From Mechanical Database

The concept of a mechanical database based on mediawiki started as an idea in 2008. It was implemented in the fall of 2009 by Alex. Finding mechanical information is a very time consuming task while being a mechanic. Even with extensive knowledge on cars, the need for information such as torque specs, schematics, and sometimes procedures always arises. Wikipedia on the other hand does such a good job of providing information on almost everything else in an easily accessible and well organized way. The decision was made that something similar has to exist for car mechanics and enthusiasts. After searching throughout the net to see if the idea has already been implemented, nothing was found and thus MechDB was born.

Besides finding information, users also frequently want to share information about their creations and works of effort with others. Sharing one's advancements increases the feeling of accomplishment while helping others to learn and become inspired. MechDB aims to improve this by providing a cleaner interface and more organized structure for car enthusiasts to publish their work on. Rather than being limited to exposure on one thread in a specific forum on the net, the work can reach everyone and be presented in a more organized and professional manner.

So that covers organizing information that is online, and helping users share, but yet another area MechDB aims to improve is offline and technical data. Data that is often charged money for, such as Alldata, Haynes, and Chiltons manuals, should be available to anyone for free. Every car owner should have the right to information about the product that they purchased and own. Dealerships and large service shops should not hold a monopoly on automotive repairs. While quite an enormous and difficult task to take on, as the community grows this will become a real possibility.

The logo was designed for a more traditional look, and incorporates a fuel gauge to represent the amount of information on MechDB. As the amount of articles grow the gauge will be moved to represent approximately how complete the website is when it comes to all automotive knowledge.