Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the popular consumer education program, “Be Car Care Aware,” has become the leading third-party source of information on vehicle maintenance for motorists, the industry and the consumer media.

“The ‘Be Car Care Aware’ campaign has clearly exceeded expectations in only five short years,” said Rich White, executive director of the Car Care Council. “Unlike other industry campaigns like ‘Got Milk,’ ‘Be Car Care Aware’ does not rely on paid advertising. Through media outreach, widespread industry support and collaboration, and funding and direction from the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA), the ‘Be Car Care Aware’ campaign has made a real impact. Just the fact that consumer research shows that 67 percent of motorists are more aware of the benefits of vehicle maintenance than they were five years ago shows the huge success of the campaign.”

Since its official launch, the “Be Car Care Aware” campaign has:

• Contributed to reducing annual unperformed vehicle maintenance from $62 billion to $53 billion.

• Played a role in reducing failure rates of vehicles inspected during Car Care Months from 91 percent to 80 percent.

• Increased monthly visitors to www.carcare.org from 55,000 to 155,000.

• Positioned www.carcare.org as the number one website for car care on Google, AOL, Yahoo, MSN and all other major Internet search engines.

• Increased media publicity value every year of campaign, reaching a value of $15 million for 2006 and a projected value exceeding $17.5 million for 2007.

The Car Care Council is the source of information for the “Be Car Care Aware” consumer education campaign promoting the benefits of regular vehicle care, maintenance and repair to consumers. For a copy of the council’s Car Care Guide or for more information, visit www.carcare.org.