The history and introduction of Hõbenool

Hõbenool OÜ was founded by brothers Jürgen and Märten Riim, who have been big car enthusiasts since early youth. Märten’s great passion for taking things to pieces and improving those, and Jürgen’s interest in driving the cars has been with them to this day.

The automotive diagnostic training acquired by Märten helped him to apply his knowledge in the dealerships of Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and New Holland in the next eight years. Jürgen’s professional education culminated in completing his doctorate in 2011 at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of TalTech, while he was involved in measurement technology and quality management.

The professional knowledge acquired by both brothers is used at the Hõbenool on a daily basis until now – Märten is responsible for managing the entire technical side of the company, such as vehicle maintenance, diagnostics and repair, while Jürgen is responsible for general management. The development of new directions for the company and the enhancement of technological capabilities are common to both brothers.

A common hobby of brothers, the old Mercedes tuning, led to the establishment of the company in 2009. Originally, both vehicle maintenance and repairs were done in the Hõbenool, but in 2012 the goal was to deal only with automatic transmission focusing on maintenance, diagnostics and repair.

The vision of the Hõbenool has always been to offer a full service where the customer receiveś all the necessary services in one place. That is why a special equipment park for the maintenance and repair of transmissions with a total investment of more than € 300,000 has been purposefully developed.

This has made it possible to be a driving force in Estonia in some specific areas such as dynamic oil change. In the field of turbine repair and control unit testing/restoration, the Hõbenool is still the only company that offers such a service locally.

While in the early years the main customers were private individuals, for now both car dealers and insurance companies have become our customers. There are several companies and individuals in Estonia who have been engaged in the repair of automatic transmission mechanics for a couple of decades, but technological innovations, the purchase of special equipment and the systemic approach have raised the Hõbenool to be the largest in the Estonian market since its foundation five years ago.

By the end of 2017, over 1,100 transmission have been repaired and over 5,500 transmissions have been maintained at the Hõbenool. In the field of repair, it is always possible to be even better, but as far as transmission maintenance is concerned, the Hõbenool is undoubtedly at the forefront of Europe in terms of the number of maintained transmissions (estimated by dynamic oil change equipment manufacturers).