Autobody News February 2012 Northeast Edition

Mike Causey, a sometime AutobodyNews columnist, announced his candi-dacy for North Carolina’s Commis-sioner of Insurance position inGreensboro in early January. Causey

chose Dare Countyto launch his cam-paign he said,“…to bring focuson the problem ofinsurance in thecoastal counties.Premiums forhousehold insur-

ance, especially windstorm insurance,have skyrocketed in recent years in

eastern North Carolina, worse yet inthe coastal counties.”

Causey said he was urged byNorth Carolina Republican leaders toseek the office this year because ofwidespread and bipartisan criticism ofhow the State Office of Insurance hasbeen administered.

Causey is also known as a con-sumer advocate and lobbyist for the In-dependent Auto Body Association(IABA) as well as healthcare groupsand Organic farming and Healthy Eat-ing advocacy.

This will be Causey’s fourth at-

by John Yoswick

A report at the Collision IndustryConference (CIC) on the findings of astudy into what consensus existswithin the industry about the devel-opment and implementation of for-malized repair standards led to asmuch discussion about the value andvalidity of the study as it did to dis-cussion of standards themselves.

“I do believe this has set us back-ward instead of forward,” DustyWomble of Roger Beasley CollisionCenter in Austin, Texas, said of thestudy. “I’m sorry, but honestly, I don’tsee any value in the research that hasbeen done.”

But Massachusetts shop ownerChuck Sulkala—who has not partic-ipated on the committee that organ-

ized the study but was one of thoseinterviewed by the consultant con-ducting the research—said some atCIC were incorrectly presuming thatthe committee was trying to makemore of the report than it was.

“Some of the conversations hereare getting us down into the weedsright now when I don’t think we’veeven gotten in the boat yet,” Sulkalasaid. “We’re still looking to see wherethe boat and lake is, to see what’sgoing on rather than trying to catchfish. I think we’re still in the very be-ginning stages.”

The Study and FindingsRuss Thrall of the Repair StandardsAdvisory Committee (an off-shoot ofCIC) was clear in presenting a portion

‘Standards’ Replace Non-OEM Parts as Focusof Debate at Latest CIC

Columnist Mike Causey Announces Candidacy forCommissioner of Insurance Position in North Carolina

See CIC Palm Springs, Page 47

See Candidate Causey, Page 42

Mike Causey

In a letter to ‘Certain Interested and Af-fected Parties’ the California DOI hastaken a second step to address concernsof collision industry stakeholders. InNovember the DOI’s legal divisionhosted a meeting to discuss proposedrevised aftermarket part regulations.The results of that discussion are underreview by the department (seehttp://tiny.cc/ydvp6). Now the DOI,under Commissioner Dave Jones, istaking on the issue of Labor Rate Sur-veys, DRPs, and Steering. Departmen-tal attorney, Teresa R. Campbell hasorganized a January 25th meeting(10–12:00 noon at the DOI in Sacra-

mento, after this issue goes to press)and has drafted contemplated revisionsto the California Code of Regulations,impacting Direct Repair Programs andLabor Rate Surveys. Steering is alsoaddressed in language concerning in-surer recommendations of automobilerepair dealers. Although welcominginput and discusssion, the ‘rulemakingfile’will not be opened until formal no-tice is given by DOI and that com-ments must be submitted during theformal public comment period.

The language (complete text atautobodynews.com) proposes that in-

California’s DOI Calls Meeting, Drafts Reformsto Labor Rate Surveys, DRPs, and Steering

See CA DOI Page 49

Autobody News custom columnistRich Evans had a busy fall and hol-iday season at his shop in Hunting-ton Beach, CA. As they have forthe past four years, Rich and Patri-cia Evans held their Christmasparty at Huntington Beach BodyWorks on Saturday, December 17.The party benefitted America’s

Baby Cancer Foundation.The party also included a special

appearance from Santa with gifts,

food, drinks, and special motor sportsthemed entertainment.

For more information please visitwww.babycancer.org or www.hunt-ingtonbchbodyworks.com.

See Rich’s column this issue.

Rich Evans’ Charity Build for PatriotOutreach(see p. 58) and also Baby Cancer Foundation

Rich Evans with party attendees showing offsome of the gifts they received

Benefit attendees lined up for a chance tovisit with Santa

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Amato Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Auto Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Autoland Scientech. . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Audi Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 61BMW Audi of Turnersville . . . . . . . . 46BMW Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 28Cadillac of Mahwah . . . . . . . . . . . . 10CCC Information Services . . . . . . . . 7Central Avenue Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Classifieds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63CSS USA, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29DCH Family of BMW Stores . . . . . . 11DuPont . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Equalizer Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Ford Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 51Fred Beans Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Fuccillo Auto Group. . . . . . . . . . 26-27Garmat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6GM Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . 55Healey Chevrolet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Hoffman Services Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . 9Honda-Acura Wholesale PartsDealers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32-33

Hyundai Wholesale Parts Dealers . 57Jaguar Wholesale Parts Dealers. . . 54Kia Motors Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Koeppel VW-Mazda . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Lazare Kia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23Lexus Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 48Matrix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Maxon Hyundai. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Maxon Mazda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Mazda Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 53Mercedes-Benz Wholesale PartsCenter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Mercedes-Benz Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Metric Subaru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30MOPAR Wholesale Parts Dealers . . 31Nissan/Infiniti Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Nissan Genuine Parts . . . . . . . . . . . 21Nucar Mazda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Plaza Auto Mall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Porsche Wholesale Parts Dealers . 59PPG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2RealParts.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Safety Regulations Strategies. . . . . 12SCA Appraisal Company . . . . . . . . 20Scion Wholesale Parts Dealers. . . . 52Security Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep . . . . . 8Solution Finish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Stadel Motors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Star-A-Liner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Subaru Wholesale Parts DealersDE, NJ, PA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16-17

Subaru Wholesale Parts Dealers . . 49Thompson Organization . . . . . . . . . 41Toyota Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 60VeriFacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Volkswagen Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Volvo Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 62

Inde

xofAdvertisers

REGIONALAASP/NJ Gears Up for NORTHEAST Show,Announces Exhibitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

High School Automotive Repair Program inWayne, NJ, Wins $10,000 in Equipmentand Cash With Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

New 10,000-sq-ft Hovis Tech Training CenterOpens in Mercer, PA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

NY Dealers Add $25B to Economy,Report Says . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

PA Congressman Proposes Repeal of $7,500EV Rebate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

PA Dealership Founder Ronald Ertley PassesAway at 79, Leaving Legacy of DealershipConsolidation and Community Involvement. 4

Superior Court of NJ Rules in Favor of Allstatein Franchise Lawsuit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

COLUMNISTSEvans - Doing a Charity Build for PatriotOutreach on a Donated Mustang. . . . . . . . 58

Franklin - Creating A Readable AdvertisingPiece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

I-CAR - Accessing and Repairing Body MountCage Nuts for the Ford F-150 . . . . . . . . . . 30

Insurance Insider - Legislating the “Bible”Not the Answer for Shops Tired of BeingTold “No” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Schroeder - The Elite Group Collision CentersAcquires Firestone Auto Body in Downey,CA, Increasing Their Locations to Eight. . . 56

Sisk - A1 Grand Auto Body in NY—A FamilyCommitment to Quality Repair . . . . . . . . . 18

Sisk - Customers Expect Quality in AllRespects from The Body Shop of Athens . 62

Weaver - Check Engine Light Paranoia . . . . . 35Williams - South Motors Automotive Group—Anything But Apathetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

NATIONAL‘Standards’ Replace Non-OEM Parts as Focusof Debate at Latest CIC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2012 NABC Annual Fundraiser Held inConjunction with CIC in Palm Springs, CA. 43

40 Technicians Honored at ASE 2011 AnnualMeeting in Charlotte, NC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Airbags Changing Vehicle Scrappage Age Mix . 18ANPAC Responds to Texas DOI. . . . . . . . . . . 12ASE Announces New Officers, Governorsfor 2012. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

ASRW Calling For Presenters atNACE/CARS 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Automakers Forecasted to Add Thousandsof Plant Manufacturing Jobs Over theNext 3 Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

BMW Announces Nearly $900 MillionInvestment, Adding 300 Jobs at itsSouth Carolina Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

CA/NV/AZ Automotive Wholesalers Association(CAWA) Delivers Rebuttal to Letter ofOpposition to “Imitation” AftermarketCrash Parts Legislation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

California’s DOI Calls Meeting, DraftsReforms to Labor Rate Surveys, DRPs,and Steering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

CIECA Announces New Board of Trusteesfor 2012. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Collision Hub Launches The Hub™ YourSocial Media Toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Columnist Mike Causey AnnouncesCandidacy for Commissioner ofInsurance Position in North Carolina . . . . . . 1

Diamond Standard Announces “SecurityShield” Extends Product LiabilityProtection to Shops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Erie Insurance Earns I-CAR Gold ClassProfessionals Badge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Florida’s Auto Angels Host Second AnnualVehicle Giveaway, Planning for 2013 . . . . 53

Heavy Duty Aftermarket AssociationsJoin Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Hitting the Streets with California’s G & CAuto Body Meter Beaters . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Meguiar’s Endows 676 Schools with $600KProduct Donation Through Collision RepairEducation Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Mitchell Announces Wicklunds CARSTAR asWinner of Get-a-Life Dream Vacation . . . . 52

Mitchell Parts Index Sheds Light on PartsTrends Post Japan’s Tsunami . . . . . . . . . . 24

National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration(NHTSA) Concludes Chevy Volt Investigation . 52

Nissan and Daimler to Produce EnginesTogether at Nissan’s Tennessee Plant . . . . 55

NRC Releases Automotive ElectronicsSafety Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Oregon Shop’s Parts Manager PerformsHeroic Deed to Save a Life . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Parts Distributor and Insurer Elected toCAPA’s Board of Directors . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

PCI Says Auto Body Legislation will bePriority for 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Polk Says Average Age of Vehicles is atRecord High . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Rich Evans’ Charity Build for PatriotOutreach(see p. 58) and also Baby Cancer Foundation. 1

Rotary Lift, Chief and Elektron Comingto National Automobile DealersAssociation Expo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Sales Rebound and Mix Change For NewVehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

SCRS Responds to Article on InsurerInvolvement in Setting Rates . . . . . . . . . . 24

SCRS, ASA, AASP Release Joint StatementRegarding the Collection and Reportingof Repairer Business Data . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Solera Announces Global CooperationWith Allianz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

State Farm Concedes Another Lawsuit Broughtby Gunder’s Auto Center of Lakeland, Fl . . 14

Three Developments Shaping ‘11 Aftermarket . 48Update: Delray Beach, FL, Shop Owner’sOpposition to GEICO’s 10% Charge onDomestic OEM Parts Pays Off . . . . . . . . . 29

UPDATE: Houston City Council Delays Vote onAuto Repair Ordinance, Draft Not Favorableto Shops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Used Car Drought Ignites Dealer BayCompetition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Van Tuyl Group to Hold Charity Super BowlEvent in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area SuperBowl Weekend, Autobody News toParticipate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

West Virginia v. Liberty Mutual Salvage PartsLawsuit Moved to Federal Court . . . . . . . . 34

Women’s Industry Network Accepting 2012Board Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Contents

Publisher & Editor: Jeremy HayhurstGeneral Manager: Barbara DaviesAssistant Editor: Erica SchroederContributing Writers: Tom Franklin, David Brown, JohnYoswick, Lee Amaradio, Rich Evans, Janet Chaney, TobyChess, Mike Causey, Tom McGee, Ed Attanasio,Chasidy SiskAdvertising Sales: Joe Momber, Sean Hartman(800) 699-8251Sales Assistant: Kristy NavarroArt Director: Rodolfo Garcia

Serving New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delawareand adjacent metro areas, Autobody News is a monthlypublication for the autobody industry. Permission to re-produce in any form the material published in AutobodyNews must be obtained in writing from the publisher.©2011 Adamantine Media LLC.Autobody NewsP.O. Box 1516, Carlsbad, CA 92018(800) 699-8251 (760) 721-0253 Faxwww.autobodynews.comEmail: [email protected] N

ortheast

www.autobodynews.com | FEBRUARY 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 3

Manufacturer Jan 2012 Jan 2011 YOY% Jan2012

Jan2011 YOY%

General Motors 169,200 178,887 5.4% 18.8% 21.8% -3.0%

Ford MotorCompany 144,900 126,981 14.1% 16.1% 15.5% 0.6%

Toyota MotorCorp. 121,500 115,856 4.9% 13.5% 14.1% -0.6%

Chrysler Group 93,600 70,993 31.8% 10.4% 8.7% 1.7%

American HondaMotor Co. 81,000 76,268 6.2% 9.0% 9.3% -0.3%

Hyundai-Kia 80,100 65,002 23.2% 8.9% 7.9% 1.0%

Nissan NorthAmerica 79,200 71,847 10.2% 8.8% 8.8% 0.0%

Total: 900,000* 819,394 9.8% — — —

Kelley Blue Book Forecasts 10 Percent Year-Over-YearIncrease In January New-Car Sales

Approximately 900,000 Units Expected for Month, 13.2 MillionSeasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate

January Sales to Improve Nearly 10 Percent Year-Over-Year

Sales Volume Market Share

*Includes projections for brands not shown


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AutomotiveService Show!

The Allstate Corporation announcedJanuary 6 that the Superior Court ofNew Jersey has entered judgment infavor of Allstate New Jersey InsuranceCompany, a wholly owned subsidiaryof Allstate Insurance Company, anddismissed all claims in the franchiselawsuits filed against Allstate NewJersey.

Last year, three exclusive agentsfiled lawsuits seeking to prevent thetermination of their agency agree-ments for failing to meet certain busi-ness objectives. They alleged theyhad franchise relationships with All-state New Jersey and were protectedunder the New Jersey Franchise Prac-tices Act. The plaintiffs’ applicationto stop their termination was denied.

The court determined that theagents were not franchisees and haveno protections under the New JerseyFranchise Practices Act. The courtnoted in its decision that the “insur-ance industry has never been foundby any court in New Jersey, or else-where, to be home to an insurancecompany franchisor, or agent fran-chisee.”

Allstate has maintained that ex-clusive agents are independent con-tractor agents and not franchisees.

Superior Court of NJ Rules in Favorof Allstate in Franchise Lawsuit Dealers’ success this year seems to be

spurring economic recovery along, atleast in the Empire State. Accordingto the Greater New York AutomobileDealers Association, franchised deal-ers in the New York metro area sold403,000 new and used cars.

And as a result, their businessesinjected $24.9 billion into the econ-omy, while also providing nearly56,000 Americans with jobs. Not asurprising number, when the studyalso showed that the average dealer-ship employs 79 people.

These very same dealers alsogenerated $1.71 billion in tax rev-enue to state and local governmentslast year

Commenting on these numbers,Mark Schienberg, president ofGNYADA, said, “Our area’s autodealers are an enormously importantpart of the local and state economybecause of the revenue they generateand the jobs they produce.

“Directly and indirectly, greaterNew York’s franchised auto dealersprovide nearly 56,000 jobs to arearesidents and are a key part of the re-gion’s economic growth and devel-opment,” he added.

Moreover, the average dealer-ship paid more than $4.1 million in

payroll expenses. Besides providingjobs and selling cars, dealerships alsopump money into the economythrough advertising.

“An average dealer employs 79people of which more than a third arein high paying jobs in the service de-partment. Dealers also purchase moreadvertising than any other sector,providing a lifeline to many localbroadcast, print and online mediacompanies. Last year, area dealershipadvertising totaled $385 million,”said Schienberg.

The local economy also re-ceived another $253.6 million duringthe New York International Automo-bile Show. And nearly $24 million ofthis pot was formed by city-wide spe-cial events and public relations activ-ities by OEMs, the organizationnoted.

“It {the report} includes a reviewof direct and indirect employment,personal income, tax collections gen-erated by area automobile dealers anda review of dealership financial sta-tistics and operations,” they contin-ued.

Headquartered in Whitestone,N.Y., the GNYADA represents nearly600 franchised automobile dealer-ships in the metro area of New York.

NY Dealers Add $25B to Economy, Report Says

Ron Ertley, founder of Ertley Motor-World in Wilkes-Barre, PA, and oper-ater of Ertley Dealership in Moosic,PA, passed away January 7 from can-cer at 79, according to the ScrantonTimes-Tribune.

Ertley, founder, owner and CEOof Ertley MotorWorld was remem-bered as an innovator in the automo-bile sales business by co-workers andfriends at a service held January 12 atSt. Stephen’s Episcopal Church inWilkes-Barre.

After graduating from Duke Uni-versity in North Carolina and receiv-ing an honorable discharge from theAir Force, Ertley returned to easternPennsylvania to manage an Oldsmo-bile dealership with his father. Ertleygrew to own the dealership after hisfather’s retirement.

In 1991 Ertley became the first inthe area to combine dealerships—founding Ertley MotorWorld in 1991with the help of his friend and col-league, J. David Power of JD Powerand Associates. Ertley MotorWorldwas a powerhouse in the easternPennsylvania area and was consideredthe area’s first auto mall with 12 deal-

erships in one location.“The main thing I remember is

his innovation and willingness to trywhatever the latest and greatest tech-nology and techniques were to moveforward in the automotive industry,”Rick Osick, who worked with Mr.Ertley at MotorWorld, told the Scran-ton Times-Tribune. “He was known asan innovator as far as technology andmethods to move a retail businessalong.”

Ertley eventually sold Ertley Mo-torWorld to investors, and it still ex-ists today, as MotorWorld. Ertleyremained in the auto dealership in-dustry, opening a Chrylser-Jeep-Dodge-Kia dealership in Moosic.

As a member of the board of theJD Power Superdealer Rountable, adirector of the Pennsylvania Automo-bile Association, a commissioner onthe state Board of Transportation andthe president of several other automo-bile dealer boards, Ertley was very ac-tive in the Pennsylvania automotiveindustry. He also strived to be a keymember in his community, as he wasinvolved in several local charitygroups.

PA Dealership Founder Ronald Ertley Passes Away at 79, LeavingLegacy of Dealership Consolidation and Community Involvement

As the AASp/NJ NORTHEAST™2012 Automotive Services Show rap-idly approaches, the AASP/NJ will behighlighting the 35th annual show’s ex-hibitors on Facebook (http://www.face-book.com/aaspnjnortheast) and Twitter(@AASPNJNORTHEAST) on a dailybasis. The tradeshow takes place March9, 10 and 11, 2012 at the MeadowlandsExposition Center of Secaucus, NJ.

The NORTHEAST™ Show hasexpanded its web presence signifi-cantly over the last four years. “TheInternet is an integral part of every-day business,” AASP/NJ PresidentJeff McDowell says. “For somethinglike the NORTHEAST™ show, amajor web presence is not only nec-essary, but a necessity.” McDowellmentioned that online registrationhas risen over 75 percent since theNORTHEAST™ show moved to theMeadowlands. “Each year, we havelooked to branch out more and morewith regard to getting the word outabout the show. Our continuedgrowth in attendance can definitelybe attributed in large part to Internetmarketing as well as traditional av-enues.”

For more information please visitwww.aaspnj.org.

AASP/NJ Gears Up for NORTH-EAST Show, Announces Exhibitors


Congressman Mike Kelly (R-PA) in-troduced into the House of Represen-tatives on December 30 a bill aimingto do away with the $7,500 tax creditfor electric vehicle car buyers, titledHR3768.

Kelly, who owns a Chevy CarDealership in Butler, PA, has servedin the House representing the 3rd Dis-trict of Pennsylvania since 2010.

The bill, formally titled: “Toamend the Internal Revenue Code of1986 to repeal the credit for plug-inelectric drive vehicles”, would amendthe IRS code section related to theelectric car purchase tax credit, to ter-minate the tax credit.

The $7,500 tax credit came intobeing in the Emergency EconomicStabilization Act of 2008 (EESA),whose main purpose was the bailoutof the financial industry followingthe meltdown of Sept 2008. Thecredit was put in place by formerPresident GeorgeW. Bush, and con-tinued by current President BarackObama.

Kelly’s personal experience as adealership owner is suspected to havefueled his introduction of this bill.Kelly’s dealership, which wasfounded by his father, was almostaxed during the GM bankruptcy.

When the Obama AdministrationAuto Task Force announced plans toshut down more than 1,900 dealer-ships, including Kelly’s own dealer-ship, his response was to fight thedecision to close his dealership, inwhich he was successful.

Reports are that after avoidingshut-down Kelly’s own car dealer-ship took extra steps to shun theChevy Volt, even going as far as tofire an employee who consented toGM’s request that they bring in aVolt.

“I can stock a Chevy Cruze,which is about a $17,500 car andturns every 30 to 40 days out of in-ventory or I can have a Volt, whichnever turns and creates nothing for meon the lot except interest costs,” saidKelly in October. “There is no marketfor this car.”

Kelly echoes the main argumentespoused by many anti-EV advo-cates—that electric cars are simplytoys for rich people. Kelly says thatsubsidizing the purchases of upper-in-come individuals is not the correctcourse of action to take during thesedifficult financial times. According toKelly, the $7,500 credit goes to the“few who can actually afford to buyan electric car.”

