When faced with a tricky automotive repair, Jamie Ludolph used to turn to a tome-like service manual. Today at the Atlanta car dealership where Ludolph is a master guild technician, he can turn to a robot.

The Audi Robotic Telepresence, or ART, is a remote-controlled robot on wheels. Outfitted with cameras and a screen, it lets mechanics at Audi of America dealerships talk to experts at the company’s technical center in Auburn Hills, Mich.

“At the beginning I wasn’t really sure how helpful it would be or if there were any advantages to it,” says Ludolph, who has been a mechanic for more than two decades. “The first time I used it, though, I realized how much time it cut off of what my normal routine would be.”

ART isn’t used for every problem, and today’s mechanics have several high-tech diagnostic tools at their disposal. But the robot is the latest example of how dealership repair shops have transformed from grease pits into high-tech service centers loaded with computers.

“In the last 10 years the technology has gotten a lot more advanced, a lot quicker,” says Ludolph.

Despite that pace, Ludolph isn’t nostalgic for the old days. The job “is a little bit cleaner than it used to be,” he says, “although sometimes you still have to get in there and get dirty.”