.

One limit is worth knowing. The scheme gives repairers access, not consumers, so it answers the workshop’s question rather than the owner’s. A February 2026 government review concluded the scheme was delivering more consumer choice and better access to repair information, and the government has since consulted on changes, including electronic logbooks and access for intermediaries.

For Audi owners in Melbourne deciding where to book Audi service in Melbourne, that framework is why the decision is a real one. Information access sits behind a workshop’s ability to service a connected car properly, and the rules are meant to stop that access belonging to a single network.

What supply chain and IT teams can take from this

The data problem in luxury car services will be familiar to anyone who has integrated systems across several parties. Each holds part of the record, the formats differ, and access depends on who asks and how.

Two habits transfer well. Treat the service record as an asset with a named owner, not a by-product of the job. And separate the data every party needs from the data that carries a security risk, which is the split both the Australian and European schemes make. Shared standards are the harder part, and they are better agreed before the integration than after the first dispute.

A useful test for any aftersales integration is short. If a workshop outside the manufacturer’s network turned up tomorrow with a connected premium car, what could it actually see? If nobody on the team can answer that, the data question hasn’t been settled yet.