PA Congressman Proposes Repeal of $7,500 EV RebateThe National Institute for AutomotiveService Excellence (ASE) announcedin December the officers for its Boardof Directors for 2012. Mike Phillips,V.P, Organizational Development,NAPA Auto Parts/Genuine PartsCompany, Atlanta, Ga., is Chairman;Rob Barto, Manager, TechnicalTraining Design, Nissan North Amer-ica, Franklin, Tenn., is Vice-Chair-man; Glenn Dahl, SeniorCoordinator, Technical Education,Bridgestone Retail Operations, LLC,Bloomingdale, Ill., is Treasurer, andGreg Gaulin, Owner, Gaulin’s ofWilliamsville, N.Y., is Secretary.John Pfennig, Manager, Service Ed-ucation for Navistar, Inc. in War-renville, Ill., serves as Past Chairman.

“2011 was a milestone year forthe ASE certification program as wecompleted the move to our new com-puter-based testing (CBT) format,”said Tim Zilke, ASE President. “Theleadership and guidance of the ASEboard is vital to ensuring the ASE pro-gram keeps pace with our changingindustry. Through the outstandingcommitment of ASE’s all-volunteerboard and the support by the compa-nies that encourage such talented peo-ple to serve, ASE will continue tooffer our automotive professionals thehigh-quality credentialing programthey have come to expect.”

Also announced were newlyelected members to ASE’s Board ofGovernors, representing various seg-ments of the industry. The new Gov-ernors are: Bobby Bassett, Managerof Training North America Automo-

tive Market, Gates Corporation,Ridgeland, Miss., and John Prosser,Manager Technical Training Opera-tions, American Honda, Torrance,Calif.

“I’d also like to take this oppor-tunity to thank our outgoing boardmembers for their service over theyears,” Zilke continued. Steppingdown as their terms expire are AlDuebber, President, Duebber’s Auto-motive Service, Inc., Cincinnati,Ohio; Joe Torchiana, President, OneStop Tire and Auto Service, Inc., WestChester, Pa., and Lori Blaker, Presi-dent, Technical Training Incorporated(TTi), Rochester, Mich.

“Each of these individuals volun-teered their time to serve on the ASEboard to the benefit of our industryand the thousands of automotive serv-ice professionals who proudly wearthe ASE Blue Seal. We thank them fortheir service and wish them continuedsuccess,” said Zilke.

The National Institute for Auto-motive Service Excellence was estab-lished in 1972 as a non-profitorganization to help improve the qual-ity of automotive service and repairthrough the voluntary testing and cer-tification of automotive techniciansand parts specialists. Today, there aremore than 360,000 ASE-certified pro-fessionals at work in dealerships, in-dependent shops, collision repairshops, auto parts stores, fleets, schoolsand colleges throughout the country.

For more information aboutASE, visit the ASE web site atwww.ase.com.

ASE Announces New Officers, Governors for 2012

Due to continually increasing autosales since the government autobailouts in 2009 have spurred growthand optimism with US automakers.According to the Los Angeles Times,the U.S. auto industry plans to addthousands of jobs this year. Foreignautomakers are also suspected to buildmore U.S. factories due to unstableeconomies overseas.

“The yen, the euro, all the cur-rencies that affect the manufacturers’balance sheets, except for the dollar,are in flux. So the only way to hedgeis to build where you sell,” RebeccaLindland, an analyst with IHS Auto-motive, said to the Los Angeles Times.

Mercedes-Benz announced the

company would add about 1,500 jobsat plants in the Carolinas this year inearly January. Ford Motor Co. andChrysler Group also announced plansto add hundreds of workers to theirMichigan, Kentucky and Illinoisplants.

Audi executives have also talkedabout building a factory in the U.S.,possibly at the Volkswagen complexin Chattanooga, Tenn. Audi is also ru-mored to be mulling sites for its ownNorth American manufacturing plantbeyond parent Volkswagen’s factoryin Chattanooga, Tennessee, Audi CEORupert Stadler told a German news-paper.

Automakers Forecasted to Add Thousands of PlantManufacturing Jobs Over the Next 3 Years

See Automaker Hiring, Page 10

Forty automotive professionals wererecognized on November 16, 2011, atthe Fall board meeting of the NationalInstitute for Automotive Service Ex-cellence (ASE) held at the MarriottCity Center in Charlotte, NC.

The annual awards banquet spot-lights top scorers on the ASE Certifi-cation Tests. Thirty differentcompanies from both OEM and After-market segments sponsored the indi-vidual technician recognition awardsin the Auto, Truck, Collision and Partscategories, along with three instructorawards. In addition to looking for topscores on ASE tests, award sponsorsexamine on-the-job excellence, com-munity service and other factors whenselecting honorees.

This year’s celebration in Char-lotte was enhanced by a visit from fiveformer Team ASE drivers, who vol-unteered their time to sign autographsand meet the award winners in person.NASCAR drivers Kasey Kahne,Jason Leffler and Mike Bliss werejoined by Ted Musgrave and JimmySpencer to help make the reception amemorable affair. In addition, there

were two new award sponsors thisyear, one being the first ever from themilitary, representing the US AirForce.

“ASE has been honoring the bestof the best in our industry for morethan 30 years, and this year we recog-nized forty outstanding individualsfrom all across the nation,” said Tim

Zilke, ASE President & CEO. “Wecouldn’t do this without the support ofour many award sponsors, whoseranks include some of the best-known

names in the industry. Theircommitment to excellenceis reflected in the talentedindividuals we recognizeeach year.”

The National Insti-tute for Automotive ServiceExcellence was establishedin 1972 as a non-profit or-ganization to help improvethe quality of automotiveservice and repair throughthe voluntary testing andcertification of automotivetechnicians and parts spe-cialists. Today, there aremore than 360,000 ASE-certified professionals atwork in dealerships, inde-pendent shops, collision re-

pair shops, auto parts stores, fleets,schools and colleges throughout thecountry. For more information aboutASE, visit the Web site atwww.ase.com.

ASE 2011 Award WinnersASCCA/ASE Master AutomobileTechnician of the Year: PatrickNicoll, Pat’s Automotive, Santa Maria,Calif.AYES/ASE Instructor of the Year:David White, Parkside High School,Willards, Md.BodyShop Business/ASE Master Coll.Repair & Refinish Tech of the Year:Michael Baker, Pro-Tech Collision,Pacific, Mo.Bridgestone Retail Operations/ASEMaster Automobile Tech of the Year:Noel Barnhart, Firestone CompleteAuto Care, Delmar, Iowa.Chrysler/ASE Master AutomobileTechnician of the Year: Scott Rosen-crantz, Garber Chrysler Dodge JeepRam, Flushing, Mich.Chrysler/ASE Master Collision Re-pair & Refinish Technician of theYear: Mike Hunkler, Larry HillisChrysler Dodge Jeep Ram, PoplarBluff, Mo.Delco Remy/ASE M/H Truck Electri-cal/Electronic Sys Tech of the Year:Joseph DeLap, Ryder, Dakota, Ill.Delmar Cengage Learning/ASE Auto-


40 Technicians Honored at ASE 2011 Annual Meeting in Charlotte, NC

PHOTO CREDIT: ASE, ASE 2011 Technician AwardWinners: Top row: Steven Sass, Brad Dressen, KenPassmore, Adam Russell, Mike Hunkler, John Roderich. 4throw: Warren Butrim, Pat Nicoll, Kevin Treichel, AnthonyBausano, Scott Rosencrantz, Noel Barnhart, Andreas Miller.3rd row: Steven Ray, Collin Harris, John Gillies, Dan Walsh,Rob Bender, Neal Nuce, John Kasper. 2nd row: David White,Sandro Giordano, Alan Davis, Shawn Lehman, JesseBerryman, Rob McNees, Jack Harlan, Joseph DeLap, John,Wood, Glenn Ferrer. 1st row (seated): Joseph Londo, DanPratt, Joseph Young, Mike Baker, MSgt. Andrew Slater,Mike Byer, Leo Dufault, Andy Olson, Jeff Heinz, Mark Regan

mobile Technician of the Year:William Davis, JD Byrider, N. Balti-more, Ohio.Freightliner/ASE Master M/H TruckTechnician of the Year: Robert Mc-Nees, Jr., Truck Centers, Inc., MiddleBrook, Mo.Sterling/Western Star/ASE MasterM/H Truck Technician of the Year:Kevin Treichel, Don’s Truck Sales,Greene, Iowa.Gates/ASE Master Automobile & L1Technician of the Year: AndreasMiller, Stonum Automotive, Long-mont, Colo.GM/ASE Master Automobile Techni-cian of the Year: Jeffrey Heinz, Hen-drick Auto Mall, Apex, N.C.Honda/ASE Master Automobile Tech-nician of the Year: Joseph Londo,Bianchi Honda, Erie, Penna.Acura/ASE Master Automobile Tech-nician of the Year: Sandro Giordano,Acura of Turnersville, Blackwood,N.J.Identifix/ASE Aftermarket DrivabilityTechnician of the Year: Andy Olson,Courtesy Car Care, Holmen, Wisc.Midas International/ASE AutomobileTechnician of the Year: John GilliesIII, Midas Auto Service Experts, Lud-

ington, Mich.Mitchell 1/ASE Technician of the Fu-ture: Steven Ray, The AutomasterBMW, Essex Junction, Vt.Motor Age Training/ASE Master Au-tomobile & L1 Tech of the Year:Joseph Young, San Diego MiramarCollege, San Diego, Calif.NATEF/ASE Instructor of the Year:Bradley Dressen, Butte College, Or-land, Calif.Navistar/ASE Master M/H TruckTechnician of the Year: ShawnLehman, Tri County Motor Sales,Stoystown, Penna.Navistar/ASE Master School BusTechnician of the Year: KennethPassmore, Midwest Transit Equip-ment, Indianapolis, Ind.Navistar/ASE Parts Specialist of theYear: Adam Russell, Sr., GoodmanTruck & Tractor, Amelia, Va.Navistar/ASE Truck Paint & RefinishTechnician of the Year:Collin Harris,Int'l Truck Sales of Richmond, Man-quin, Va.Nissan/ASE Master Automobile Tech-nician of the Year:Glenn Ferrer, Nis-san of St. Augustine, Palm Coast, Fla.Infiniti/ASE Master Automobile Tech-nician of the Year: John Roderich,

Fields Infiniti of Glencoe, Phillips,Wisc.Pep Boys/ASE Master AutomobileTechnician of the Year:Mark Regan,Pep Boys, Walpole, Mass.Peterbilt/ASE Master M/H TruckTechnician of the Year: John Wood,Interstate Truck Center, Oakdale,Calif.PPG/ASE Master Refinish Technicianof the Year: Robert Bender, BenderAuto Repair, Saltsburg, Penna.Snap-on/ASE Master AutomobileTechnician of the Year: Jack HarlanIII, Harlan’s Auto Care, Canfield,OhioSnap-on/ASE Master Coll. Repair &Refinish Technician of the Year: NealNuce, Precision Collision Repair Cen-ter, Wake Forest, NCSnap-on/ASE Master M/H TruckTechnician of the Year: Steven Sass,Sr., A.N.D. Service, Inc., Carlstadt, NJStandox/ASE Refinish Technician ofthe Year: Daniel Walsh, Boch Colli-sion Center, West Bridgewater, Mass.Subaru/ASE Master Automobile Tech-nician of the Year: Daniel Pratt,Flatirons Subaru, Firestone, Colo.TECH-NET Professional/ASE MasterAutomobile Tech of the Year:Michael

Byer, Mike Byer Auto & Truck Re-pair, Asheville, NC.Toyota/ASE Master Automobile Tech-nician of the Year: Warren Butrim,Koons Toyota of Annapolis, Arnold,Md.Toyota/ASE Master Coll. Repair &Refinish Technician of the Year:Leonel Dufault, Toyota of NorthDartmouth, Westport, Mass.Lexus/ASE Master Automobile Tech-nician of the Year: Anthony Bau-sano, Lexus of Smithtown,Huntington, N.Y.USAF/ASE Technician of the Year:Msgt. Andrew Slater, Ramstein AirBase, Germany, US Air Force.Valvoline Career Tech/ASE Instructorof the Year: John Kasper, MillingtonHigh School, Memphis, Tenn.Volvo/ASE Master AutomobileTechnician of the Year: JesseBerryman III,Koons Volvo, West-minster, Md.


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I recently received an advertisingbooklet in the mail. Most of the ads inthe booklet were for local cleaners andvarious personal and home services.There was also one ad for a collisionrepair shop, but the shop was locatedmany miles from my mail servicewhere I received the booklet.

The shop owner had obviouslybeen pressured into buying an ad thatwas being delivered far out of his ef-fective neighborhood. And evenworse than that, it was buried in abooklet that is mostly read by house-wives looking for household deals atlocal businesses. The shop’s ad didn’teven have a coupon that might havegotten at least a couple of people tonotice it. The odds of the shop gettinga single job out of this ad were proba-bly as remote as the chance of win-ning the Publisher’s Sweepstakes.

Unfortunately, even if this ad hadappeared in a newspaper or otherwidely read publication, it was stillunlikely to get many people reading it.There were several reasons for this.First of all, most of the print was tootiny for mature readers to read with-out a magnifying glass. In a spacethree and a half inches wide by one-inch deep, fifty-two words werecrammed closely together. The shopowner had probably provided the ad-vertiser with a list of services hewanted included in the ad. Ad salespeople just want to sell the ad. They’repractically never professional ad de-sign people, so they’ll cram anythinginto the ad the buyer says he wants.

There could have been morespace for showing the shop’s manyservices if half the ad hadn’t consistedof a huge photo of a late model newcar.

A quick glance at the ad (whichis all most people would give it)would suggest the ad was selling a latemodel vehicle. There was not even aslight indication that this car neededor had ever had collision repair. In thespace allocated to this vehicle, therecould have been two photos of thesame vehicle showing it before andafter repairs. Given the brief attentionspan of most people today, any photohas to tell the desired story veryquickly. A good choice of photosmight actually have compensated forthe poor quality of the print message.

The next problem with the adwas the choice of colors. The letteringspelling out the shop’s services wasred on a blue-black background. Re-verse type can be very effective, butunless the type is huge, only white oryellow or some tint in-between willstand out enough to be easy to read.Blue type would have been almost in-visible and the red wasn’t much bet-ter.

Ad composition has to take intoaccount the wide variety of peoplewho will read it. Older people willgenerally have a problem with smallprint. Men are often slightly color-blind. The colored type would be dou-bly difficult to read for an older manwho might be a likely prospect withan expensive vehicle to repair. One

modification could make red, blue orgreen stand out on a dark background:That would be a slightly larger outlinetype in white or yellow behind thedarker lettering putting a bright out-line around each letter. But this is afairly complex type process, probablynot even known to this advertiser.Publications always send a copy of anad before printing it for the buyer toproofread. But shop owners are oftenrushed and would probably not takemuch more than a quick look at it. It’sunlikely this shop owner gave this admuch thought or looked it over at all.

Print advertising, whether onpaper or displayed in a website, mustbe instantly readable and provide acompelling reason for the reader to re-spond to the ad and come in for a serv-ice. A restaurant can send out a menulisting all of the selections they offer,but a list of a shop’s services isn’t anad—it’s a menu and belongs in a

brochure, not an ad. Ad readers aremotivated by price, speed of service orquality. For a body shop, price is onlyrelevant for self-pay services, butspeed of service can be very important.The quality of a collision repair is as-sumed to be good if one’s insurancecompany is paying for it. When qual-ity is mentioned, the reader’s questionwill be, “Compared to what?”

To establish quality, an ad couldrefer to on-line reviews, prior cus-tomer comments or even just thelength of the shop’s warranty, butthese would require a much larger adthan one-by-three inches. When itcomes to print ads, less is more. Ifsomeone can be enticed to read an adwith fifty words or less (and that is al-ready doubtful), those words had bet-ter convince the reader that this is aunique shop, so significantly betterthan the competition that he or shewould be a fool to go anyplace else.


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Audi plans to grow substantiallyin North America and building its ownproduction facility is part of that strat-egy, Stadler told the paper. “It is not aquestion of if, but only of when,” hesaid.

Nissan is in the process of addingabout 1,000 workers in Tennessee as itgears up for production of the Leafelectric vehicle and its batteries, aswell as new Pathfinder and InfinitiSUVs.

Automakers sold an estimated

12.8 million vehicles in 2011, a 10.3percent increase from 2010 and thehighest numbers since 2008. Au-tomakers expect sales to reach about13.8 million in 2012.

As recently as a decade ago, theindustry employed about 1 millionworkers. It then fell into a steady de-cline that included layoffs of 200,000workers during the 2008 and 2009 re-cession. At the industry’s lowest itemplyed about 550,000 manufactur-ing workers.

Hiring has started to climb backslowly in the past two years, and nowthe research center forecasts employ-ment will top 750,000 by 2015.

Continued from Page 6

Automaker Hiring


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Collision Hub announced the launchof The Hub™, a monthly SocialMedia consulting tool delivered tocustomers each month as a graphicand video rich eMagazine. The Hubwill be content-rich with industry-rel-evant material that encourages local-ized and internally managed socialmedia strategies.

The Hub will include columnsand video blogs from Kristen Felder,Founder and CEO of Collision Hub,as well as Liz Blackman, CollisionHub’s Social Media expert and Oper-ations Director.

The Hub will also provide sub-scribers with direct access to CollisionHub’s social media consultation teamas well as ongoing support and guid-ance at every level of their socialmedia journey. Each month the CHteam will give shops step-by-step ac-tion plans to implement, suggested so-cial media postings based on acalendar of events, creative marketingideas to employ and pre-packagedvideo content for shops to downloadand share in their social media outlets.

These tools will allow shops to

increase page engagement, followersand improve their SEO rankings.

According to The Hub Editor andCollision Hub social media expert LizBlackman, “during our three years oftraveling and speaking on SocialMedia we were asked over and overto become the marketing consultant ofCollision Repairers across the coun-try. However, at Collision Hub we be-lieve the best person for any socialmedia campaign is the business staffthemselves. By tackling the ‘hows’ ofSocial Media and by helping shops tokeep their social media in house, it isour belief that The Hub will rocketlaunch Collision Repairers to the forefront of their communities.”

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Last month we reported that JohnBorek, General Manager of AutocraftBodywerks in Austin, Texas, has fileda complaint with the Texas Depart-ment of Insurance against AmericanNational Property and Casualty Com-pany (ANPAC) and a claims servicescompany, American Claims Services,alleging that they “knowingly used afraudulent document to justify theirshort-pay” of a claim.

In filing his complaint with theTexas DOI Property and CasualtyComplaint Department, Borek wrote:“We believe that based on this docu-ment, ANPAC/ American Claim Serv-ice is knowingly using a fraudulentdocument to justify their short pay tolimit the price paid for repairs to [the]automobile. By not performing thesenecessary operations, it will result inan incomplete repair. I have spokentoday with the field appraiser assignedto this file and he confirmed that heput the needed repair operations onthe original estimate although a doc-ument generated from ANPAC/Amer-ican Claim Service shows a zero byall these operations.

In a letter of response to theTexas Department of Insurance,

ANPAC said an appraiser working onits behalf used “an outdated docu-ment” when denying a supplement forcolor sand and buff from AutocraftBodywerks in Austin, Texas, and thatthe supplement has now been paid.John Borek of Autocraft filed a com-plaint with the regulator last monthafter receiving a document that theAmerican Claims Services appraiserindicated was from Audatex showingthat color sand and buff is included inrefinish times.

In his complaint, Borek calledthe document “fraudulent” given thatAudatex, after searching its “Data-base Reference Manuals” back to1993, concluded that the document is“most certainly not from ADP/Auda-tex.”

After a call asking for an updateor comment on the complaint, the De-partment of Insurance sent Borek acopy of ANPAC’s December 27 ini-tial response letter, saying it will no-tify him “once we receive additionalinformation that was requested.”

ANPAC Responds to Texas DOI

Polk Says Average Age of Vehicles is at Record HighThe average age of cars and lighttrucks currently in operation in theUnited State has increased to 10.8years, according to Polk, an automo-tive market intelligence firm. Passen-ger cars showed a modest increase inage since 2010, from 11 years to 11.1years at the end of June 2011.

Light trucks (including pickupsand SUVs) show a more sizeable gainin the same time frame, from 10.1years to 10.4 years. Overall, averagevehicle age has been increasingquickly over the past five years. Polkreports average age based on ananalysis of national vehicle registra-tion data.

The slowdown of the aging ofpassenger cars directly correlates tothe low sales volumes and the mix ofcar and truck sales in the U.S. marketin 2008 and 2009, a time in whichmore trucks than cars were regis-tered. While more trucks were soldover the same timeframe, theyshowed a faster aging rate. Polk ex-pects this trend may change in thecoming years as CUV and smallSUV populations in the U.S. markethave risen in 2010 and 2011 due totheir continued success in the mar-ket.

