Move your Vehicle Maintenance Tracker data to SteerLog

Updated 15 September 2026 · SteerLog: free for one car, Pro is a one-time purchase (price shown in the App Store for your country)

Did a recent update leave your service dates reading 01/01/1900 or 01/01/0001? Your history is not gone. The mileage and notes on each service are almost always still there. SteerLog's CSV import reads Vehicle Maintenance Tracker's export. If a row's date was wiped, it does not drop the row. It estimates a date from the odometer reading. Import is free and takes a few minutes.

What happened

A 2026 update to Vehicle Maintenance Tracker changed how the app stores its service records. Since then, close to 95 one- and two-star App Store reviews tell the same story. Service dates across the log turned into 01/01/1900 or 01/01/0001. The odometer reading and the notes on each service stayed right. If your history looks like that now, the fix below moves it to SteerLog. It puts real dates back on the rows that lost them.

Getting your data out of Vehicle Maintenance Tracker

1. Open Vehicle Maintenance Tracker. Use its export option to save your service history as a CSV file.
2. Email the CSV to yourself. The app can send it for you. Or save it to Files, if the share sheet offers that.
3. Make sure your iPhone can open the file again. It could be in an email you read on your phone, in iCloud Drive, or in the Files app.

Wrong dates don't stop the export. The CSV still holds every row, even the ones that show 1900 or 0001. Leave the file as it is. SteerLog fixes the wiped dates as it reads them.

Importing into SteerLog

1. Get your CSV onto your iPhone — open the emailed attachment, or find the file in Files.
2. In SteerLog, open Settings › Export & Import › Import CSV. The file goes into the car you have selected. So pick the right car first.
3. Choose the file. SteerLog tells you how many entries it added, how many duplicates it skipped, and how many rows it could not read.
4. Check the History tab. Rows with a real date look normal. Rows whose date was wiped are there too. They are marked so you can find and fix them.

One CSV goes into one car. Free covers one car with every feature. More cars take a single one-time purchase. There is no subscription.

How wiped dates are handled

SteerLog's import needs a date or an odometer reading on a row. It does not need both. A row's date may be missing, or be a stand-in like 01/01/1900 or 01/01/0001. That row is not treated as broken, and it is not dropped. SteerLog uses its odometer reading to place it in your timeline. It finds the nearest entries on each side that do have real dates. Then it works out, by mileage, where this one falls between them.

Each estimated entry shows a small ≈ next to its date. So you can always tell which dates were rebuilt and which came from the file. Do you know the real date, from a receipt, a reminder, or just memory? Open the entry and edit the date. Once you save a real date, the ≈ goes away. The entry is then like any other. You don't have to fix anything to use the log. The ≈ mark just shows where a closer look would help.

Photos don't travel in a CSV. Receipt photos you added in Vehicle Maintenance Tracker stay there. The rest of each row comes in with it: mileage, notes, cost and the service name.

Column names SteerLog recognizes

Matching ignores case, spaces and punctuation. So Service Date, service_date and ServiceDate all match. You need a date or odometer column. The rest are optional.

No date column at all, just odometer? Every row still comes in. Each is placed by mileage and marked with ≈ until you edit it. Importing the same file again skips duplicates. So it is safe to run the import more than once while you fix your dates.

Questions, answered

Why did my dates turn into 1900 or 0001?

A 2026 update to Vehicle Maintenance Tracker changed how the app stores service dates. For many users, the dates on old records were overwritten with a stand-in value: 01/01/1900 or 01/01/0001. The mileage and notes on those services are mostly fine. This guide shows how to get your history out and into SteerLog, with the dates put back as closely as we can.

Will SteerLog guess my dates right?

It gives you a fair estimate, not a promise. SteerLog places a wiped-date row where its odometer reading falls between your nearest dated entries. It marks the result with a ≈. For most logs that lands close to the truth. But it is still an estimate. Check the ≈ entries and edit any date you know.

Is the import free?

Yes, fully. Import, CSV/PDF export, iCloud sync, and backup files are free in SteerLog, forever. Free covers one car with every feature. A single one-time purchase unlocks as many cars as you like. There is no subscription.

Do I need an account to use SteerLog?

No. SteerLog has no sign-up, no login, and no company server. Your log lives on your iPhone and syncs through your own iCloud. So no outage, price change, or shutdown can take your history with it.

What happens if I import the same file twice?

Nothing bad. SteerLog skips duplicates. An entry counts as a duplicate when its day, type, odometer and cost all match one you already have. So running an import again, or importing exports that overlap, won’t double your history.

Do my service photos come over too?

No. A CSV file is text. Photos on a service in Vehicle Maintenance Tracker are not part of the export, so they won't come over. Mileage, dates (or estimated dates), service names, cost and notes all import as normal.