A method is provided for extracting data from service repair verbatims in a vehicle service reporting system. Each service repair verbatim includes a technician's comments concerning a part, a symptom associated with the part, and a repair action associated with the symptom. Each service repair verbatim includes information relating to an identified problem with at least one vehicle part. A diagnostic and prognostic ontology database is provided that is structured by vehicle part classification, a vehicle part sub-class classification, and a relationship classification, wherein the relationship classification includes symptom relationships and action relationships. Each of the service repair verbatims are reconstructed utilizing the diagnostic and prognostic ontology database. Combinations of information are extracted from the reconstructed service repair verbatims as a function of user input criteria. A frequency is determined of each combination extracted in the reconstructed service repair verbatims. The service repair verbatims are clustered for each combination.