Additionally, the rebound in newvehicle sales in 2011 and for the nextcouple of years will most likely slowdown the aging rate seen in the mar-ket over the past three years, accord-ing to Polk.

“The increasing age of the vehi-cle fleet, together with the increasinglength of ownership, offers signifi-cant business growth opportunity forthe automotive aftermarket,” saidMark Seng, global aftermarket prac-tice leader at Polk. “Dealer servicedepartments and independent repairfacilities, as well as aftermarket partssuppliers, will see increased businessopportunity with customers in need ofvehicle service.”

Year-over-year Light VehiclePopulation Declines Come to an End

2011 marked the end of the U.S.vehicle population decline that hasoccurred annually since 2008. Ac-cording to Polk, the total vehicles inoperation (VIO) in July 2011 was justover 240.5 million, an increase of500,000 units over July in the previ-ous year, and nearly equal to 2009VIO. The highest VIO on record wasachieved in July 2008, when morethan 242 million passenger cars andlight trucks were on America’s roads.




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The Collision Industry ElectronicCommerce Association (CIECA)Board of Trustees has elected the fol-lowing officers for the year 2012:● Chair – Denise Caspersen, Auto-motive Service Association● Vice Chair – Troy Weaver,DuPont Performance Coatings● Treasurer – Paul Barry, Perform-ance Claims● Secretary – Kathy Goddard, Safe-lite Corporation

Each of these officers will serve onthe Executive Committee, which over-sees CIECA business matters betweenboard meetings and maintains theBoard’s agenda. Michael Lloyd, Cali-fornia Casualty Management Company,will assume the title of Past Chair on theCIECA Executive Committee.

More information about CIECAcan be viewed on the CIECA website: www.cieca.com.

CIECAAnnounces New Boardof Trustees for 2012 In keeping true to their motto,

“Driving the Future for Women inCollision Repair,” the WIN Nomi-nating Committee is now acceptingapplications for seats on the WINBoard.

The Board consists of various in-dustry segments including but notlimited to: shop owners, jobbers, sup-pliers, consultants, paint companiesand insurance companies. Aside fromthe WIN annual Conference in Mayvolunteer WIN Board members worktogether to foster an environment thatencourages the education, recruit-ment, retention and networking ofwomen in the collision repair indus-try.

“Within a short time, theWomen’s Industry Network hasgrown in size, produced informativeand motivational events, and becomea recognized industry associationthrough volunteer efforts, industrysponsorships and the enthusiasm ofthe WIN membership. WIN is all vol-unteer. Volunteering for the WINBoard is an outstanding opportunityto have a present and future influenceon our industry. If you are motivatedto “drive the future for women in col-lision repair, apply for the WINBoard.” said Denise Caspersen, of

ASA, chair of the WIN NominatingCommittee.

The deadline for applications isFebruary 24, 2012. For application re-quirements and further details goto womensindustrynetwork.com.Completed applications should bemailed or PDF copy emailed to WINNominating Committee; c/o ASA –Denise Caspersen; 8190 Precinct Line,Suite 100, Colleyville, Texas 76034.For further information please contactDenise Caspersen, phone: (817) 514-2906; email: [email protected]

To find out how you can be-come involved and support WIN orfor information on becoming amember or sponsor of WIN, pleasecontact Victoria Jankowski [email protected] or Jeanne Silver [email protected].

WIN is also offering scholar-ships to female collision industry stu-dents, instructors and shop employeesto attend its 2012 conference May 6-8 in Atlanta.

Scholarship applications must besubmitted through mail by March 9.Visit womensindustrynetwork.comfor additional details on scholarshiprequirements and the applicationmailing process.

Women’s Industry Network Accepting 2012 Board Applications

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Upon State Farm’s October 10th,2011 written denial to provide con-sideration for a plethora of recom-mended and necessary repairprocedures and materials, Ray Gun-der owner of the 44 year oldGunder’s

Auto Center in-structed his legalcounsel, AttorneyBrent Geohagan,to prepare the nec-essary steps to filea lawsuit againstthe nationwide in-surer at the request

of and authorization by his customer.The lawsuit was prepared and

filed on October 25th along with aCivil Remedy Notice (CRN) whichwas accepted by the courts on De-cember 16th, 2011. State Farm’s legalcounsel responded in a letter to Gun-der’s Attorney dated January 19th,2012 stating, in part, “at all timesState Farm acted in good faith andfairly and honestly toward its insured,

State Farm Concedes AnotherLawsuit Brought by Gunder’sAuto Center of Lakeland, Fl

Ray Gunder

See Gunder, Page 47

Federated member HovisAuto & TruckSupply has opened its new Hovis Tech-nical Training Center located at 1000Champion Drive, Mercer, PA.

The 10,000 square-foot hands-ontraining facility is equipped with themost advanced tools and equipment and

is dedicated to instructing professionalservice technicians about time-savingand problem-solving techniques. Thecenter offers a fully equipped body shopwith mixing rooms, prep deck and over-sized paint booth, a 14-foot overheaddoor for heavy duty truck access as wellas four-post and two-post lifts, a wire-lessalignment machine, tire changer,balancer and diagnostic labs.

“The Hovis Technical Training

Center is committed to educating auto-motive, paint and heavy duty trucktechnicians in a state-of-the-art facility,close to home, reducing shop downtimeand travel expenses,” says Curt Hovis,vice president of Hovis Auto & TruckSupply. “We recognize the critical need

to provide technicians with com-prehensive instruction, technicalmaterials and educational pro-grams, and we understand theydon’t want to travel across thecountry to get it. That is why weare bringing leaders in the indus-try to western Pennsylvania.”

The Hovis Technical Train-ing Center has developed an ed-ucational curriculum that will

bring together leaders in the automo-tive, heavy duty and paint and body in-dustries to train technicians on thelatest technology, techniques and ap-plications in their specific fields. Thesecertified trainers from such companiesas DuPont, Akzo Nobel/Sikkens, 3M,Delphi, Federal Mogul, Abex andMeritor will bring their expertise andindustry knowledge to the center in astreamlined curriculum that allows

technicians to choose the coursesthat best suit their needs.

In addition to offering tech-nical training, the Hovis Techni-cal Training Center will alsooffer technicians, managers andowners the opportunity to par-ticipate in best business practiceeducation to maximize traffic totheir shops, improve return visitrates and increase their bottom lines.

“We want to congratulate Cliffand Curt Hovis and their staff on put-ting together one of the finest training

facilities in the country,” says RustyBishop, CEO of Federated Auto Parts.“Their dedication and investment intraining is a testament to Hovis’ con-

tinual commitment to helping theircustomers grow their businesses.”

Located in western Pennsylvania,Hovis Auto and Truck Supply hasbeen a family-owned business since1952. Since that time, the companyhas grown to 14 locations including anew warehouse facility. Hovis execu-tives are industry leaders with CliffHovis currently serving on the execu-tive committee and board of gover-nors for Federated Auto Parts, whileVice President Curt Hovis serves on avariety of paint, body and equipmentmanufacturer boards. In addition, Cliffhas also served as a member of theboard of governors of AWDA.

For more information, visitwww.federatedautoparts.com.


The new training center offers a fully equipped bodyshop with mixing rooms, prep deck as well as 4-postand 2-post lifts, alignment machines, and diagnosticlabs. For more information see www.hovistrainingcen-ter.com/ourfacility.html

The Hovis Technical Training Center alsoincludes a multi-media classroom for bestbusiness practice training

The Ameri-Cure Oversized Paint Booth is designed forWaterborne Technology with dual mixing rooms forDuPont Coatings and AkzoNobel Sikkens

New 10,000-sq-ft Hovis Tech Training Center Opens in Mercer, PA


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A1 Grand Auto Body in NY—A Family Commitment to Quality RepairA1 Grand Auto Body of Garden CityPark, NY focuses on family orientedbusiness onquality repairs. This em-phasis on quality dates back to owner,Brian Hogan’s early interest in auto

body repair. When customers handtheir keys over to Hogan, he wantsthem to know and be confident thatthey are putting their vehicle in thehands of a man who has been workingon cars for most of his life and whosepassion for automobile restorationguarantees their car will leave theshop looking much better than whenthey drop it off.

When his staff is short-handed,Hogan is always eager and willing topick up the tools to help restore hiscustomers’ vehicles. His children arefollowing in his footsteps as he did inhis father’s. Hogan’s daughter, Ariel,works in the front office, and his son,Joseph, will begin working for his fa-ther later this year as part of a work-study BOCES program.

In fifth grade, Brian Hogan wouldtake a bus to his father’s shop afterschool in order to sweep the floors andpark cars. The ten-year-old found thejob very exciting. A year later, helearned to sand body surfaces, and thiswas followed by his first real project.

At the age of thirteen, BrianHogan purchased his first car, a Cut-

lass Supreme, for $50. He spent a lotof time on that car, ultimately chang-ing the color three times. Hogan re-calls, “I made it my perfect first car.That was my project car.” Since then,Hogan has owned hundreds of cars.One of his best memories is helpinghis son restore a 1999 Ford Mustangwith front-end damage to the point thatit won Best in Show at a competitionin Commack, NY. He also rebuilt aChevy Corvette and an early-modelMustang for the Fraternal Order of Po-lice as touring vehicles for their anti-drug and anti-DWI campaigns,complete with custom paint jobs.

From the beginning, Hogan’spastime was destined to be his career.His grandfather, William Benson, hadopened an auto body shop in Queensin 1939 where Brian’s father, JosephHogan, worked in the 1940s until heopened his own shop, Grand BodyAuto, in 1953 on Jamaica Avenue.

Hogan continued to work for hisfather after high school, finally open-ing his own shop in 1997 in Garden

City Park. He still gets a thrill fromrestoring a damaged vehicle, and hetries to uphold his father’s stated goalof restoring the vehicle to look like itis brand new. Like his grandfather,Hogan guarantees his work for thelifetime of the vehicle, stating “if you

fix the car right, there should be noproblem in guaranteeing it. If you prepand prepare each part you put on prop-erly, it’s going to last.”

In addition to his Garden CityPark facility, Hogan also owns a 4000square foot shop in Hempstead, butdue to his customer database whichincludes around 60,000 customers, heis currently in the process of openinga third shop of 1600 square feet onDenton Avenue in New Hyde Park.Each location employs six auto bodytechnicians.

Hogan’s businesses utilize aShark measuring system from Italyand all of the latest frame equipment.The shops are ASE and I-CAR certi-fied. They do not participate in any di-rect repair programs currently, butHogan has been approached byGEICO and is considering joiningtheir DRP in his new shop.

The technicians paint with RMDiamont. They report no difficultywith color matching as most of the ve-hicles they repair are newer models,specifically 2011 and 2012 vehicles.Hogan notes that the restoration busi-ness has taken a nosedive, but hisshops specialize in heavy collision re-pairs, even receiving referral workfrom other shops. Due to the damagefrom August’s hailstorm, each ofHogan’s shops are currently averaging

repairs on 15–20 cars each week.One thing that A1 Grand boasts

that no other shop can is Hogan’sRaising the Bar Code software whichhe created to help integrate severalshop management systems. Using thissystem, Hogan is able to scan the ve-hicle registration, allowing pertinentinformation to populate within a fewseconds, updating the database to pro-vide an estimate for the customer. Thisallows A1 Grand Auto Body to pro-vide an estimate to customers withinfive minutes of entering the shop.Hogan’s software is just one way inwhich he strives to keep in touch withcustomers and provide quality service.Though several companies have of-fered to buy the the software, Hoganrefuses to sell his competitive advan-tage.

Hogan shows his dedication byclosely monitoring customer satisfac-tion with the paintless dent repairsmany shops used to repair cars dentedby the uncharacteristically severe hailstorm in August 2011. Using thismethod, many dents reappear, butHogan is busy contacting the cus-tomers in his database to inform themthat their insurance companies willcover further costs to permanently re-pair this damage. This second round ofdent repairs has kept his shops busy forthe past several months.

A1 Grand Auto Body is a shopthat can guarantee quality becauseBrian Hogan stands behind it. Qualityauto repairs are definitely a familycommitment from the Hogans and A1Grand Auto Body.

A1 Grand Auto Body105 Herricks RoadNew Hyde Park, NY 11040(516) 294-4200

with Chasidy Rae SiskShop Showcase Chasidy Rae Sisk is a freelance technical writer from Wilmington, Delaware, who

writes on a variety of fields and subjects, and grew up in a family of NASCAR fans.She can be contacted at [email protected].

Brian Hogan and his daughter, Ariel

A1 Grand’s tow trucks promote their services

Jim Lang, of Aftermarket Insight,says that “Car and light truck scrap-page (vehicles removed from opera-tion) declined as a percent ofvehicles on U.S. roads during 2009and 2010. These low scrappage rateshelped boost car and light truck av-erage age.

“Not reflected in overall scrap-page rates is the ongoing shift in theage of vehicles scrapped in the U.S.

As a result of airbag deployment,many vehicles which on the basis ofcollision damage alone would not bescrapped are heading to the junkyard.Deployment of a single airbag will

cause most vehicles at least sevenyears old to be scrapped.”

Last year in the U.S., airbags de-ployed in over 1.2 million vehicles.Vehicle damage resulting from airbagdeployment ranges from $1,200 toover $6,000 per bag depending on thelocation of the bag (dashboard, door,

etc.) and the type of vehicle. Govern-ment reports indicate that virtually allvehicles at least seven years old inwhich a single bag deploys arescrapped.

Increasing damage from multipleairbags (as newer vehicles have more

Airbags Changing Vehicle Scrappage Age Mix

See Airbags, Page 20


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The Van Tuyl Group, an Irving, Texas-based company with more than 70 au-tomotive dealerships across thecountry, has announced the first annual

Charity SuperBowl flag footballtournament to beheld in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The event willbe held Saturday,February 4, 2012at the Stampede

Sports Complex in Southlake, Texas—the day before Super Bowl XLVI takesplace in Indianapolis.

The Charity Super Bowl will beco-sponsored by the Van Tuyl Group,PPG, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car®. Allproceeds are to benefit Trinity RiverMission, a volunteer-based, commu-nity learning center dedicated to sup-porting the development of educationalsuccess in the children, youth, and fam-ilies of West Dallas.

The day-long Charity SuperBowl will feature 30 4-on-4 teams

competing in a double-eliminationtournament. There is an entry fee of$350 per team, with each team al-lowed to carry a roster of up to eightplayers. An awards presentation willbe held at the end of the day. In addi-tion to enjoying the games, fans at-tending the Charity Super Bowl canwin raffle prizes and participate in asilent auction.

“This is one of the most excitingweekends of the year for footballlovers,” said Darren Huggins, na-tional collision director, Van TuylGroup. “We wanted to take that foot-ball frenzy and give something back tothe community, especially to a charitythat does so much good and needs oursupport. We’ll play 59 games in about10 hours. We’ve even invited our com-petitors to take part, and they’ve ac-cepted the challenge. Fans can comeout and have a great time cheering onthe teams, all while knowing they’rehelping a worthy organization. This isgoing to be a great—and very compet-itive—day.”

The Van Tuyl Group has longbeen associated with PPG. Today,PPG Automotive Refinish suppliesthe company with a wide variety of

innovative coatingproducts for itsdealerships.KristenFelderof

collisionhub.comwillco-host the bowl’sbroadcast withAuto-body News’Ed At-tanasio.

For details about the first annual Char-ity Super Bowl, call 972-670-2948.

To learn more about Trinity RiverMission, visit www.trinityrivermis-sion.org. For more information aboutPPG, call (800) 647-6050 or visitwww.ppgrefinish.com.

Van Tuyl Group to Hold Charity Super Bowl Event in the Dallas-FortWorth Area Super Bowl Weekend, Autobody News to Participate

Ed Attanasio Kristen Felder

airbags) is scrapping many vehicleswhich would otherwise be repairedand returned to operation. If multiplebags deploy (some new vehicles haveup to eight), airbags can cause addi-tional damage (beyond the crash it-self) sufficient to scrap even new andexpensive vehicles.

As newer vehicles are scrappedbecause of airbag deployment, in-creasing scrappage rates will not nec-essarily reduce the average age ofvehicles.

As long as new vehicle volumeremains relatively low versus thenearly 17 million average-annualsales from 1999 to 2006 and scrap-page remains relatively moderate, agrowing share of scrappage willoccur among vehicles below the 10.6year average-vehicle age. This willboost the age level of vehicles in theU.S.


Airbags

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This month’s distinctive dealer isSouth Motors Automotive Group inMiami, Florida. This dealer servicesHonda, BMW, VW, Suzuki, Mazda,Mini, and Infiniti. Parts managerMike Franceschi contacted me afterreading my article on “Apathy, theReal Opponent in the Wholesale Busi-ness.”

For a link to the article see thelast paragraph or just go to autobo-dynews.com and search ‘apathy’WhatI wrote in that article was:

“Now is the time to be positive.Shake off that dull, negative attitude.Aggressive solicitation of new cus-tomers will pay off for those dealersthat move now. Take some time andvisit your best customers. Congratu-late them for their tenacity and tellthem you will be with them for thegood times ahead. Partners who sur-vive hard times always find theirbonds stronger. Keep an eye out forcustomer opportunities that you mayhave overlooked. Be ready to servethe new customers that will be callingyou.“There is another major negative as-sumption to overcome. Several partsmanagers have told me of their loss ofinterest in the wholesale market. Themain reason for this is the lack ofprofit. It seems that there is constantpressure to reduce costs, starting at thecorporate level. I am talking about theinsurance companies that cover mostof today’s repair costs. In a never-end-ing search for investor earnings, qual-ity, care, workmanship, and pride areconsidered to be unnecessary. Theonly thing that matters to these corpo-rations is their bottom line. They con-stantly push the repair shop to reducethe cost of the repairs. The shops can-not reduce their labor cost any lower;employees are already at the povertylevel. The only place to cut is the costof materials. The solution for someshops is the use of cheaper parts.These shops adopt the practices of thecorporations, and consider only thecost of materials. Save a dollar, nomatter what method you use.“We need to fight back! Quality inboth parts and service needs to beworth more than a 5% discount. Forexample, sheet metal has been a cen-

ter of concern for several years. Cheapreplacement imported metal has foundcustomers, at the cost of quality. Nu-merous organizations have come outto support the use of original partsonly. We all agree on the value ofquality in this area. How about the restof the operation? How about qualityof service?“I have never advocated sacrificingservice and quality for cost. I believeif you pay less, you get less. There isa minimum everyone must pay forquality service. The competitionshould be for better service, notcheaper prices. I believe that servicingthe wholesale market is still a reward-ing job. Our final goal, happy cus-tomers, is a worthy goal and customersatisfaction brings us our own happi-ness.”

Mike shared the article with hiscountermen, and was pleased to beable to say to them: “I’m not the onlyone who talks about this every day!”This comment, in my opinion, is thekey to understanding Mike’s successin these troubled times. He talks to hismen every day, encouraging them andkeeping their spirits high.

There are four full time whole-sale countermen, Ozzie, Rudy, Alex,and Danny. Professional, knowledge-able men, with more than a hundredyears of experience available to theircustomers! This team keeps five driv-ers constantly on the road. Belinda,Carlos, Jose, Luis and Noel makethree runs daily, and will go as far assixty miles to service their customers.An inventory of over half a milliondollars ensures “on hand” status offast moving parts. A daily orderingsystem means needed parts are almostalways available the next morning.

Body shops in this area have hada hard time the last few years, butsales at this dealership have heldsteady, and even increased slightly de-spite the recession. Collision Link isused by this dealer, of course. Thisprogram allows Mike to be competi-tive on pricing, ensuring repairs are al-ways made with quality, originalparts. Every dealer I have talked tomentions Collision Link as one oftheir most valuable tools in the whole-sale market.

Mike has been at South Motorsfor twenty years, fifteen of them asparts manager. He says his “secret tosuccess” is his focus on sales. His of-fice is near the front counter, and hetalks to his customers as often as pos-sible. He watches his daily sales, stay-ing on top of his business with hisfriends. He calls one or two each day,checking to make sure he has filledtheir orders properly, and that they aresatisfied with his service.

Mike takes his job very person-ally, and talked to me about the valueof long term relationships, and thefeeling of “family”, not just cus-tomers. He spoke about trust, sincer-ity, and respect. He spoke of serviceover price, wanting happy customers,and close partnerships with valuedcustomers.

These philosophies, of service,and partnership are common to all thesuccessful managers I have talked

with in the last year. They all considertheir customers as friends, and makeprice a minor condition to the businessof auto repair.

I believe that success is not de-termined by a building, a location, ad-vertising, or price. Success is a rewardto those people who want it, work forit, and are never stopped. MikeFranceschi is successful because hisdesire to be the best knows no bound-aries.

I recommend this distinctivedealer to any auto body shop in theMiami area that wants the best serv-ice available. You can do no betterthan the South Motors AutomotiveGroup.

