Gordini's Pit Stop: STAR BLACK - Service Above and Beyond

Saturday 14 May 2011

STAR BLACK - Service Above and Beyond

STAR BLACK is a division of Singapore Technologies Kinetics Limited which is specialised in car maintenance and repair, operating with two service centres; one in Ubi and one at Jalan Boon Lay. I recently tagged along the SGMerc community for a comprehensive tour of STAR BLACK's service centre in Boon Lay, featuring STAR BLACK's highly skilled Technical Specialists and state-of-the-art car repair equipments.

STAR BLACK covers all vehicle types and brands, but has a special affinity for luxury European makes such as Mercedes, BMW and Audi, for which they have heavily invested in the latest equipment to fix these cars, ranging from computer systems to eradicate electronic gizmos to specialized tools to get a bent or damaged aluminum chassis back to factory specs.

Part of the electronic brigade are wireless computer systems that access the ECU via the OBDII port and give the technician full access of the car's function, allowing them , for example, to turn the lights of the car on one by one in sequence so that only one technician is needed to check the lighting all around the car, saving both time and allowing a better staff allocation for faster service all around the workshop (compared to the usual two-men team with one operating the lights and the other checking).

Things really get interesting when it comes to frame re-alignment. This task has, as of today, always been an estimated repair, based on experience and a set of rulers and wires. The best technician will bring a damaged frame close to factory specs, but will never be able to reach a 100% match on the original chassis. STAR BLACK, with the aim of offering perfect service to its clients, decided to invest in the latest chassis alignment technology consisting in a specific rig and computer system which detect specific points from under the chassis and compares them to the original factory settings stored in a database courtesy of the manufacturers themselves. With this tool, the technicians are able to match the factory chassis alignment specs flawlessly and you can be assured that whatever misshapen your car has gone through will be long forgotten and not cause any future detrimental wear and tear.

In addition to the chassis realignment rig, STAR BLACK is equipped with the latest line of EVO repair kits (not related in any way to the Mitsubishi Evo) which consists in a series of high precision tools made to handle more serious car surgery such as chopping off damaged body parts and replacing them with their unmolested equivalent.

Of course, STAR BLACK also handles normal car maintenance and minor bumps and scratches thanks to their army of work bays, a service topped off with its water-based paint spray equipment, full car ovens and booths.

Water-based paint is being used more and more by car manufacturers, especially in Europe, as it is environmentally friendly while achieving the same colors and feels as the traditional acrylic paints, and is bound to become an industry standard.

Equipped with such high-tech and reliable equipment, I can only but recommend the services of STAR BLACK to any of you, especially the ones driving continental luxury cars.