Members Now Have a Garage for Their Vehicles

Nov 13, 2026 · @Titanium

My 2002 Dodge Ram 2500 SLT, Beast, just rolled past 506,000 miles, and I can tell you exactly when she last got oil, what it cost, and how many miles are left before the next change. That's not memory. That's the Garage I just built for the forum.

Anybody who's run a high-mileage Cummins knows the problem. You change the oil, scribble it on a shop rag or a scrap of cardboard, and six months later you're standing in the driveway asking yourself if that was 4,000 miles ago or 7,000. Multiply that by fuel filters, coolant, transmission fluid, transfer case, front end and every bolt-on you've ever added, and the paper trail falls apart fast.

Why a garage on the forum

I've been wrenching since I was 14 and spent 23 years as a field mechanic, so I've seen what a good service history is worth. A truck with records sells faster, diagnoses easier and gets looked after better. The trouble is that spreadsheets get lost, apps want a monthly fee, and none of them know a thing about a diesel guy's life.

So I built it right here. Every member gets their own private garage. Add your trucks, tractors, quads and whatever else lives in the shop, and keep the whole history in one place. Your garage is yours: other members don't see your rigs unless I add sharing later.

And it goes where you go. The whole Garage works from your phone, so you can log the oil change from under the truck, punch in a fill-up at the pump, or snap a photo of a new mod in the driveway. Every vehicle you own is tracked in one place, with its maintenance and what it costs to run: service bills, fuel and mods, all on the record.

The maintenance log

Every job gets a line: miles, date, service and cost, laid out in a clean table like a shop invoice. Beast's latest reads 506,000 miles, 11/13/26, Oil Change, $70.00. Each row has Edit and Delete buttons, so fixing a typo takes seconds.

Add as many entries as you like. When you ask "when did I do the fuel filter?", the answer is one glance away instead of one afternoon of digging.

Reminders you control

The Garage doesn't guess your schedule. You set it. For each service you pick the interval: every so many miles, every so many days, or whichever comes first. Kilometers and engine hours work too, so the tractor and the generator get tracked the same way as the truck.

The reminders page is a table with Status, Service, Days, Miles and Last, so you can see what's coming at a glance. Right now Beast's oil change shows OK with 6,900 miles and 180 days to go. When a service gets close, it flips to soon. When it's due or past, it flips to overdue.

To keep the numbers honest, the Garage asks for your mileage once a day. Type the odometer reading and hit Enter, or hit Skip if you haven't driven. It takes about five seconds, and every reminder stays accurate.

The fuel log: real mileage, not wishful thinking

Every truck guy has a number in his head for his mpg, and it's usually generous. The fuel log shows the real one. Log each fill-up with the odometer, the gallons, the date and what you paid, and mark it as a full fill or a partial.

The best part: you never write a thing down. Standing at the pump, you pull out your phone, open the Garage and punch in your odometer, gallons and price. It's saved to your account on the website, so there's no receipt to lose, no notebook to dig out of the glovebox and no spreadsheet to fill in later.

It displays like the pump does: price per gallon as $x.xxx and gallons as x.xxx. The economy figure is worked out between full tanks. It counts the distance since your last full fill and all the fuel you added since, partials included, so a splash-and-go doesn't skew the result.

Towing season versus empty-bed commuting, tire swap, a new tune, a different fuel: now you can actually see what each one did to your mileage.

The show page: let the truck show off

Every vehicle gets its own page, and this is where Beast gets to strut. A big main photo leads the page, scaled so the whole truck shows, with a gallery of extra shots underneath. Click any picture to open it full size. Pick which photo is the main one with a single click.

Below the photos come the specs: engine and displacement, transmission, transfer case and drivetrain, current mileage, and a notes box for the extras like axles, tires, fuel type and color. Write down the details that actually matter to the next owner, or to the guy asking you about it at the fuel pump.

Then the part I'm proudest of: the mods. Every modification gets its own page with photos and its own write-up: brand, category, install date, mileage at install and what you paid. On the vehicle page they show up as links, so the turbo, the lift pump, the exhaust or the lift kit each tells its own story. Your most recent maintenance and fuel entries are pulled onto the same page, so it reads like a build sheet that's still being written.

What's next, and I want your input

The Garage is built and being tested now, and it's coming to the forum soon. A few things are on my list:

• A switch to make a vehicle's show page public, so you can brag about your build or link it in a classifieds post

• Better reminder warnings, with a lead time you choose for each service

• Email or notification nudges when something's coming due

• Starter service lists for common diesel jobs, so you don't have to type them all in

Tell me what a garage like this needs to be worth using. What do you track now? What's the one service you always forget? Drop it in the comments and the best ideas go on the list.