You can read Larry’s apathy arti-cle online in its entirety at:http://www.autobodynews.com/colum-nists/williams-larry/item/5198-apathy-the-real-opponent-in-the-wholesale-parts-business.html.


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South Motors Automotive Group—Anything But Apathetic

Parts Profileswith Larry Williams

Larry Williams is an innovative parts manager with national awards and over 30 years of experience increating and managing profitable departments. He can be reached for consultation at [email protected] read all his columns go to http://www.autobodynews.com/columnists/williams-larry.html


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Mitchell Parts Index Sheds Light on Parts Trends Post Japan’s Tsunamiby Greg Horn, Vice PresidentIndustry Relations Mitchell International

When we createdthe Mitchell Colli-sion Parts PriceIndex (or MCPPI)a few years back, itwas to serve as abarometer tomeasure parts in-flation both in ag-

gregate and split out by part type andvehicle country of origin. The MCPPIwas created with the Consumer PriceIndex as its model as the ConsumerPrice Index (CPI) is best known tomost Americans as the general rate ofinflation.

The CPI is one of the mostclosely watched economic indicatorsbecause it tracks the rate of inflationfor a wide sampling of goods we rou-tinely buy. Just in the way the CPI

measures a “basket” of goods andservices and compares the pricesmonth to month. This basket containshundreds of different types of goodsand services ranging from the inex-pensive to very expensive.

In creating the Mitchell CollisionParts Price index, we used a similarapproach of taking a collision ‘marketbasket. We selected the top 20 mostreplaced collision parts for the fol-lowing categories: Hood, fenders,headlamps, turn signals and sidemarker lamps. We pulled data from

2003 through the third quarter of2011. We then created weighted aver-age prices for these parts in aggregate,setting the base year at 2003 and equalto 100. This allows us to compare in-flationary trends by part type. All parttypes are retail prices, in the case ofLKQ/used parts, are calculated withthe mark up included in the pricing.”

In the most recent edition of theIndustry Trends Report, this usefultool also allowed us to evaluate theimpact of the Japanese Tsunami oncollision parts prices. What we foundwas that despite some industry expertspredicting parts shortages, repair de-lays and hoarding of used parts, therewas virtually no impact on collisionparts prices.

What always intrigues me as Ievaluate the data from this index, isthat there are several other factors inplay. When I looked at the overallindex over time, what is interesting is

the rapid increase inrecycled parts pricesfor all vehicle types,and that salvage partsand aftermarket parts,drove the inflationindex for 2011. OEMparts pricing, by con-trast; decreased in theaggregate.

How did the OEMparts index decrease?It was in large part aresult of the expan-

sion by auto makers ‘match the com-petition’ programs, wherein they willmatch or adjust their pricing to com-pete with top selling aftermarket parts.The primary aim of the OEM’s tomatch the competition is to maintainparts sales and stem the tide of after-market parts use in collision repairs.

Have they been effective? As ev-idenced by chart 3, showing the num-ber of collision parts used by parttype, the increase in matching pro-grams has not stemmed the decline inOEM parts use, but interestingly; af-

termarket parts use also declined dur-ing the same period. By looking at therepair labor hours for the same period,we see an increase in the number ofaverage repair hours, indicating a shiftto repairing panels rather than replac-

ing them. An increase of repair hoursis good news for collision repairers,and it remains to be seen if this in-crease is sustainable.

Let’s examine recycled parts aswell. The MCPPI shows an increasein pricing of recycled parts, starting in

2009 and accelerating rapidly in 2010,but still below the base year of 2003.What is behind this phenomenon?

If we look back, the recycledparts distribution channel experiencedthe most advances of any parts chan-nel. Large internet vendors began on-line and ‘near real time’ inventorydisplays in the estimating platforms as

well as standalone applications. Largeacquisitions happened in this arena aswell, all allowing for more rapid mar-ket feedback of demand and pricing. Ibelieve this lead to a market correc-tion of pricing in the years leading up

to 2009, and what we are now experi-encing is an acceleration of prices be-cause of the increase in overseas andrebuilder sales, and decreasing thepopulation of parts harvested vehicles.

What will the future hold? I be-lieve we will continue to see a restric-

tion of supply for recycled parts, asthe impact of slumping new car salesand high used car prices that began in2008 (and continues today) begins toripple through the salvage parts sup-ply world. Aftermarket parts produc-ers hold an advantage here, as theycan custom tailor output to demand, aluxury that recyclers do not have.

Greg Horn

The Mitchell Collision Parts Price Index for 2011

Mitchell Collision Parts Price Index by Part Type – All Vehicles

Part Use by Number of Parts

SCRS Responds to Article on Insurer Involvement in Setting RatesIn a letter released December 20th,2011, the Society of Collision RepairSpecialists (SCRS) provided commen-tary on an article written by USAToday contributing editor,AdamBelz,and entitled, Auto body shops say they,not insurers, should set costs.

The letter from SCRS counters

points raised in the initial article, andprovides information supporting theassertion that the property & casualtyinsurance industry’s direct influenceover collision repair market pricing,has impacted both the consumer andthe small businesses that make up thecollision repair industry. Several key

components of the letter identify that:● Property and casualty insurance car-riers have become increasingly in-volved in activities that extend beyondthe business of insurance, while inter-jecting themselves into collision repairbusiness activities.● The responsibility to compensate for

fair and reasonable costs of the loss issignificantly different than definingwhat is fair and reasonable.● Average gross collision appraisalvalues have remained stagnant com-paring the first and third quarters of2009, 2010 and 2011, and older data

See SCRS, Page 40


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Would you step up and be a hero ifyou were in an emergency situationwith little time to think? Many of ushave asked ourselves this same ques-tion, but few ever get the opportunityto find out.

James Bray, a parts manager atFix Auto Portland East in Oregon was

tested in a big waywhen he wascalled upon to pulla man out of aburning car andsave his life.If Bray ever hadany doubts abouthis courage or hisability to act hero-ically, they wereall answered at 2a.m. on December3. In a highly stress-ful situation requir-ing quick thinkingand quicker action,Bray was able tothink fast and take

lifesaving action. That early morning aBMW hit a utility pole right in front ofBray’s house in Vancouver, Washington.Normally, Bray would have been asleep,but luckily for the driver, he was stillawake, playing computer games.

Sounds in the night are mostlyweather or animal-related in Vancou-ver, but this one caught Bray’s atten-tion immediately. “It was a very deeppop sound and I had no idea what itmight be. So, I went to the window inthe living room and that’s when I sawthe car wrapped around the light pole.”

With an orange glow comingfrom under the hood, Bray instantlyknew it was more than just a fenderbender.

“So many things went throughmy mind. Is someone in there and willthe car explode? So, I said to my wifecall 911. I got dressed as fast as I couldand ran out to the vehicle.”

Bray assessed the scene quicklyand it didn’t look promising at the out-set. He explained, “one guy got outthrough the back seat, and another guyjumped out through the front passen-ger-side door. The BMW’s windows

were tinted and the car was quicklyfilling up with smoke. I asked the twoguys if anyone was still left in the car,

but they weren’t making any sense.They were basically incoherent.”

Rather than wait for a responsethat wasn’t forthcoming, Bray acted.“I hit the driver’s window with a flash-light that I always carry with me, but itwouldn’t break. So, I smacked it again

and this time it shattered. I could seethere was a driver stuck in there andhe was yelling, because his legs were

on fire. I told my wife Mindy to bringthe fire extinguisher.”

Bray could see that the door was un-locked, but it wouldn’t open. “I tried toopen it a few times, but it was jammed, soI asked the two other guys to help me, butwe still couldn’t get it open.”


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Oregon Shop’s Parts Manager Performs Heroic Deed to Save a Life

It’s a family affair at Fix Auto Portland East in Oregon, including (from left) Parts Manager JamesBray; Operations Manager William Bray; Retired former Owner Jim Eber; Owner Camille Eber(James’s aunt) and Office Manager Iala BrayJames Bray is the

parts manager at FixAuto East in Port-land, Oregon. Bymoving quickly andbeing prepared, hesaved a man from aburning BMW thatcrashed into a utilitypole

Eddie Quintela, the shop owner fromDelray Beach, FL, who wanted toknow why GEICO was charging his

customers a 10% deductible on theirdomestic OEM parts and other laboroperations, regardless of fault, and inaddition to regular deductible and/orapplicable betterments, has been vin-dicated. Quintela was finally able toget GEICO to remove the deductibleoff one of his customer’s estimates.

Quintela, who owns CollisionConcepts Inc., asked why GEICO wasapparently assessing this fee in PalmBeach county but not in nearby Polkcounty; and why an insured driving aforeign made vehicle was not deducted10% for OEM parts, but one driving avehicle made in the United States wasmade to pay 10% extra for their parts.Other labor operations were defined aswet sand and buff and all clips andbolts. GEICO claimed it was custom-ary in his market, while Quintela dis-agreed with proof from surveying othershops in the area. Collision Conceptsis not a DRP for the insurer.

“Just want to say thank you toGeico for paying what is fair and rea-sonable to repair our mutual cus-tomer’s vehicle,” said Quintela, “It is agood start to what I hope is a new andimproved relationship between Geicoand all collision repair facilities.”

To view the full text of the emailexchanges between Quintela andGEICO please see Autobody NewsJanuary 2012 Edition or www.auto-bodynews.com, search ‘Quintela’.

Bray handed his folding knife toone of the passengers and told him tocut the driver’s seat belt while he triedto put out the flames in the car withthe fire extinguisher. But every timethe flames subsided, they instantly re-turned.

“I figured it must be the fuel line,because the flames wouldn’t stop,”Bray said. “At that point, I realized wehad to get this guy out of the car rightnow or he would burn up. So we cutthe seat belt, but he still couldn’t gethim out. He was stuck in there.”

Bray’s quick thinking and com-mon sense kicked in at that point. “Wecut the shoulder belt, not thinkingabout the lap belt and that’s what washolding him in. I gave my knife to oneof the two passengers earlier, but helost it. But I always carry a Leather-man multi-tool on my key chain andit has a knife. I just reached in thereand cut the strap pretty easily.”

After several attempts, the threemen pulled the driver from the carthrough the window, burned but stillalive, Bray said.

“His shoes were melted to whereI couldn’t recognize them and his pantswere on fire. Within seconds, there was

an explosion in the vehicle and prettysoon it was completely engulfed inflames. The whole thing took aroundthree minutes, that’s all it was.”

The next day, the Vancouver Po-lice reported that the driver was BrianJ. Hall, 22. He was transported to theLegacy Health System’s burn unit inPortland with third degree burns andin serious condition. He and hisfriends were returning from a Univer-sity Oregon football game thatevening when the accident occurred.Whether alcohol or drugs were in-volved is still under investigation, ac-cording to the Vancouver Police.

Bray’s Aunt Camille Eber is hisboss at Fix Auto East Portland andshe’s extremely proud of what hernephew did on December 3.

“He did an amazing thing,” shesaid. “I am very proud of James for hisselfless and level-headed reaction. Healways carries a keychain LeathermanTool, a pocket knife and a flashlight.He had all of them that morning andthat is why the driver is now alive. Wenever expect to be in a situation likethat, but James did not hesitate andwas prepared. He will always be ahero in my eyes.”


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Update: Delray Beach, FL, Shop Owner’s Opposition toGEICO’s 10% Charge on Domestic OEM Parts Pays Off

Eddie Quintela sent multiple email letters toGEICO’s local claims supervisor seeking refunds(or at least an explanation) for his customerswho are being charged an additional 10% on alldomestic OEM parts appearing on estimates.Quintela was vindicated when GEICO removedthe 10% deductible on their client’s estimate.

Beginning with the 2009 model yearFord F-150, the cab body mount boltsare secured with a cage nut. The cagenut is held in position inside a cage nutretainer that is attached to the insideof a floor crossmember.

The crossmember is attached tothe underside of the floor pan, whichcreates an enclosure for the cage nut.The retainer has two nut retainingtabs, one on each opposing side of thenut that are folded against the nut tohold it in place (see Figure 1).

In some instances, the cage nutmay spin when attempting to removeor install a body mount bolt. If the nutspins, it will have to be accessed and

secured in order to complete the boltremoval and the installation process.Accessing the Cage NutAccessing the cage nut will requiredrilling a hole from the top of the floor

pan at the cage nut location. Be care-ful not to drill into the cage nut re-tainer. Ford service informationspecifies using a 50 mm (2") hole sawfor this procedure (see Video atwww.i-car.com).

Accessing the drilling lo-cations on the floor pan willrequire removing certainparts, and pulling back thecarpeting. Depending on thecab style, parts that may re-quire removal include thescuff plate trim panel, con-sole, and seats.

The locations of the bodymount cage nuts vary de-pending on the F-150 cabstyle. Locations for the Regu-

lar Cab model will differ from thoseof the SuperCab and SuperCrew mod-els.

Locations for the SuperCab and Su-perCrew are the same (see Figure 2).Refer to the appropriate service infor-mation for the specific location andprocedure for drilling the hole.

Repair ConsiderationsThrough the drilled hole, locate the

cage nut retainer tabs andbend them upward toallow access to the cagenut (see Figure 3). Use asuitable tool to hold thecage nut and remove thebody mount bolt.

The cage nut maybe reused if the threads arenot damaged. If damaged,it must be replaced withthe correct part number(#78101C38). Ford serv-ice information warnsagainst using a standardnut as a replacement, as

this may result in damage to the vehi-cle.

The body mount bolts are one-time use, and must be replaced onceremoved. Be sure to replace these

bolts with the correct part number.The bolt part numbers vary depending

on the cab style. Torque the new boltsto 115 N•m (85 lb-ft).

A service plug (part #W651023-S300) is available to cover the holefollowing installation of the bodymount bolt.

ConclusionWhen attempting to remove the body

mount bolts on some Ford F-150 models, be aware thatthere may be situations whenthe cage nut may spin pre-venting removal of the bolt.

Removing the bodymount bolt will requireusing a hole saw to provideaccess to the cage nut inorder to secure it to pre-vent it from spinning whenturning the bolt. Locationsof the cage nuts vary de-pending on the F-150 cabstyle. Ford service infor-mation includes proce-

dures for locating and drilling theholes.

For comments or suggestions onthe Advantage Online, please contactI-CAR [email protected].


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Accessing and Repairing Body Mount Cage Nuts for the Ford F-150

I-CAR TechThis article first appeared in the I-CAR Advantage Online, which is published and distrib-uted free of charge. I-CAR, the Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repair, is anot-for-profit international training organization that researches and develops qualitytechnical education programs related to collision repair. To learn more about I-CAR, andto subscribe to the free publication, visit http://www.i-car.com.

Figure 1 - The body mount bolt cage nut is secured inposition inside a cage nut retainer by tabs that are foldedagainst the cage nut

Figure 2 - Shown are two of the body mount/cage nutlocations on the floor pan of this F-150 SuperCrew

Figure 3 - Shown is a cage nut retainer with the tabs bentupward allowing access to the cage nut

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Babylon HondaWest Babylon

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Brewster HondaBrewster

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Dick Ide HondaRochester

800-462-0056 (N.Y.)585-586-4919

Dept. Hours:M-Thur 8-8; Fri 8-5:30; Sat 8-5

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Lamacchia HondaSyracuse

315-471-7278Dept. Hours:

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Lia Honda of AlbanyAlbany

800-272-6741518-482-2598

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Hudson HondaWest New York866-483-6917201-868-9500

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Rossi HondaVine land

800-893-3030856-692-4449

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Route 22 HondaHi l ls ide

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Apple HondaYork

800-960-9041717-848-2600

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724-940-2006Dept. Hours:


J.L. Freed HondaMontgomeryv i l le215-855-3587

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Mike Piazza HondaLanghorne

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Acura of WestchesterWestchester

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Curry AcuraScarsdale

800-725-2877914-472-7406


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718-507-3990Dept. Hours:

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888-832-8220631-366-4114

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Diamond Standard Announces “Security Shield” Extends Product Liability Protection to ShopsDiamond Standard Brand Parts hasannounced a program of extendingproduct liability protection to ap-proved collision centers free of chargeto address major concerns about lia-bility on parts.

Diamond Standard says its “Se-curity Shield” provides the collisioncenter leverage and protection againststructural parts usage demands into re-pair, the various levels of parts qual-ity which continues to exist,substitution of parts and the growingreality of aftermarket structural partsproduced by manufacturers with noU.S. assets or product liability cover-age putting the shop in the position ofbeing the “manufacturer” in a poten-tial lawsuit seeking damages due to apart defect or failure leading to seri-ous injury.

Program reaction has been highlypositive among the major associationswith the Automotive Service Associa-tion (ASA) and its collision membersbeing the first association to partici-pate in the program. ASA and Dia-mond Standard announced in Januarya strategic alliance based on ASAmember product liability protectionfrom Diamond Standard. This uniqueprogram underscores ASA’s focus onexacting standards for a complete andsafe repair, and provides clear and

meaningful evidence of DiamondStandard’s confidence in standing be-hind the highest quality parts and partspolicies. A unique website supportingthe strategic partnership and coveragebenefit will debut Feb. 1, 2012 pro-viding ASA members access to thefull program content including back-ground, coverage, a limited lifetimewarranty statement and a convenient“Certificate of Coverage” downloadfeature. The Diamond Standard Secu-rity Shield site will also debut Feb. 1,2012 (www.diamondstandardsecuri-tyshield.com).

The issue of shop liability andtimeliness of the Diamond StandardSecurity Shield program cannot be un-derstated and takes on greater impor-tance as evidenced by a feature storyearlier this week regarding shop lia-bility.

In the January 9, 2012 – Vol. 19addition of Crash Network(www.CrashNetwork.com) the featurestory “Liability Questioned” was pub-lished based on New Jersey shopowner Joe Lubrano’s expressed con-cern related to non-OEM parts.Specifically Mr. Lubrano posed thequestion of a shop being held respon-sible for diminished value or liabilityclaim if a non-OEM absorber, rein-forcement or hood does not function

properly in a subsequent accident,possibly causing body injury in a liti-gious society and called on the Colli-sion Industry Conference meeting thisweek to take this matter as seriouslyas he does. Diamond Standard Secu-rity Shield product liability protectionfirmly addresses Mr. Lubrano’s con-cerns.

Diamond Standard SecurityShield product liability protection intotal, represents $40 million in prod-uct liability coverage as added secu-rity to the collision center owneragainst the unlikely scenario of per-sonal vehicle-owner injury directly re-lated to the failure of new DiamondStandard parts in the repair manufac-tured by Reflexxion Automotive Prod-ucts or Production Bumper StampingsInc. $15 million in product liabilitycoverage is extended by the specificmanufacturing group member for itsDiamond Standard Brand Parts.

The incremental $25 million ispremiere coverage extended to ap-proved collision centers as co-insuredtotaling $40 million in total coveragedirected to quality, industry best prac-tice shop associations, DRPs, MSOs,facilitators and consolidators recog-nized by the industry as ordering andinstalling only the highest level qual-ity structural components.

“Giving back to the industryfront line is a central premise of Dia-mond Standard throughout the yearand pivotal piece in our developmentof a unique branding program ad-dressing the major issues in our in-dustry. To receive the honor anddistinction of ASA’s strategic partner-ship and support of Diamond StandardSecurity Shield validates the single-minded purpose of Diamond Stan-dard—not only manufacturing andmarketing the safest and highest qual-ity parts available, but also precisionparts using correct material, toolbuilding, stamping and process con-trols here in America,” said MikeO’Neal, President of Diamond Stan-dard Parts, LLC.

“It is Diamond Standard’s ‘Cul-ture of Quality’ that permeates its veryfabric with a commitment to the in-dustry of ‘One Quality of Manufac-turing’ consistency that separatesDiamond Standard from other Manu-facturers. It is the “One Quality” partmanufacturing commitment with USAassets in place that uniquely enablesDiamond Standard to provide the col-lision shop owner with the solutionand avoid risk due to the use of struc-tural parts from foreign manufacturersoffering no product liability protec-tion.”

West Virginia v. Liberty Mutual Salvage Parts Lawsuit Moved to Federal CourtA lawsuit alleging that insurance com-pany Liberty Mutual implementedpolicies that called for body shopowners to repair new vehicles using“junkyard” parts has been moved tofederal court. State Attorney GeneralDarrell McGraw filed the lawsuitagainst Liberty Mutual and St. Albansbody shop owner Greg Chandler lastmonth, alleging that the body shopfollowed an illegal insurance policy toinstall used or aftermarket crash partson vehicles manufactured within threeyears of the date of the crash.

The West Virginia Attorney Gen-eral’s office calls it an effort to “buytime” in the lawsuit brought by thestate’s Attorney General against it andone of its DRPs—Greg Chandler’sFrame & Body LLC (Greg’s Body

Shop)—over the use of salvage partsmoved to federal court. The changeforced the cancellation of a hearing inwhich a circuit court judge could haveordered Liberty Mutual to temporar-ily discontinue the practice of callingfor the use of salvage parts on vehiclesthree years old or newer, a violation ofstate law (which similarly prohibitsthe use of non-OEM parts on such ve-hicles without the owner’s consent).

