Method for predicting the life expectancy of a component of an observed vehicle and processing unit

A method of predicting a life expectancy of a component of an observed vehicle, the method comprising:

• feeding status data of selected components of a plurality of vehicles to a processing unit;
• feeding to the processing unit an operating parameter for each of the selected components of the plurality vehicles, the operating parameter influencing the status data of the respective selected component;
• determining a function between the operating parameter and the status data for each of the selected components;
• selecting one function, which fits best for the component of the observed vehicle, by way of an algorithm;
• feeding to the processing unit an operating parameter of the component of the observed vehicle;
• predicting the life expectancy of the component of the observed vehicle with the processing unit using the one function and the operating parameter of the component of the observed vehicle;
• determining the function between the operating parameter and the status data for each of the selected components, each of the determined functions having a slope;
• selecting one slope, which fits best for the component of the observed vehicle, by way of an algorithm, and predicting the life expectancy of the component of the observed vehicle by way of the selected slope;
• and
• at least one of performing maintenance on the component of the observed vehicle or exchanging the component of the observed vehicle based on the life expectancy of the component of the observed vehicle predicted in the predicting step.