Attorneys for Liberty Mutual ar-gued the case belongs in federal courtbecause they say it involves issues re-lated to the federal Magnuson-MossWarranty Act. West Virginia AttorneyGeneral McGraw sued Liberty MutualInsurance Company and Greg’s BodyShop, for repairing vehicles with sal-vage parts in violation of state law.

Attorney General McGraw’s suit, filedin the Circuit Court of KanawhaCounty, details repeated violations ofthe West Virginia Consumer Creditand Protection Act by Liberty Mutualand Greg’s Body Shop. McGraw’s of-fice alleges that Liberty Mutual re-quired body shops to repair vehicleswith reconditioned, remanufactured,and used parts in violation of West Vir-ginia law. In addition, Liberty Mutualfailed to provide the proper notices andwritten statements to consumers.

In West Virginia, it is unlawfulfor an insurance company to requirethe use of salvaged, used, or recondi-tioned OEM crash parts when negoti-ating repairs of motor vehicles withinthree years of manufacture, withoutacquiring the motor vehicle owner’s

consent. McGraw’s office began in-vestigating Liberty Mutual and Greg’sBody Shop after receiving evidencethat new vehicles were being repairedwith “junkyard parts.” The investiga-tion by McGraw’s Consumer Protec-tion Division confirmed that LibertyMutual employed a policy that vio-lated state law. McGraw’s lawsuit asksthe court to enjoin the defendantsfrom engaging in this unlawful activ-ity in the future, seeks restitution forconsumers whose cars were illegallyrepaired with “junkyard” crash parts,and asks for civil penalties.

Consumers who think they havebeen a victim of Liberty Mutualshould contact Attorney General Dar-rell McGraw’s consumer protectionhotline at 1-800-368-8808.


Charlie comes in every now and then.I guess you could say he’s a regularbut I think I would call him more ofan opportunist when it comes to hiscar repairs. He’ll go to an oil changeplace for oil changes, a tire shop fortires, a transmission shop for trans-mission, so on and so on. If there isan opportunity to get his car into ashop he’ll make an appointment andget it in. But, the one thing he seemsto always use me for is the check en-gine light.

Normally, most people don’t paythat much attention to the check en-gine light unless it’s staying on. NotCharlie, he’s absolutely paranoid itwill come on and stay on.

Somehow, some way somebodyhas told him that the check enginelight is not a warning of a problemwith the exhaust emissions or relatedengine/transmission problems but theprecursor to a ticking bomb that will

bring an end to his ride of rides. It’sas if the check engine light is the trig-ger to the doom and gloom of his car.

At times, Charlie thinks thecheck engine light has stayed on alonger than it should when he starts itup in the morning. This prompts animmediate phone call and a trip to therepair shop. With all these trips he’sseen me use several different codereaders, scanners, O-scopes, and lap-tops that I have at my disposal tocheck codes and related engine sys-tems.

There’s times I think he justwants to see what new gadget I’ve gotthat I can hook up to his car. The morebells and whistles I throw out therethe more he seems to show up withanother reason for me to recheck hiscar. He can probably name a bunch ofthe scanners that I’ve used, seriously,he’s been to the shop that many times.

Sometimes I wish he would take

up antique car collecting; go buysomething old enough that it doesn’thave a check engine light in it and seeif he gets the idea that the entire uni-verse doesn’t revolve around a serv-ice light. It’s not like he doesn’tremember cars without check enginelights he just doesn’t seem to under-stand that a car can operate withoutone anymore. Why he’s even told meabout an old car he drove while hewas in college that leaked oil so badthat he had to keep a can or two withhim at all times. Talk about somethingthat sounds like it was on the verge ofdoom and gloom, also sounds like thetypical college kids car.

So you would think he wouldhave some understanding of the innerworkings of the automobile, but ap-parently once the service light cameinto the everyday vocabulary his un-derstanding has wasted away just likethe oil in that old car from college.

I’ve tried to explain to him aboutthe meaning of the service light andabout the various reasons for it tocome on but it just doesn’t seem tosink in. I’m hoping the day nevercomes that his old car actually doesturn on the check engine light, be-cause if it did he’d probably worryhimself all the way to a coronary andhe would have to have the car towedin while I’d have to make a call to 911and have him towed to the emergencyroom. Of course I hope that neverhappens, but with him I could seesomething along those lines.

I generally let him watch thescanners do their work or have himwatch a graph while I check thingsunder the hood. The other day he wasconcerned about his O2 sensors andwanted to know if they were workingcorrectly because he thought he sawthe check engine light pop on and

Check Engine Light Paranoiawith Gonzo Weaver

Gonzo’s Toolbox This is a new story by Scott “Gonzo” Weaver as posted on his website, www.gonzostoolbox.com.Gonzo has been serving the Tulsa area at Superior Auto Electric for over 27 years. See his book“Hey Look! I Found The Loose Nut”, which provides a Good Laugh for Mechanics of Any Age.The book is available at amazon.com. Contact Gonzo at [email protected].

See Check Engine, Page 36


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then go right back off. There were nocodes stored and I asked him if it hap-pened when he first started it or afterdriving several miles. It was while hewas driving for a bit and not when itfirst started.

“What difference does thatmake?” he asked.

I then explained to him abouthow the heater circuit operated towarm up the sensor and what the sen-sor actually did in relation to the fuelmixture. This only made him evenmore curious to what they did.

“Watch this Charlie. I’ll graphthe O2 sensors here on this scope andI’ll show you the front sensor and itscorresponding rear sensor. You’ll seethe voltage changes on the screen aswell as the differences between thefront and rear sensors at the same timeon the screen,” I told him.

“Fascinating, simply fascinat-ing,” he said, “But I don’t see howthat translates to fuel?”

The more I explained the more heseemed to be lost. He still seemed tobe more concerned about what was

going to happen with that check en-gine light.

I kept up with the explanationuntil I got to the point where he wasjust staring off into space and lost in-terest in me, the check engine lightand the little graph moving up anddown on the screen.

I don’t know if he ever under-stood a thing I said, or for that mat-ter has reconsidered the importanceof the check engine light. All I knowis that at some point in time some-body is going to tell him somethingstupid regarding the check enginelight and he’ll make another trip tothe shop and watch the fascinatinglittle lines bounce around on myscope screen.

No matter what I say, no matterwhat I do, old “Check Engine Char-lie” will still listen to some B.S. fromsomebody out there and then headover to my shop for another diagnos-tics that will amount to nothing.Maybe I need to come up with myown B.S. to counteract what everyoneelse keeps telling him.

I guess it comes down to the oldsaying: If ya can’t dazzle them withbrilliance, buffalo them with a littlebull.


Check Engine

PCI Says Auto Body Legislation will be Priority for 2012The Property Casualty Insurers As-sociation of America’s (PCI) saidauto body legislation would be oneof its key priorities for 2012. PCIsaid it anticipates the major autobody repair and glass issues for2012 will involve aftermarketparts, labor rates, steering and esti-mating systems. To help controlcosts and promote customer serv-ice, PCI said it will oppose legisla-tive efforts that would restrictinsurers’ ability to make recom-mendations or suggestions to con-sumers on individual repairfacilities or that would impede in-surers’ ability to manage the claimrepair process and control costs onbehalf of consumers.

“PCI is committed to advancinga pro- consumer agenda that supportshealthy, competitive insurance mar-kets across the nation,” said PaulBlume, senior vice president of stategovernment relations for PCI.

“In these tough economic timesconsumers are best served by meas-ures that address the cost drivers ofinsurance and provide individualswith choices. Our agenda will alsohelp modernize state regulatory envi-ronments and improve insurancemarketplaces.”

In addition to auto body legisla-tion, other priorities include protectingand promoting the viability of a com-petitive private insurance market, curb-ing fraud and abuse in several no- faultauto insurance systems, addressingauto body repair and coastal propertyinsurance issues, as well as advancingcost containment measures in stateworkers compensation systems. In ad-dition, PCI anticipates credit-based in-surance scoring and tort reform to onceagain be legislative issues during 2012.

PCI said it made significantprogress at the state, federal, and in-ternational levels last year on manyissues, despite facing an anemiceconomy, increasing political andregulatory pressures, and historic nat-ural disasters. Looking forward to2012, PCI said it anticipates facingmany of these issues again, with theadditional challenge of advancing itsadvocacy agenda during a watershedpresidential election year.

I-CAR has announced that Erie Insur-ance, an I-CAR Gold Class Profes-sionals business, has equipped its staffof auto physical damage appraiserswith the latest training available in theindustry, providing them with theknowledge and skills needed to helpincrease CSI scores, improve opera-tional efficiencies and minimize re-pair mistakes.

I-CAR said that Erie Insurance isnow one of only five insurance or-ganizations to have achieved the in-dustry-recognized I-CAR Gold ClassProfessionals designation as a corpo-ration. Insurance businesses can earnthe Gold Class designation at a cor-porate level, as Erie has, or at a busi-ness location.

I-CAR CEO and President JohnVan Alstyne said, “By achieving theGold Class designation, Erie Insur-ance has shown a dedication to bothcustomers and employees by invest-ing in training that will provide valu-able services. Through Erie'scommitment to I-CAR training, ErieAuto Physical Damage Appraisersnow possess role-based knowledgethat can improve estimating accuracyand help reduce cycle time, both ofwhich lead to increased customer sat-isfaction.”

Van Alstyne added, “With therapid rate of change in vehicle tech-nology, continuous role-relevanttraining is essential. It is another keydriver to customer satisfaction, and,ultimately business success.”

Jim Brown, Erie VP and man-ager, material damage, said, “Erie In-surance is committed to delivering topnotch service to our customers and isfocused on providing our staff withthe training and resources needed intoday's collision repair industry. Byproviding our customers with accu-rate estimates, we can improve claimsaccuracy, which will allow us to con-tinue providing our policy holdersthat have been in automobile acci-dents with the best repair plan possi-ble.”

Businesses that have earned theI-CAR Gold Class Professionals busi-ness designation are required toachieve high levels of training as wellas maintain ongoing annual training,according to I-CAR.

“I-CAR is pleased to designateErie Insurance as a Gold Class busi-ness and provide the staff at Erie witha training path that will improve theiroverall operational efficiencies,” saidJoyce Kasmer, I-CAR director ofbusiness development.

Erie Insurance Earns I-CAR Gold Class Professionals Badge




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The city of Houston delayed voting onan ordinance to regulate the automo-tive repair and service industry affect-ing every type of business that touchesa car, whether it’s a body shop, an in-dependent auto repair shop, a dealer-ship or a big store like Wal-Mart.

The council rescheduled the votefor February 15, 2012, after more is-sues were raised at a hearing held onDecember 20, 2011, when the councilwas originally supposed to vote onthis ordinance.

This delay presents some newproblems to both sides lobbying overthe bill—they now have an entirelynew council, sworn in January 3,2012, to update on the issues and con-vince to vote one way or another.

A new list of council membersby district can be seen at www.au-tobodynews.com, find out whichdistrict you reside in by visitinghttp://www.houstontx.gov/plan-ning/2011/index.html. The HoustonAuto Body Association (HABA)would like its members to reach outto the new council and make suretheir opinions on this matter are

heard.Kathryn van der Pol, Past Pres-

ident of ASA, Houston Chapter, andco-owner of Adolf Hoepfl & SonGarage, is working with the HABAon writing their own version of the or-dinance, incorporating what’s goodabout the City’s version to present tothe new council since Houston MayorMayor Annise Parker, wants to passan ordinance on this issue. MayorParker also made some changes to theordinance, and the version that will bevoted on February 15, 2012, can beviewed in its entirety at www.autobo-dynews.com.

“While this ordinance has goodintentions, it paints the entire industrywith one stroke. The proposed ordi-nance stems from an effort to elimi-nate a problem that comes from asmall percentage of unscrupulous col-lision-repair shops, which is one seg-ment of the automotive repair trade.This attempt at a solution will wrap analready difficult business in more redtape,” says van der Pol.

Writing in the Houston Chroni-cle, Van der Pol says there are some

good features for the consumer in thisordinance:

“The ordinance will require allauto-repair facilities to post their li-cense number on their advertising andinvoices so that the consumer willknow which companies are city-li-censed repair facilities.

“It will also require auto-repairfacilities to carry a minimum amountof liability insurance. Currently, thereis no local or state law that requires arepair shop to have insurance. In anuninsured shop, car owners are liablefor anything the garage owner doeswith their car. Good shops alreadypurchase insurance, but virtually allshops that lack integrity will also lackinsurance.

“Giving approval over the phonefor any collision work will be illegaland limits will be placed on certainfees charged by collision shops. Thereis a good reason for this. Repairs re-sulting from accidents usually costthousands of dollars. While we arehesitant to say that the city should setpricing for any private business trans-action, we agree every approval for

collision repair should be in writing.The ordinance includes pages

and pages that regulate how recordswill be kept, how repair shops maygain approvals from customers and es-tablishes fines for sometimes honestmistakes that must be paid to the city.

If this new law takes effect,phone approvals for mechanical workwill be allowed only if the customerprovides a third signature permittingan estimate either to be given orally,in person, or over the phone. Recordsof that approval have to be maintainedfor two years. Automotive profession-als are concerned about this for a fewreasons.

“Our main concern,” continuesvan der Pol, “is that if your car istowed in to a mechanical shop, the fa-cility can’t even look at the car untilthe owner comes in or faxes or emailsa signature. If you are a businessowner with a fleet account, you willhave to email, fax or come to the shopto give approval of authorization or tosign a waiver. This will slow down therepair process and be an inconven-ience for everyone involved.

UPDATE: Houston City Council Delays Vote on Auto Repair Ordinance, Draft Not Favorable to Shops

“Mechanical work is entirely dif-ferent from collision. It differs in thatit’s quick, less costly and customersdepend on our efficiency so they canget their autos back.

The city’s proposal will slowdown this repair process. If it soundscomplicated, it will be even worsewhen customers are confronted withthe legalese. If they refuse to sign thewaiver authorizing estimates byphone, the customer will have to re-turn to the shop, find a fax machine orsend an email.

“While the Automotive ServiceAssociation (ASA) fully supports ef-forts to root out bad players in our in-dustry, we believe this ordinanceoverregulates and will be a burden toour customers who don’t own fax ma-chines, have access to email or have asecond car to come back to the shopfor a signature. This is going to affectsenior citizens, the disabled, thosewith lower incomes, and those whodepend on one vehicle the most.

“Another provision is that no au-thorizations are required for repairsunder $100. As long as your bill is$99.99, the repair shop does not needyour permission to make repairs or

perform maintenance on your vehi-cle. Our concern is that if you aredropping off your car for an oilchange and the technician calls be-cause he determines your coolantneeds to be flushed, the work will ex-ceed $100. Then you will have adelay in repair if you did not sign thewaiver - even though we still havethe two signatures required by thestate. This provision seems unneces-sary and could lead to confusion andabuse.

“If a shop neglects to put the li-cense plate number, vehicle identifi-cation number, or mileage on a workorder, or records it inaccurately, itcould result in a criminal misde-meanor charge with a $200 to $500fine.

“Why do the mayor and somemembers of City Council feel this or-dinance is needed?

“The ASA was told it was neces-sary because there were some badbody shops taking advantage of insur-ance companies, resulting in a rise ofinsurance premiums.

“ASA requested informationthrough an open records request aboutthe complaints so that as an industry,

we could better understand what prob-lems the city is trying to address. Thecomplaints did indeed support thatthere are some bad players in the colli-sion repair industry who are chargingexcessive disassembly fees, adminis-trative fees and are holding carshostage. We were given 257 com-plaints filed over a three-year periodwith the Houston Auto Dealers, a divi-sion of the Houston Police Departmentthat enforces automotive repair facilitylicenses. Of those, 61 complaints con-cerned excessive fees from collisionshops—none from mechanical. It is aproblem, but, “it’s like killing flies witha cannon instead of a flyswatter,” asCouncilmember Jolanda Jones said.

“Last, there is the concern aboutincreased costs of implementation thatwill be passed on to consumers. Allour paperwork will have to change tocomply. Not to mention all our feesand permits were increased this year.For example, in 2011 a Houston auto-motive repair facility license increased147 percent, from $200 to $495.“What do we recommend? Ideally, thecity should create two separate auto-motive licenses, one issued to regulatethe collision industry and another,

simpler one, for the mechanical in-dustry. Many at City Hall acknowl-edge that this would be a real fix, butthere is a rush right now to pass the or-dinance before the end of the year.What’s the rush? ASA has knownabout this proposal for less than ayear, and we have been working dili-gently with the city to help.

The Automotive Service Associ-ation wants City Hall to slow down,listen to both industry and consumersand do it right the first time.

Houston City council also ap-proved changes to the city’s ordinanceon Nov. 30 covering towing compa-nies and auto shops geared toward“trying to make sure that an unhealthyrelationship between the tow truckdrivers and collision repair shops ismonitored more closely,” MayorParker said. “There are lots of reportsthat after accidents, tow trucks may bebeing paid bounties to take cars to par-ticular collision repair shops.”

Other key industry representa-tives, including the Houston AutoBody Association (HABA), applaudsome of the proposed mandates butare quick to say others may end up


See Houston Ordinance, Page 42


When the repair industry (later thanmost) finally moved into the 21st cen-tury and started writing estimates bycomputer, shops and insurance com-panies alike likened computerized es-timating to the advent of the washingmachine. Why a washing machine?

Some of you might be oldenough to remember the days ofwashing your clothes by hand. Al-though I never had the pleasure, I re-call my parents talking about thepainstaking process of washingclothes in a bucket when they werekids. It was an arduous process thatconsumed a lot of your time if you didit right.

I did write estimates by hand andI can assure you that it too was a longpainful process. What made handwrit-ten estimates worse was having to goback and try to translate what youscribbled while clutching a clipboard.

If you are a member of Genera-tion X or Y (or any other letter of thealphabet), you probably can’t relate tothese old-man war stories. That said,I will try to offer a correlation you canappreciate. That’s what we’re sup-posed to do with the younger genera-tion, right? Entertain them and cater tothem and give them a ribbon just forparticipating even if they finished inlast place. So for them: Handwrittenestimates is like having to get up andchange the channel on the TV becauseyou can’t find the remote control.

If you read the title you probablyare wondering what legislation andthe Bible have to do with this article?Well, the Bible is exactly the term re-pairers often use to affectionately referto the estimating guides. Ooops, Imean estimating systems.

If you didn’t understand my at-tempt at sarcasm, then reread the lastsentence. Repairers affectionately re-ferring to the “estimating systems” as

the Bible is my best impression of adisheveled body shop owner who isn’tgetting paid enough to repair a vehi-cle. Let’s be honest: Have you evercomplained about an adjuster holdingthe line on a labor time because that’swhat the estimating system says it is?If I had a nickel for every time a shopcomplained to me about one of mystaff upholding the estimating sys-tems’ labor time, I would already be

retired. (Don’t worry: I won’t be ableto retire for a few more years, whichtranslates into more Insider articles foryour reading pleasure.)

When there is a conflict about thelabor time on an estimate, the Biblebecomes the deciding factor. The HolyEstimating System tells shops and in-surers an approximate time to com-plete a specific repair operation. If theshop wants more time, the adjustersays no. Why? Because the estimatingsystem says so. Do you question thealmighty written word?

Shops hate insurance companiesfor holding the line on the time for aspecific labor operation because

everyone knows it’s just a guide. Eventhe estimating system providers willtell you that they produce merely aguide and not the word of God. Insur-ers should be working with the shopsto discuss and negotiate discrepanciesinstead of hiding behind scripture.

But for every shop who insistsit’s a guide and not the Bible (andcomplaining when it’s used againstthem), others are saying the same

thing but talking out of both sides oftheir mouths. How? Through legisla-tion.

That’s right. Over the past severalyears, shops in some states haveworked fervently to legislate the guideas the Bible. The thing that repairerscurse and despise is actually being putinto law in a few states. Is this thework of a evil genius, a mad scientistor just short-sighted repairers? If wewere on American Idol, I would beasking you to text 3 to vote for short-sighted repairers.

Under some state legislation, theestimating system will serve as thefinal answer to all questions and dis-

crepancies. The legislation states thatone can’t deviate from the informationprovided in the estimating system.

Why would anyone want to man-date legislatively something that isonly a guide, especially consideringthe information about inaccurate labortimes in the guides that has beenbrought to light in the past few years?There are examples of labor times thateventually have been increased by asmuch as 100 percent from the originaltimes in the guide.

Why would repairers do this tothemselves? If you were on FamilyFeud, Richard Dawson would shout,“The survey says: The P-Pages.”

Repairers are fighting back. Theyhave grown tired of being told by in-surers that they don’t pay to mask thedoor jambs or any other non-includedlabor operation. You can almost hearone repairer saying, “Dammit, wewant our 0.2 to mask the jambs,” oranother one stating, “You can’t pickand choose what you want to pay for!”

Their answer to all of this mad-ness: We’ll legislate the use of the es-timating systems. Now insurers willhave to pay us exactly what’s in theestimating system. I could swear I’mwatching, “Shop Owners Gone Wild.”

I offer these words of advice afterdecades of committed service to theinsurance industry: Be careful whatyou ask for, because you just mightget it. You can legislate adding pen-nies to your estimates and lose dollarsin the process.

Instead, advocate for getting paidfor what you do. Don’t advocate leg-islating something that is as accurateas the last estimate you wrote only tohave to add a $3,000 supplement.

Got a comment or question you’dlike to see the Insider address in a fu-ture column? Email him at [email protected].

Legislating the “Bible” Not the Answer for Shops Tired of Being Told “No”with The Insurance Insider

Inside Insurance The Insider is a corporate-level executive with a Top 10 auto insurerin the U.S.. Got a comment or question you’d like to see him addressin a future column? Email him at [email protected]

indicates that the average appraisalvalue has remained flat for at least thelast 7 to 8 years; meanwhile, consumerauto insurance premium costs continueto rise and the Insurance Information

Institute recently reported that privateauto insurance is the most profitableline of insurance coverage in theUnited States.● The insurance industry’s approach toestablishing a singular prevailing laborrate charge for all businesses within amarket fails to recognize the existenceof reasonable variance between com-

petitive businesses.● When the repair shop has enteredinto both the DRP contract with thecarrier, and an authorization to repaircontract with the vehicle owner, it isnot necessarily as simple as insurers“promoting poor quality work,” but itbecomes a question of who has moreinfluence over the repair facility’s de-

cision making in the repair process,and whose interest drives those deci-sions.

In summary, the association statesthat, “the question is not IF insurancecarriers directly impact collision repairmarket pricing, but rather IF their ap-proach and purpose is appropriate. Are

See SCRS, Page 46


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bogging down reputable businesses,slowing their ability to serve cus-tomers.

James Brown, President of theHouston Auto Body Association(HABA), testified before the Mayorand City Council on behalf of HABAon November 29, voicing the HABA’sconcerns with the current language inthe ordinance. Brown was pulled intoa private meeting with the Mayor’sAssistant, the City Attorney, andmembers of HPD Auto Dealers Divi-sion (Capt Baimbridge & Sgt Provost)following his testimony. The meetinglasted around an hour and a half andthe group informed Brown that noneof the latest revisions HABA re-quested would be honored for one rea-son or another.

“We do think there’s a lot of goodthings in there, said Brown to KHOU11 News Houston. “But there are a lotof things that still need some work.There are a lot of things in there thatgive the insurance companies thesame authority as the consumer—the

owner of the vehicle—which wewould like to see taken out.”

“HABA has been working withHPD Auto Dealers Division for over ayear and that has resulted in a lot ofpositive changes,” said Brown,“HABA has also worked closely withASA on the revisions and we havemade a lot of progress but still have aways to go.”

Councilwoman Sue Lovell, whospent a year meeting with auto repairindustry representatives to craft thechanges, said that once a car arrives,some unscrupulous collision repairshops charge more than $1,000 just togenerate an estimate. She brandisheda binder full of complaints to back herassertion that while most merchantsare honest, there have been enoughcases of abuse to warrant the city’s in-tervention. “It’s really about consumerprotection,” she said.

Jeanette Rash, owner of FastTow and leader of a consortium ofwrecker companies that clears free-way breakdowns for the city, sup-ported the revisions in part because itwill allow storage yards to increasedaily rates for the first time in adecade, from $15 to $20.



Houston Ordinance

Meguiar’s Endows 676 Schools with $600K Product DonationThrough Collision Repair Education FoundationMeguiar’s Inc., a 3M Company, hascome to the aid of 676 secondary andpost-secondary collision programsacross the country by donating sets oftheir Unigrit Fine Grade Blending andFinishing Discs through the CollisionRepair Education Foundation. The do-nation, in total equaling a retail valueof $600,000, will ease collision de-partment budgets by providing stu-dents the opportunity to work withup-to-date supplies. The gift fromMeguiar’s helped the largest amountof schools in one donation in the Col-lision Repair Education Foundation’shistory.

“Since 2008, 3M has providedover $2 million in product donationsto the Collision Repair EducationFoundation and these have greatly im-pacted instructor’s ability to properlyinstruct collision students,” statedCollision Repair Education Founda-tion Executive Director, ScottKruger. “On behalf of collision stu-dents and instructors nationwide, wethank Meguiar’s and 3M for their con-tinued support and invite additionalcollision industry businesses to follow3M’s lead in providing product dona-tions to secondary and post-secondarycollision school programs.”

Northern Virginia CommunityCollege (Alexandria, VA) Collision

Repair Instructor Geoffrey Brownsaid, “Thank you so much forMeguiar’s very generous donation.These sorts of donations really helpour program by being able to exposeour students to products and tech-niques that we could not afford to pro-vide out of our limited budget. Thestudents are already excited aboutbeing able to get to use them and arenow looking forward to next semesterwhere I am sure we will put them togood use. Thank you Meguiar’s!”

“Being able to assist in the de-velopment of our nations young pro-fessionals is an extremely gratifyingfeeling and one that our company isproud to be able to take part in” ex-plains John Dillon, Global Vice Pres-ident of Meguiar’s Professional andMarine Division. “We are excited atthe ability of collision repair studentsthat are supported by this foundationto have the opportunity to have firsthand experience with our product andto learn the proper techniques to usethem. It is a complete win-win oppor-tunity for everyone involved.”

Industry members and compa-nies interested in supporting colli-sion programs should contactBrandon Eckenrode at [email protected] or 847-463-5244.

tempt at the position, after losing inthe general election in 1992, 1996 and2000 to Democratic incumbent JimLong.

Causey, a Greensboro native, willrun under the Republican ticket. Hecurrently serves as commissioner onthe North Carolina Public Officers andEmployees Liability Insurance Com-mission and is a member of the Guil-ford County Agricultural AdvisoryBoard. Current Democratic Commis-sioner Wayne Goodwin is also seek-ing re-election.

In an interview in the BeaufortObserver, the interviewer expressed a“high level of frustration of residentsof Beaufort County with the insurancebusiness in our county. Many resi-dents in Beaufort County experiencedsevere problems with insurance com-panies following Hurricane Irene andeven more have experienced difficultyin obtaining satisfactory coverage at areasonable price. We asked him whathe proposed to do about those prob-lems if elected.”

“One of the main reasons I’mrunning is that I want to help peoplewho are having problems with insur-ance companies,” said Causey. “Thatwould be one of my top priorities inbuilding a “customer-oriented” Insur-ance Department. As for the problemof difficulty in getting reasonable cov-erage, particularly comprehensivehomeowners’ and mobile homeown-ers’ policies, I would work with theLegislature to address that problem.One of the specific things I wouldwant to look at is the idea of makingevery policy equally available acrossthe state. That would broaden the riskpool and I think that is something weneed to take a hard look at.” Headded: “we need a more competitiveinsurance industry in North Carolinaand that is another thing I would wantto work on.”

Mike Causey is not to be confusedwith another Mike Causey, who is asenior correspondent for Federal NewsRadio. He covers federal employee payand benefits issues and writes a dailycolumn about these topics.

You can read our Mike Causey’scolumns at autobodynews.com/colum-nists/causey-mike.html.

Continued from Front Page

Candidate Causey

The National Auto Body Council(NABC) held their annual golf eventfundraiser on January 11, 2012, at theTahquitz Creek Golf Resort in PalmSprings, California. A total of 133

golfers registered for the scramble for-mat. The event was able to raise$55,000 this year and was held in con-junction with the NABC’s open boardmeeting, which took place the previ-ous day, January 10, as well as theCollision Industry Conference (CIC),which took place January 11, 12, 13.

The annual fundraising eventplays an integral part in providing theresources that support the organizationin its mission of improving the imageof all dedicated collision industry pro-fessionals because it is a major source

of funding for the group. Not onlydoes it help NABC implement theprograms and activities that define itand give shape to this purpose, it helpsreduce the cost of NABC’s programs

for participants, making them more af-fordable.

The fundraising committee com-prised of current NABC board mem-bers worked together throughout lastyear in setting higher goals and ex-pectations for this year’s golffundraiser, success that translated intoadditional revenue. “Every sponsor-ship opportunity available was takenadvantage of and every golf slot wasfilled equating to the higher revenue,”

stated David Merrell, NABC golfcommittee chair.

“I would like to thank all oursponsors, including presenting spon-sor Hertz Rent-A-Car, for giving the

National Auto Body Council muchneeded support,” said National AutoBody Council Executive DirectorChuck Sulkala. “We are extremelygrateful they find our mission to mag-nify the good works of the industry inthe view of the general public worth-while enough to give so much ofthemselves. It fuels our inspiration tokeep doing what we do in new and in-novative ways.”

The fundraising golf event wasopen to both individuals and teams,and was played using a four-person

scramble format. The event concludedwith a buffet reception, awards cere-mony, and prize package drawings.

An earlier tee off time and a com-plimentary breakfast, together with amore relaxed atmosphere, seemed toresonate with attendees and build addi-tional enthusiasm for the golf fundraiser.

Making the event that much morespecial was a Recycled Rides giftingceremony in which a 1999 Ford FreeStar mini-van was presented to a sin-gle mother of two, Maria Mendez, ahome health care worker from Indio,whose son is disabled. His wheelchairwas difficult for Maria to load into herold station wagon. The Free Star isbetter suited to accommodate it and ismore reliable, relieving Maria of someof the daily stress that is part of herlife. Pacific Collision Centers ofCathedral City, California, was thecollision repair facility responsible forrefurbishing the vehicle, which HertzRent-A-Car provided. Javier Lopez,manager of Pacific Collision Centers,oversaw the project in his shop.

Visit www.autobodycouncil.orgto learn more.


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Multispot MI-100control T squeeze-type resistance welders from Chiefwill make their industry debut at theshow.

Shockwave-equipped SmartLiftinground lifts and two-post surfacelifts are the world’s fastest lifts. Their25-second rise and 19-second descenttimes are twice as fast as traditionallifts’. These DC-powered lifts alsocost less to install and operate, foreven speedier return on investment.Time and motion studies have foundthat Shockwave-equipped lifts candrive an additional $3,259 of profitper bay annually. Rotary Lift will runside-by-side speed demonstrations ofstandard vs. Shockwave-equipped

lifts in NADA Booth 718 throughoutExpo show hours so dealers andfixed operations managers can seethe power of Shockwave for them-selves.

The Elektron Multispot MI-100control T resistance welder is the“smartest” welder on the markettoday. Designed specifically for spotwelding vehicle structural body dam-age to areas manufactured with high-strength and advanced high-strengthsteels, the MI-100control T constantlymonitors the materials being weldedand automatically adjusts the weldingparameters during the repair processto ensure uniformity. The welder de-tects and compensates for interfer-ence factors such as dirt, adhesives orprotective coatings, as well as achange in materials. The welder willeven adjust electrode pressure asneeded.

“Fixed operations remain an im-portant factor in dealer profitability,”says John Rylee, marketing directorfor Rotary and Chief parent companyVehicle Service Group (VSG). “Asdealers increasingly heed OEM sug-

gestions to add express service lanes,improve service times and bring colli-sion repair back ‘in house,’ we’re pro-viding equipment that enables them tomaximize these investments forgreater customer satisfaction andoverall profitability.”

For more information about Shock-wave, visit www.rotarylift.com/shock-wave. To learn more about the full line ofcollision repair equipment from Chief,including Elektron welders, visitwww.chiefautomotivetechnologies.com.You can also find the brands on Face-book, Twitter and YouTube. The RotaryLift booth number is 718.

Rotary Lift is a brand of vehiclelifts and equipment designed to in-crease technician productivity.Founded in 1925 by the inventor ofthe first automotive hydraulic lift, Ro-tary Lift offers the broadest line oflifts for use in professional automo-tive service, commercial truck andtransit, and enthusiast/residential cus-tomer segments. There are more Ro-tary Lift products used in vehiclerepair shops around the world thanany other brand. Chief Automotive

Technologies is one of the world’slargest manufacturers of collision re-pair products and services, includingframe-pulling equipment, vehicle an-choring systems, computerized meas-uring systems, and vehicle framespecifications. Chief is also a providerof comprehensive training on struc-tural analysis, computerized measur-ing, collision theory and design basedrepair. Additionally, Chief is the ex-clusive supplier of Elektron welders,battery chargers and plasma cutters inNorth, Central and South America.

Rotary and Chief are VehicleService Group (VSG) brands. VSGcomprises eight major vehicle liftingand collision repair brands: RotaryLift, Chief Automotive Technologies,Forward® Lift, Direct-Lift®, Hanmec-son®, Revolution® Lift, Blitz® andnogra®. Based in Madison, Ind., VSGhas operations worldwide. VSG ispart of the Engineered Systems seg-ment of Dover Corporation (NYSE:DOV), a multi-billion dollar, globalproducer of innovative equipment,specialty systems and value-addedservices.


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PENNSYLVANIAAlexander Kia

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Brown Daub KiaEaston

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Kia of CoatesvilleCoatesville

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Kia of West ChesterWest Chester

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NEW YORKLazare Kia

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518-458-7550 Ext. 243(518) 458-8154 Fax7:30am-5:30pm Mon-Fri

8am-3pm Satwww.lazarekia.com

Rotary Lift, Chief and Elektron Coming to National Automobile Dealers Association Expo

by SCRS, ASA, AASP

The issue of data ownership is of ever-increasing importance to both con-sumers and businesses as technologyexpands the landscape of digital trade,and the collision repair industry is notimmune to concerns relative to ulte-rior use of business generated data.During the past several decades, theestimating and management systemcompanies have increased their prod-uct offerings beyond core estimatingand management functions for repairfacilities. Their scope of servicespresently includes the collection, gen-eralized aggregation, analysis, andsale or provision of repairer data tothird parties. Collision repairers con-tend that:● The collection of data is unilaterallydemanded as a point of sale require-ment for every estimating system op-tion offered in the market, barringrepairers that wish to provide elec-tronically generated estimates fromhaving the option of keeping theirbusiness data from being utilized forunauthorized purposes.

● The information that is harvestedfrom the collision repairer’s system isbeing used for purposes other thanthose that the subscriber had intendedwhen contracting to use the estimatingsystem software.● The information is used by secondarycustomers in ways that may ultimatelybe detrimental to the subscribing end-user who generated the data.

When this issue was first broachedseveral years ago, one primary re-sponse on the part of the estimatingsystem providers was that the only databeing captured was that obtained viathe upload of Direct Repair (DRP) es-timates, and those end-users had im-plicitly waived any data ownershiprights by agreeing to upload estimatesas a condition of their participation inthe (DRP) program. They also claimthat no privacy rights have been vio-lated since the information is all col-lected in a depersonalized manner, andpresented as an overall aggregation ofdata collected. While we continue tocontest the validity of both positions,the advent of cloud based platforms hasexpanded the data collection potential

to include any businesses utilizing theserver-based programs. It has also ex-panded the potential of data miningfrom only estimating programs to thepossible inclusion of information gen-erated from business management pro-grams or other technology basedservice platforms.

The Information Providersmay seek to reassure the collisionindustry that they have taken allnecessary steps to safeguard re-pairer/consumer information fromdata privacy breaches.

While the data may remain safe-guarded from threats in the traditionalsense of electronic security, the mem-bers of the collision industry remainconcerned that the information is notnecessarily safeguarded from the tech-nology firms themselves who havebuilt in contractual permissions toforce the industry to permit utilizationof the data in ways that were not in-tended or expressly approved by theircustomer base.

We believe it is long overdue forour industry to have the express op-tion to either “Opt In” or “Opt out” of

allowing technology firms to have ac-cess to ancillary uses of our data as apoint of sale requirement to utilize thenecessary tools once intended to aidthe industry in running our busi-nesses.

This statement serves as a publicrequest from the collision repair in-dustry to Audatex, CCC, Mitchell andother technology firms who collectdata. The industry seeks removal ofcontractual clauses within End UserLicense Agreements which requirepermissive access to aggregate andcollect end-user data as a point-of-salerequirement to purchase those pro-grams.

Further, we believe that if a busi-ness is to permit their data to bemined, they should be entitled accessto an annual report specifically indi-cating where that data was used, and alist of parties that received reports uti-lizing data from the user’s system. Webelieve the ability for businesses tochoose participation in the data col-lection process is a reasonable solu-tion, and we look forward to yourresponse.


COLLISION REPAIR PROFESSIONALSEPAIR PROFESSIONALS

Wanted.Wanted.Wanted.VeriFacts Automotive offers quality assessment and coach-ing, plus facility resources verification for collision repairfacilities. VeriFacts is seeking individuals with the followingrequirements:

VeriFacts Coaches will work with progressive shops whilesetting their own flexible schedule as an independentcontractor. Full time and part time openings available inmultiple states.

• Extensive hands on collision repair experience• Teaching experience• Passion for mentoring technicians• Insurance experience is desirable

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SCRS, ASA, AASP Release Joint Statement Regarding the Collection and Reporting of Repairer Business Data


BMW of Turnersville

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Call Direct: (800) 883-0005Fax: (856) 649-7185Call Direct: (800) 883-0005Fax: (856) 649-7185

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Audi Turnersville3400 Route 42, Turnersville, NJ, 08012Parts Direct: (877) 826-2558 Fax: (856) 649-7185 Faxwww.auditurnersville.com Email: [email protected] Manager: Matt GoldsteinHours: Monday – Friday, 8:00 am – 5:00 pm

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The Certified Automotive Parts Asso-ciation is pleased to announce theelection of John Palumbo ofPartsChannel, Inc. and Bill Brower ofLiberty Mutual Insurance to CAPA’sBoard of Directors.

John Palumbo is a widely rec-ognized leader in the collision repairindustry. Palumbo’s 15 years of ex-perience began in 1996 as chief fi-nancial officer at Keystone. Hisresponsibilities included strategicplanning, mergers, acquisitions,banking, insurance, benefits, fi-nance, accounting, tax planning,compliance, and investor relations.John is currently the chief executiveofficer for PartsChannel, Inc., a pri-vately held distributor of aftermarketcollision replacement parts. He re-

ceived his BS degree from CanisiusCollege in Buffalo, New York andgraduated with an executive masterof business administration fromPeter F. Drucker Claremont Gradu-ate University in Claremont, Califor-nia. He is also a certified publicaccountant.

Bill Brower is a highly respectedproperty and casualty claims man-agement professional with extensiveclaims experience and a long estab-lished background in auto physicaldamage claims. Since 2004 Browerhas been the Assistant Vice President& Manager Auto Physical Damagefor Liberty Mutual Insurance. Billgraduated Magna Cum Laude fromFranklin University in Columbus,Ohio in 2005. He is in the process of

studying for his MBA which he ex-pects to complete in 2013. Bill beganhis career as a repair technician at hisfather’s body shop in Liberty, NorthCarolina in the 1970s. He served onCAPA’s Technical Committee for sixyears, holds positions on the PCIPhysical Damage Committee, and isVice Chairman of the I-CAR Boardof Directors.

“CAPA is fortunate to have bothof these gentlemen on the CAPA’sboard. Their expertise and guidancewill be invaluable in our effort to en-sure market has continued access tohigh quality alternative certifiedparts,” said Jack Gillis, ExecutiveDirector of CAPA.

“Our Board provides CAPA witha unique insight into issues facing the

aftermarket parts industry and hascontributed enormously to the na-tion’s foremost part quality certifica-tion program,” he continued. CAPA’sBoard now includes: BobAnderson,Anderson’s Automotive Services;Bill Brower, Liberty Mutual Insur-ance Company; Bill Daly, AllstateInsurance; Warren Farrar, StateFarm Mutual Insurance; JackieGillan, Advocates for Highway andAuto Safety; Jack Gillis, CAPA;John Palumbo, PartsChannel, Inc.;Clark Plucinski, True2Form/Boyd’sGroup; Ed Salamy, K.S.I. TradingCorp.; Ben Steinman, Ben's AutoBody; Mike West, Southtowne AutoRebuild.

For more information pleasevisit www.capacertified.org.

Parts Distributor and Insurer Elected to CAPA’s Board of Directors

we really talking about saving con-sumer’s money, or are we talking

about increasing insurance companyprofits at the expense of their policy-holders and the small businesses whoserve them?”

For more information please visitwww.scrs.com or email [email protected].


SCRS

[email protected] us!write us!write us!

Give us your opinion on matters affecting the industry.

w

with due regard for its insured’s in-

terest.”Furthermore the correspondence

states, in part, “State Farm has de-cided to exercise its rights underFlorida law to avoid unnecessary liti-

gation. Accordingly, enclosed is acheck made payable to you and Ray-mond Gunder in the amount of$1090.70—which is the amount de-manded in the CRN, plus statutory in-

terest. This amount is paid to ensurethat any alleged violations are curedin accordance with the statute ofFlorida law and to preclude unneces-

See Gunder, Page 50


Gunder


of the study’s findings that it wasnever intended to be a statisticallyvalid survey of the industry.

“You can’t project the findings tothe industry as a whole,” he said.

Rather, he said,the committee hireda consultant to domore of a type offocus group: Hour-long conversationalinterviews withmore than 40 indus-try representatives

to develop some sense of the industry’sopinions regarding repair standards.

Though a more in-depth reporton the study’s findings is expectedto be released in the comingmonths, the committee released a21-page summary (posted online athttp://tinyurl.com/7tysey4) of someof the more quantitative findings,the responses to the questions ask-ing participants for yes-or-no orranking responses.

In 42 interviews with shops, in-surers, associations, automakers andsuppliers, the consultant found that all18 shop representatives interviewedsaid they would support the standardseffort; generally less than 65 percentof those in the other segments (whichincluded six shop associations or net-works) concurred.

While not quoting intervieweesdirectly, the report offers a sense ofsome of the comments made. Shopassociation representatives, for exam-ple, questioned what such a programis going to do for shops, and said in-surers should not be in a position toinfluence how vehicles are repaired.Two of the six insurers interviewedalso said that insurers shouldn’t be in-volved and that shops should drivethe effort.

The last question in the draft re-port issued by the committee askedsurvey participants what they see asthe likelihood that the repair standardsinitiative would be implementedwithin the next five years. Thrall saidusing a scale of 1 (no chance) to 4

(definitely), most respondents weresomewhere in the middle.

“It’s leans toward ‘likely’ (a 3 onthe survey’s scale), but it’s more ‘per-haps (a 2 on the scale),’” Thrall said.“So people definitely aren’t sure itwill be possible to implement thiswithin the next five years.”

CIC Participants Speak OutThough the discussion that followedthe committee’s report at CIC, held inJanuary in Palm Springs, Calif., in-cluded some discussion of the issueof standards, much of it focused oncriticism or defense of the researchstudy itself.

Some of the CIC participantswho spoke included:● Aaron Schulenburg, executive di-rector of the Society of Collision Re-pair Specialists (SCRS), who said hefelt the survey questions seemed lessfocused on “determining the appetiteof the industry” for a formalized stan-dard program and more on “carvingout the menu.” He said the consultant,in addition to the 42 interviews, par-ticipated in a conference call withmore than a dozen of SCRS state af-filiate groups. “I think it was veryclear from our folks on that call that(standards) are something that is valu-able to be done by collision repairersfor collision repairers, but that therewas skepticism of having involve-ment among entities such as insur-ance carriers involving theestablishment of repair standards.”● Paul Massey of Ford Motor Com-pany said that although OEM repair

procedures are thelogical basis forrepair standards,it’s really up toshops, insurersand consumers todecide if there’svalue in develop-ing a formalized

standards program. The study, hesaid, didn’t answer the questions hethinks the industry needs to ask itself.“At the end of the day, if you put instandards would a lot more customerschoose you over the next guy,”Massey said. “If you put in standards,do you run a better, more competitive

and profitable business? And if youput in standards will the insurancecompanies use you versus the otherguy?”● Steve Nantau of Ford said hethinks many shops misunderstand“repair standards” as just dealing withthe process of the actual repair, whenhe and the committee envision a moreinclusive program that includes stan-dards for training and equipment, anda third-party certification or auditingentity like one in the United King-dom. “If you don’t have a third-partydoing this, I can guarantee you thatthe OEMs are going to have certifica-tion programs for independentshops,” Nantau said. “We’re seeingthat already. And it’s not going to beopen to just anyone who’s qualifies.They’re going to be chosen. If youqualify and you weren’t a chosen one,you’re not going to be able put a (cer-tified) sign above your door like youcould if the industry created a third-party that certifies all who qualify.”● Consultant Matt Ohrnstein ofSymphony Advisors urged proponentsof standards development not to

“allow intermedi-aries to profit bytaxing collision re-pair shops aroundthe country fortraining, certifica-tion, OE-specificequipment andthird-party verifi-

cation.”● Committee member and currentCIC chairman Mike Quinn empha-sized that the committee sees thestudy as information-gathering, not a

license to pushsomething for-ward. “This con-versation is thebeginning ofmany conversa-tions,” he said.“There’s no plansof any kind to

move this forward any further fromthis study. It’s up to the industry to de-cide what happens next.”

I-CAR promises responseAlso at the CIC meeting in Palm

Springs, I-CAR CEO John Van Al-styne said his organization hopes torespond by April to a joint requestfrom multiple repairer associationsthat I-CAR play a role in standardsformation.

Last fall, a number of industryassociations issued a statement call-

ing published au-tomaker repairprocedures the“official industry-recognized repairstandards for col-lision repair.” Inthe statement, thegroups acknowl-

edged that OEM repair procedures are“incomplete in comparison to the fullscope of vehicles and repair opera-tions that exist in the marketplace,”but they should serve as a baselinefrom which further development ofprocedures occur.

The associations called on I-CARto create an industry council “to iden-tify gaps in existing OEM procedures”and to develop processes to closethose gaps, vetting any industry-pro-posed alternatives, modifications oradditions to OEM procedures.

At CIC in Palm Springs, Van Al-styne reiterated what he said last fall,that he sees merit in the proposalgiven I-CAR’s current involvementwith the automakers. But he also hassaid I-CAR’s board must decide whatrole it’s appropriate for the organiza-tion to play, and that he has person-ally been in touch with I-CARstakeholders to gather feedback.

He said the I-CAR board’s“strategic planning committee” willreview that compiled feedback andmake a recommendation to theboard—with a decision, he said,likely by CIC’s April 25-26 meetingin Oklahoma City, Okla.

John Yoswick, a freelance writerbased in Portland, Oregon, who hasbeen writing about the automotive in-dustry since 1988, is also the editorof the weekly CRASH Network (for afree 4-week trial subscription, visitwww.CrashNetwork.com). He can becontacted by email at:[email protected].


CIC Palm Springs

Russ Thrall

Paul Massey

Matt Ohrnstein

John Van Alstyne

Mike Quinn


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ASRW | NACE | CARS is committedto meeting the needs of collision re-pair and automotive service profes-sionals. The ASRW ConferenceProgram has a long and rich history ofbringing industry experts and profes-sional speakers to the ASRW atten-dees with important, relevant andleading edge information.

ASRW attendees depend on theseminars to keep them motivated, cur-rent with technology and industrytrends, expand their horizons and ex-plore new opportunities.

If you are an industry speaker,subject matter expert or professionalspeaker interested in helping collisionrepair and automotive service profes-sionals grow and prosper, you are in-vited to submit your presentation(s)for consideration to be included in the2012 ASRW Conference Program.

The expos will take place Octo-ber 10 through 13, 2012 at the MorialConvention Center in New Orleans,LA. Sessions are selected to fit one ofthe following tracks: Management,Technical or Women’s ProfessionalDevelopment. Time slots available forthe sessions are 90 minutes or 3 hours.All 3 hour sessions are scheduled for

Wednesday, Oct. 10. The 90 minutesessions will be scheduled forWednesday, Oct. 10 through Saturday,Oct. 13. Presenters should be avail-able to speak on any day of the con-ference.

All presentations selected for theManagement and Women’s Profes-sional Development tracks will besubmitted to the Automotive Manage-ment Institute (AMI) for approval andattendees will receive AMI credits fortheir participation.

The deadline for submitting pre-sentations is Friday, February 10th.Show Management and the ASRWconference planning committee willreview all proposals and base evalua-tions on originality of proposal, pastspeaker performance or references,timeliness of topic, practical applica-tion of concepts or information,and/or relevance of content to the col-lision repair and automotive serviceindustries. Final selections will bemade by Show Management. Speak-ers must agree to meet deadline re-quirements with a signed speakeragreement. Please go to www.nace-expo.com to submit presentations forconsideration.

ASRW Calling For Presenters at NACE/CARS 2012

Solera Holdings, Inc. a leading globalprovider of software and services tothe automobile insurance claims pro-cessing industry, announced a newagreement making Solera the exclu-sive preferred global provider of auto-mobile insurance claims processingsoftware and services for Allianz SE,a leading global financial servicesprovider.

Solera’s mission with this agree-ment is to provide Allianz with essen-tial software solutions, data servicesand support in 28 markets in which Al-lianz and Solera work together and tocontinue to focus on innovative prod-ucts and services that help motor in-surance policy holders receive a worldclass claims handling experience.

“It is a real privilege to beawarded this exclusive agreement byAllianz. We are very excited about Al-lianz’s commitment to innovation andthe importance it places on technol-ogy. As its exclusive preferred globalprovider of automotive claims soft-ware and services, we will work tire-lessly to enhance its global valueproposition. The Allianz commitment

to global growth and approach to stan-dardize processes while giving its op-erating entities the freedom to buildlocal businesses is one we admire andfollow at Solera. This agreement is thesingle largest global agreement Solerahas ever signed and will create sub-stantial value for Allianz and Solera,”said Tony Aquila, founder, Chairmanand CEO of Solera. “The agreementwill continue to strengthen relation-ships among our respective local com-panies, resulting in an acceleration ofbenefits for all stakeholders.”

Pursuant to the agreement, Solerawill provide Allianz with essentialsoftware solutions, data services andsupport. At the same time, Solera willbe able to work closely with Allianz ata global and local level both on prod-uct development and delivery at thelocal country level. There will also beenhanced cooperation agreements be-tween the local Allianz companies andlocal Solera companies, including es-tablishing a framework for new agree-ments in countries where the two localcompanies did not have an agreementpreviously.

Solera Announces Global Cooperation With AllianzThree Developments Shaping 2011 AftermarketThree major forces emerged whichdrove 2011 aftermarket growth andwill continue to shape the car and lighttruck aftermarket for many years.

More Product Use Per VehicleDuring 2011, aftermarket product vol-ume for the average car and light truckin the U.S. increased approximately3%. This drove-up total aftermarketlight vehicle product sales at a timewhen total miles declined and car andlight truck population was stagnant.

This is the second consecutiveyear of increased product use per ve-hicle and reverses a trend of dimin-ishing product consumption by thetypical car and light truck in the U.S.between 2000 and 2009.

Foreign Nameplate JuggernautLang Marketing, in its preliminaryanalysis, estimates foreign nameplatesgenerated nearly two-thirds of car andlight truck product expansion in theU.S. during 2011 at user-price.

With foreign nameplates ac-counting for over 50% of new vehiclesales since 2008, conditions are set forcontinued foreign nameplate after-market growth. Soaring gas pricesduring first half of 2008 sent foreign

nameplate share soaring from 50% tomore than 56% of new vehicle vol-ume in just a few months.

Cash For Clunkers ignited a sec-ond-stage of foreign nameplate salesgrowth during the third quarter of2009, when foreign cars and lighttrucks posted a record-high 58% newvehicle share.

However, the 2011 tsunamicaused production problems for manyJapanese carmakers and also createdparts shortages. To compound matters,Toyota experienced safety and qualityproblems in 2011 which drove-downtheir U.S. sales. The likelihood ofhigher 2012 gas prices and returningto normal supplies of Japanese carsand light trucks in Dealer lots and afading of Toyota’s negative consumerperceptions will combine to boost for-eign nameplate 2012 sales share.

Independent Service Outlet StrengthAll light vehicle service market(DIFM) product growth during 2011was generated by Independent (non-Dealer) car and light truck Serviceoutlets. This marks the third consecu-tive year in which non-Dealer outletsexpanded their light vehicle aftermar-ket product share.


The following dealerships are eager to serve your needs.Call your local Subaru collision parts specialist today!

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surers shall report the results of anylabor rate survey within 30 days to thedepartment which will in turn make theresults available. The survey informa-tion will include names and addressesof the auto body shops and the totalnumber of shops surveyed. The 16 cur-rent unfair claims settlement practicesdetailed in Section 790.03(h) of the Cal-ifornia Insurance Code will be prohib-ited, including ‘failing to the attempt ingood faith to effectuate prompt, fair,and equitable settlements of claims’.

Following are selected quotesfrom the proposed language:

“A survey, conducted pursuant toInsurance Code section 758, shall notbe used to cap or reduce the labor ratecharged on an estimate or repair orderprepared by the claimant’s chosen autobody repair shop or to support the pre-sumption of reasonableness of an in-surers’ adjustment of a written estimateprovided by a claimant.

“Nothing in these regulations shallpreclude an insurer from voluntarily ne-gotiating and/or contracting with an au-

tomobile repair facility for a specificlabor rate.

“Nothing in these regulations shallrequire an insurer to conduct an autobody labor rate survey.

“Nothing in these regulations shallrequire the insurer to use the postedlabor rate of a shop surveyed.

“the Department may considerthis survey in determining whether aninsurer has offered a fair and reason-able claims settlement and/or whetherthe insurer has supported the reason-ableness of its adjustment of a writtenestimate provided by a claimant.

“the Department will not considerany survey submitted to the Depart-ment more than one calendar year priorto the date of the written estimate pro-vided by the claimant.

“the insurer must survey allknown auto body repair shops licensedto perform collision repairs by the Bu-reau of Automotive Repair in a specificgeographic area. All [qualifying] shopsthat respond to the survey shall be usedto determine the prevailing auto bodyrate in that geographic area.

“The survey shall only use laborrates of auto body repair shops licensedby the Bureau of Automotive Repair

“An insurer may only use laborrates in a survey reported by shops thatmeet specific standards. (see full textfor standards).

“the following non-public infor-mation shall be separately included inany submission to the Department:

(1) the labor rate reported by eachshop that responded to the survey;

(2) the name and address of eachshop sent a survey, but did not respondtothe survey, reported for each geo-graphic area surveyed;

(3) a copy of the survey question-naire used to survey the auto body re-pair shops.

(g) For purposes of a survey com-pliant with this section, “prevailingauto body rate” means the greater of:(1) the mean average labor rate chargedby auto body repair facilities in the spe-cific geographic area or, (2) the rate, ator below which, the majority of sur-veyed shops charge in a specific geo-graphic area. Other statistical methodsmay be used by an insurer if they areapproved by the Department.”

“If an insurer submits a surveypursuant to this section, the Depart-ment may require the insurer to submita public version

“Insurers shall not use any dis-counted rate negotiated or contractedwith members of its Direct Repair Pro-gram, or any other Direct Repair Pro-gram... as part of a labor rate survey”

“a geographic area used by an in-surer in a survey shall be no smallerthan a United States Postal Service ZipCode and shall not be larger than athirty (30) mile radius from the centerof the geographic area being surveyed.”

SteeringWith regard to Steering, supplementallanguage is added to the InsuranceCode Section 758.5, expanding the def-initions a claimant has chosen an auto-motive repair dealer when the claimanthas specified to the insurer a specificautomotive repair dealer... which he orshe wishes to repair the vehicle.

“Suggest or recommend” meansthat the insurer has communicated thename or names of one or more auto-motive repair dealers, has requestedthat the claimant choose a shop that isdifferent than the shop chosen by theclaimant. or communicates any infor-mation to the claimant which is relevantonly to the choice of the automotive re-


CADOI

See CADOI, Page 51

sary litigation. Again, State Farm’spayment should not be construed asan admission of any wrongdoing orliability on the part of State Farmwho denies any liability, as well asthe standing of Mr. Gunder to pursueany claims, but exercise of its rightunder Florida law to avoid protracted,vexatious litigation.”

On receiving the news from hisattorney, Ray Gunder said, “I amelated that State Farm has chosen tostep up and pay what was due ourcustomer and that State Farm electedto settle rather than proceed with along drawn-out and costly litigation.

The word “vexation” means harass-ing; and/or annoying as if the settle-ment was settled merely as a nuisanceclaim. I’ve never once found wherean insurer has ever overpaid a claimand they didn’t in this matter either.They knew what they owed and whyand that they would lose if it went infront of jury. They also knew, theywould surely incur additional and sig-nificant legal costs and interest just asthey have in the past. I don’t carewhat they say their motivation was aslong as they pay us so we can pay ourteam-members for every drop ofsweat they drop in the repair of ourcustomer’s vehicles.”

“It will be interesting to see howthe other three active lawsuits we


Gunder

See Gunder, Page 51

The CA/NV/AZ Automotive Whole-salers Association (CAWA) an-nounced their response to a letter ofopposition to “imitation” or aftermar-ket crash parts legislation written bythe Alliance of Automotive Manufac-turers, CA New Car Dealers Associa-tion, California Autobody Associationand Consumer Attorneys of CA to CAsenators and assembly members onDecember 5.

The letter sent by these organiza-tions to their senators and assemblymembers states; “The above-identi-fied organizations and signatorieswrite to inform you of their collectiveopposition to legislation that promotesnon-OEM (original equipment manu-facturer) crash parts as the functionalequivalent of OEM parts. [Nonorigi-nal Equipment Manufacturer (Non-OEM) crash parts are parts made by aparty other than the original car man-ufacturer without the dimensions, de-sign specifications, tolerances or otherinformation known to the originalequipment manufacturer.]

“Existing law requires insurersthat compel consumers to accept non-OEM parts when vehicles are repairedto inform consumers that “imitation”parts will be used and to warrant the“imitation” parts are “oflike kind,quality, safety, fit and performance” asOEM parts. For years, the insuranceindustry and off-shore, aftermarketparts industry have tried to weaken thelaw so they may compel unsuspectingconsumers to accept inferior non-EOM parts.

“We support existing law and opposeefforts to weaken it for the followingreasons:● Existing law promotes disclosureand fair repair practices.● Too many non-OEM parts are

clearly inferior to OEM parts. For ex-ample, see the Bureau of AutomotiveRepair study on this issue. Also, Con-sumer Reports has debunked the ar-gument that aftermarket “tin” parts arecomparable to OEM parts.● Use of non-OEM parts may impairwarranties and reduce the value ofused vehicles.● Vehicles are increasingly complex,designed to dissipate crash energy bycollapsing as engineered, and rely onmultiple sensors to immediately de-ploy airbags upon contact. The use of“imitation” parts may impair thesehighly-integrated functions and en-danger passengers.“If approached to author legislation to

unfairly promote the use of “imita-tion” crash parts, please contact us.We request the opportunity to discussthis important consumer protectionissue with you before introduction.”

The CAWA responded by releas-ing a statement that reads, inpart, “For the first time, in ourmemories history, the car manu-facturers and their new car deal-ers have joined with the triallawyers and a sister aftermarketorganization, the California Au-tobody Association, to collec-tively suggest to legislators thataftermarket replacement partsare inferior, imitation and theiruse could negatively impactwarranties and compromise mo-torist safety.“In reviewing the enclosed let-ter, notice the disparaging re-

marks about replacement parts, andrecall that a legislator does not distin-guish, in their minds, between crash orhard parts as manufactured and dis-tributed by the aftermarket. Please

know that CAWA will continue to de-fend the aftermarket’s reputation as anecessary option that is in the publicgood when it comes to replacementparts and service. We will continue todrive home our quality, availabilityand competitive advantage with legis-lators and their staffs through meet-ings, in district visits to parts stores andwarehouses, in our everyday processesof lobbying on behalf of our industryand in our political action funding.“This new and bolder attack by the carcompanies and their new car dealerswill not go unnoticed and will be chal-lenged with the resources available tous. Rest assured CAWAwill continue topromote and protect the interests of theaftermarket industry and your ability todo business in the states we represent.Please contact [email protected] or800.332.2292, ext. 1 should you haveany immediate questions or commentsregarding this recent miss-representa-tion of aftermarket parts and service.”

Please see www.cawa.org for moreinformation.


2011 Juke

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Sales Rebound and Mix Change For New VehiclesCar and light truck 2011 sales in theU.S. continued to rebound, up nearly1.2 million units in annual sales overthe previous year. Nevertheless, thenew light vehicle market in the U.S.has a long way to go to match thenearly 17 million annual sales aver-aged between 1999 and 2007.

Domestic Nameplates Gain ShareGeneral Motors, Ford and Chrysler in-creased their combined sales 15.1%,besting by half the overall 10.3% gainin new vehicle 2011 volume. Chryslerfinished the year strong, up more than26%; while General Motors recorded13% sales growth during 2011, withFord climbing 11%.

Korean Nameplates Pass GermansHyundia and Kia combined for a26.5% increase in 2011 volume, nearlynine times stronger growth than allother foreign nameplates. The strengthof Hyundia and Kia is underscored bytheir passing German nameplates intotal U.S. unit volume. Just four yearsago (2007), German light vehicle U.S.sales topped Korean volume by morethan 35%.

Toyota and Honda Volume Down2011 was a down year for Toyota and

Honda which together shed more than200,000 vehicles in 2011 volume fromtheir combined 2010 sales. During No-vember and December, however, Toy-ota posted a 3% increase; while Hondacontinued to struggle. Nissan, on theother hand, had a strong 2011, up 15%.

Rebounding Foreign ShareWith Toyota and Honda likely to re-bound in 2012 and continued stronggrowth from Korean and Germannameplates, Lang Marketing expectsforeign nameplate 2012 share will turnupward, returning to approximately55% of light vehicle 2012 volume.

Historic Mileage Downturn in 2011Mileage by all types of vehicles onU.S. roads will suffer at least a 1.3%decline, with car and light truckmileage down even more. This will bethe second largest U.S. mileage plungein more than 55 years (since WW II).

Traditional Growth Drivers AbsentAftermarket car and light truck growthin the U.S. traditionally has been pro-pelled by two factors: an increasingnumber of light vehicles on U.S. roads,and more miles driven by cars andlight trucks. In 2011, neither of thesetwo growth factors were in play.

have filed against State Farm on be-half of our customers turn out,” con-tinued Gunder. “There are anadditional 25 more in line behindthose which are ripe to be filed forsimilar issues. We’ll just keep pound-ing that rock!”


Gunder

pair dealer. The insurer shall not com-municate false, deceptive, or misleadinginformation to the claimant. including,but not limited to:

A. Advising the claimant that theclaim payment will be reduced by alower labor rate, when the insurer hasnot· conducted an Auto Body RepairRate Survey.

B. Advising the claimant that an in-spection of the vehicle will occur at a datethat is later than the reasonable time nec-essary to inspect the damaged vehicle.

C. Advising the claimant that theautomobile repair dealer chosen by theclaimant has a record of poor service orpoor repair quality, or of other similarallegations against the dealer, withoutclear documentation in the claim filesupporting these statements.

D. Requesting or requiring that theclaimant have the vehicle inspected ator by an automobile repair dealer wherethe insurer has a DRP or by any otherautomobile repair dealer identified bythe insurer, after the claimant has cho-sen an automobile repair dealer.


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The National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration (NHTSA) released astatement January 20 regarding theconclusion of its safety defect investi-gation into the post-crash fire risk ofChevy Volts (PE11037).

The National Highway TrafficSafety Administration closed itssafety defect investigation into the po-tential risk of fire in Chevy Volts thathave been involved in a serious crash.Opened on November 25, theagency’s investigation has concludedthat no discernible defect trend existsand that the vehicle modifications re-cently developed by General Motorsreduce the potential for battery intru-sion resulting from side impacts.

NHTSA remains unaware of anyreal-world crashes that have resultedin a battery-related fire involving theChevy Volt or any other electric vehi-cle. NHTSA continues to believe thatelectric vehicles show great promiseas a safe and fuel-efficient option forAmerican drivers. However, as the re-ports released in conjunction with theclosure of the investigation today in-dicate, fires following NHTSA crash

tests of the vehicle and its batterycomponents—and the innovative na-ture of this emerging technology—ledthe agency to take the unusual step ofopening a safety defect investigationin the absence of data from real-worldincidents.

Based on the available data,NHTSA does not believe that ChevyVolts or other electric vehicles pose agreater risk of fire than gasoline-pow-ered vehicles. Generally all vehicleshave some risk of fire in the event ofa serious crash. However, electric ve-hicles have specific attributes thatshould be made clear to consumers,the emergency response community,and tow truck operators and storagefacilities. Recognizing these consid-erations, NHTSA has developed in-terim guidance—with the assistanceof the National Fire Protection Asso-ciation, the Department of Energy,and others—to increase awarenessand identify appropriate safety meas-ures for these groups.

For additional information on theVolt investigation and others, visitwww.SaferCar.gov.

National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration(NHTSA) Concludes Chevy Volt Investigation

Mitchell, a San-Diego-basedprovider of technology, connectivityand information solutions to theProperty & Casualty claims and Col-lision Repair industries, announcedthe winner of Mitchell’s Get-a-LifeDream Vacation contest held in 2011.

Mitchell’s RepairCenter™ teampresented Gabrielle Kephart ofWicklunds CARSTAR and Glass inLiberty, MO with a check totaling$5,000 in late December 2011, for anall expenses paid trip to Maui,Hawaii. RepairCenter is the indus-try’s first Shop Workspace™ solutionthat manages the repair, the customer,and the business, all from a singlepersonalized workspace, helpingbody shops manage their businessesso well that they have time to “get alife.”

“Congratulations to WicklundsCARSTAR for winning Mitchell’sGet-a-Life Dream Vacation,” saidJim O’Leary, Mitchell’s Vice Presi-dent of Repair Solutions. “We arepleased to empower shop employeesto ‘get a life’ by simplifying every as-pect of complex auto collision repair

business environments. Mitchell’sRepairCenter auto shop managementsoftware streamlines key repair

processes to help body shops be moreefficient.”

O’Leary added, “We believe thata trusted partnership―founded onlistening, responsiveness and collab-oration―is the cornerstone ofMitchell’s and our clients’ success,

and we will continue building on thevalue we deliver to the collision re-pair industry.”

“I’m thrilled that I wonMitchell’s Get-a-Life dream vacation– I couldn’t believe that I won,” saidKephart, Collision Repair Consultantfor Wicklunds CARSTAR. “MitchellRepairCenter is a great program thathelps me daily in my job, from man-aging and navigating through files toget info on a certain file. I’m lookingforward to having an amazing time inMaui with my mother.”

RepairCenter is the industry’sfirst Shop Workspace, building on thestrength of Mitchell’s market-leadingbusiness management systems, repairinformation content, and customersatisfaction services functionality.RepairCenter’s flexible design allowsauto body shops to select the toolsthey need to create a customizedWorkspace that meets their exactneeds, and then add modules as theirbusinesses evolve.

To learn more about Repair-Center and Mitchell’s other solutionsfor collision repair facilities please

fill out the contact us form onMitchell.com or contact yourMitchell representative.

Wicklunds CARSTAR & Glassof Liberty, MO was the FirstCARSTAR Franchisee. Founded onthe principle of raising the standardsof the collision repair industry, Wick-lunds CARSTAR Collision RepairCenter must meet strict requirementsconcerning quality of work, trainingand customer satisfaction. WicklundsCARSTAR & Glass has earned TheCARSTAR President’s PlatinumAward for Excellence in CustomerSatisfaction. Customers have givenWicklunds a Customer SatisfactionIndex Rating of 97% or greater sincethe program’s inception in 2002.Quality repairs combined with an ex-ceptional warranty and excellent cus-tomer service. For more information,visit www.wicklundscarstar.com.

For more information aboutMitchell, visit www.mitchell.com.

Mitchell Announces Wicklunds CARSTAR as Winner of Get-a-Life Dream Vacation

Receiving Mitchell’s Get-a-Life Dream Vacationcontest prize from Stephan Brisard, Director ofProduct Marketing, Mitchell Repair Solutions,right, are (from left): Rochelle Wicklund,Collision Repair Consultant, Gerald Wicklund,Owner/General Manager, Gabrielle Kephart,Collision Repair Consultant at WicklundCARSTAR and Glass, the winner of the tripto Maui, Hawaii


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On Tuesday, December 20th, theAuto Angels group, in associationwith The Mid Florida chapter ofthe Florida Auto Body CollisionAlliance (FACA), presented 12 re-conditioned vehicles to a dozen

local families to make for very spe-cial Christmas for all involved.

Cheers and tears eruptedthroughout the ceremony as keys tonewly reconditioned vehicles werepresented and the pre-selected and

notified men, women and childrenwere led to their newly recondi-tioned vehicle by an Auto Angel.

David Stewart, this year’sAuto Angels Chairman stated: “Get-ting twelve vehicles ready turned

out to be a massive undertak-ing and couldn’t have beenaccomplished without thehard work and resources ofmany dedicated professionals.But the sacrifices paled incomparison to the feeling ofaccomplishment each of usfelt in seeing the faces of therecipients. It was amazing andthe true spirit of Christmasgiving was felt by all. A spe-cial thank you to the Auto An-gels’ committee, whomwithout their hard work anddedication, this very worth-while program couldn’t have

been possible.”The Auto Angel’s committee

members include:

● David Stewart, Chairman, Stew-art’s Auto Repair

● Ray Gunder, Past Chairman,Gunder’s Auto Center● Barrett Smith, Auto DamageExperts, Inc.● Cherri Surrency, Stewart’s Auto

Repair● Nick McLeisch, Maurice’s BodyShop/Towing● Doc Jenkins, Jenkins LincolnMercury Collision Center● Michael Meisner, Meisner’sPaint and Body● Paul Hawk, Bernie’s Body Shop● Mike Maskolunas, Bartow Ford

For more information or onhow to participate in next year’sAuto Angels program, contactDavid Stewart at:[email protected] orcall (863) 965-2030.

To contact FACA, go towww.facafl.org.

Florida’s Auto Angels Host Second Annual Vehicle Giveaway, Planning for 2013

12 reconditioned vehicles lined the entrance to VictoryChurch in Lakeland, FL, awaiting their new, very appre-ciative owners

Excited families tried out their new rides Excited families tried out their new rides

The families chosen to receive these vehicleswaited as each car was matched up to thefamily it would go home with


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The Commercial Vehicle SolutionsNetwork (CVSN) and the Heavy DutyDistribution Association (HDDA) an-nounced a collaborative agreement de-signed to strengthen the independentheavy duty distributor aftermarket. Theannouncement was made at a pressconference at the opening of HeavyDuty Aftermarket Week at The MirageHotel in Las Vegas, NV.

Organization leaders explainedthat while both groups will remain sep-arate and distinct entities, they willshare a number of benefits and pro-grams by virtue of HDDA’s segmentaffiliation with the Automotive After-market Industry Association (AAIA).These include market research, publicrelations, communications, education,governance, publications and legisla-tive and regulatory affairs.

The collaboration will be a majorstep in expanding AAIA’s involvementin the commercial vehicle aftermarketthrough a closer and stronger partner-ship with CVSN, according to AAIA.

“AAIA is extremely pleased towork more closely with CVSN, whichwill help expand our association’s foot-print in the overall motor vehicle after-market,” said Kathleen Schmatz,AAIA

president and CEO. “We have seen therecent benefits of collaborating on leg-islative issues so this greater ‘comingtogether’ will be a real win-win.”

“CVSN shares common goals withHDDAandAAIAfor the success of ourindustry segment through education,growing strategic relationships with oursupplier partners, and a strong activismto counter unfair competition and regu-lations that threaten us,” said MarcKaron, of CVSN and Total Truck Parts.“For the first time in 45 years, the inde-pendent heavy duty aftermarket willspeak with one strong voice.”

“CVSN has found that partneringwith HDDA and AAIA has deliveredpositive results,” said Karon. “We havefound true synergy in working togetheron projects like Heavy Duty Aftermar-ket Week and the CVSN LegislativeSummit that have benefited our mem-bers and the industry.”

“The greater collaboration be-tween CVSN and HDDA will leveragethe economies of scale from greater ac-cess to the valuable resources atAAIA,”said Dave Scheer, HDDA chair andpresident and CEO, Inland Truck Parts.“This new ‘coming together’ willstrengthen all three associations.”

Heavy Duty Aftermarket Associations Join Forces

On January 12, BMW announced thatthe company will invest nearly $900Million and add 300 new jobs in 2012in its South Carolina plant. This an-nouncement was made during a cere-mony to commemorate a majorproduction milestone—2,000,000 ve-hicles have rolled off the assemblyline since the company began U.S.production in 1994.

Frank-Peter Arndt, BMWGroup Board Member responsible forProduction, revealed the company’sintention to expand its X-model fam-ily. He revealed that production of thenew BMW X4 will occur at the Spar-tanburg plant, spurring significant in-vestment and job creation necessary toprepare the facility for the new model.

“I am delighted to announcetoday, over the next three years, weplan to invest nearly $900 Million U.S.dollars. With this investment, we willbe able to produce 350,000 units herein the mid-term,” said Arndt. “This isone reaction to the rising global de-mand for our BMW X Models.”

Governor Nikki Haley spoke atthe ceremony saying, “BMW has once

again provided tremendous evidencethat South Carolina is a blueprint forsignificant economic developmentsuccess. The partnership between thiscompany and our State is an enduringexample of how to attract, retain andgrow business to stimulate perpetualjob creation.”

“Two million vehicles have pre-pared our team well to meet the newopportunities that lie ahead for ourplant. We look forward to a newmodel with great anticipation. Fornearly 20 years, this team has alwaysproven their steadfast commitment toproducing quality vehicles for ourcustomers around the world,” re-marked Josef Kerscher, President ofBMW Manufacturing.

“I am thrilled to celebrate the twomillionth BMW today,” said BobbyHitt, Secretary of Commerce forSouth Carolina. “BMW’s impact onSouth Carolina’s economy and over-all competitiveness is always worthcelebrating. This new economic in-vestment and commitment of jobs is atestament to South Carolina’s strongautomotive manufacturing industry.”

With the addition of 300 newjobs this year the plant will raise pro-duction capacities up to 300,000 units.By the end of the year, the plant willemploy nearly 7,500 people at itsmore than 4.0 million square foot fa-cility. Since the original 1992 decisionto build BMW’s only U.S. plant inSouth Carolina, this announcementbrings BMW Group’s total investmentin the state to nearly $6 Billion U.S.dollars and represents its largest, sin-gle investment to date in its SouthCarolina plant.

In 2011, the plant produced276,065 vehicles for over 130 marketsaround the world representing a 73%increase versus 2010. Seventy percentof the vehicles produced (192,813)were exported making BMW thelargest automotive exporter to thenon-NAFTA countries. Sales of thevehicles produced at the plant havemet with continued high demand. Ac-cording to Arndt, throughout theworld, more that 117,000 X3’s weresold in 2011 representing a 156%growth of this vehicle versus its pred-ecessor.

The 2 millionth vehicle to roll offthe line in Spartanburg was a Vermil-lion Red Metallic X3 xDrive35idriven by BMW Associate TerryGardner, a 16-year BMW veteran.Accompanying the driver, were asso-ciates: Renita Williams, TrungPhan and Olga Yurchenko. Theseassociates represent teams from eachof the plant’s manufacturing tech-nologies: Body, Paint and Assembly.While all vehicles are custom orderedprior to production, this symbolic ve-hicle will remain on display at theSpartanburg Plant to commemoratethe milestone.

Also making remarks at the mile-stone event were German Ambassadorto the United States Peter Ammon,United States Congressman TreyGowdy and Spartanburg CountyCouncil Chairman Jeffrey Horton.

Since 1994, the plant has under-gone four major expansions and pro-duced 6 different BMW models.Employment has grown from 500 in1994 to more than 7,000 today. Visitwww.bmwusfactory.com for more in-formation.

BMWAnnounces Nearly $900 Million Investment, Adding 300 Jobs at its South Carolina Plant


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Nissan and Daimler to Produce Engines Together at Nissan’s Tennessee PlantIn the latest step forward in the col-laboration of the Renault-Nissan Al-liance and Daimler, Nissan’s Decherd,Tenn., plant will build Mercedes-Benz4-cylinder engines for Infiniti andMercedes-Benz starting in 2014.

Nissan and Daimler will produceMercedes-Benz 4-cylinder gasolineengines together at Nissan’s power-train assembly plant in Decherd, Tenn.Production will begin in 2014, withinstalled capacity of 250,000 units peryear once full ramp–up is achieved.The Decherd facility will produce en-gines for Mercedes-Benz and Infinitimodels.

“This is the newest milestone inour pragmatic collaboration and ourmost significant project outside of Eu-rope so far,” said Renault-Nissan CEOCarlos Ghosn. “Localized capacityreduces exposure to foreign exchangerates while rapidly enabling a goodbusiness development in North Amer-ica—a win-win for the Alliance andDaimler.”

The collaboration marks the firstproduction of Mercedes-Benz enginesin the North America Free Trade re-

gion. The Tennessee plant’s strategiclocation and logistics links ensure adirect supply of engines starting in2014 for the Mercedes-Benz C-Class,built at Daimler’s vehicle plant inTuscaloosa, Ala.

“In the context of our Mercedes-Benz 2020 growth strategy, we havedecided that we will expand the pro-duction capacities required for thisclose to the customers. Through thestrategic extension of our cooperationwith Renault-Nissan we can realizenear-market engine production in theNAFTA region on attractive economicterms and make optimum use of syn-ergies arising from the cooperation,”Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of theDaimler Board of Management andHead of Mercedes-Benz Cars, said.“Thus we are systematically broaden-ing our manufacturing footprint in thisimportant growth market.”

Nissan began powertrain assem-bly in Decherd in 1997. Today it man-ufactures 4-, 6- and 8-cylinder enginesfor the complete lineup of U.S.-pro-duced Nissan and Infiniti vehicles.The plant also houses crankshaft forg-

ing and cylinder block casting opera-tions. In 2011, Decherd producedmore than 580,000 engines on a cov-ered area of more than 1.2 millionsquare feet (111,000 square meters).

Project portfolio expandsDaimler and the Renault-Nissan Al-liance launched their strategic collabo-ration in April 2010, including anequity exchange that gives the Renault-Nissan Alliance a 3.1 percent stake inDaimler and Daimler a combined 3.1percent interest in Renault and Nissan.

The collaboration began withthree project pillars:1. Joint smart/Twingo architecture:The project is on track for launch inthe early first quarter of 2014. Two-seater smart vehicles will be producedat Daimler’s plant in Hambach,France, and four-seater smart and Re-nault production are slated for Re-nault’s plant in Novo Mesto, Slovenia.2. All-new entry-level city van projectfor Mercedes-Benz: The project is onschedule with expected launch in late2012. Manufacturing at Renault’splant in Maubeuge, France.

3. Powertrain cross-supply: The Al-liance is supplying Daimler with com-pact three-cylinder gasoline engines tobe used in smart and Twingo vehiclesand four-cylinder diesel engines to beused in the jointly developed lightcommercial vehicle and in Mercedes-Benz’s next generation of premiumcompact cars. Daimler will supplyNissan and Infiniti with four- and six-cylinder gasoline and diesel enginesfrom the current and future engineportfolio as well as with automatictransmissions.

Since its founding in April 2010,the collaboration has been graduallyexpanded. In addition to the an-nouncement this week about NorthAmerican engine production, thecompanies also decided to partner on:Platform sharing: Infiniti plans to basea premium compact vehicle on theMercedes compact-car architecture,starting in 2014; Zero-emission vehi-cles: Daimler will provide batteriesfrom its production facility in Ka-menz, Germany, and Renault-Nissanwill provide electric motors for the usein electric vehicles.

The Elite Group Collision Centers isa group of eight collision centers inthe Los Angeles, Orange County andPalm Springs area owned by MikeSalyards and Tim Mullahey.

Mike managed Cone CollisionCenter in Fullerton, CA, for 15 yearswhen Tim bought the dealership Conewas connected to, Cone Chevrolet—later changed to Mullahey Chevrolet.Tim and Mike decided to go into part-nership together starting with ConeCollision Center; and as they grewthey branded their group of collisioncenters under the Elite Group Brand,but kept the collision centers’ originalnames due to their great reputationsacquired over time.

Since going into partnership,Mike and Tim have bought seven rep-utable collision centers. Over the past10 years they bought Crenshaw Col-lision Center in Los Angeles, PrestigeToo Autobody in Torrance, America’sCollision Center in Orange, HarborCollision and Signal Hill Auto Bodywere combined into Prestige Too Col-lision Center of Long Beach, andmost recently, Firestone Auto Body inDowney.

5 months ago the group also wentinto partnership with Steve Vettel ofPacific Collision Centers on a loca-tion in Cathedral City. The group alsohas owned Central Coast Collision in

Arroyo Grande for severalyears but only recentlybrought it under the EliteGroup brand due to its dis-tance from the rest of the lo-cations. Central Coast islocated near San LuisObispo, CA.“We take a lot of pride in thenames of our collision cen-ters,” said Mike. The loca-tions Elite Group hasacquired had great reputa-tions in their communities

before being bought by Elite Group,so they maintained their originalnames and thus their prestigious repu-tations, merely adding the Groupbrand name as support.

The group is able to see about1000 cars per month and grosses in ex-cess of 25 million per year. They haveabout 165 employees across all loca-tions that work on vehicles for severalinsurance companies through DRPs.

“There are very few InsuranceCarriers we aren’t aligned with,” said

Mike, referring to Direct Re-pair Relationships.Following in the footsteps ofthe original Cone Collisionlocation, all of the locationsacquired are large locations.

Cone Collision has re-mained the hub of thegroup’s locations, where theyhave a full Korean and His-panic marketing team inorder to reach out to those

communities near their locations.Mike’s daughter, Megan, runs themarketing department for the group.

Being a family-oriented business,Mike’s two sons also work at theFullerton location; Travis has been theGeneral Manager there for about 5years and Michael “Cole” is a ServiceAdvisor who handles the GEICO in-surance account.

Tim also owns two Ford dealer-ships, one being Central Ford of Los

Angeles. The dealership is a fewblocks away from Firestone AutoBody, so the group decided to buy

Firestone in January of 2012 to serv-ice this dealership.

“We wanted a location to servicethat dealership and because of Fire-stone’s reputation we decided to ac-quire it,” said Mike.

Elite Group will keep Firestoneunder the same name that it has al-ways operated in order to keep their

existing, faithfulclientele.The location isquite large, like allof the other loca-tions Elite Grouphas acquired, andis able to do about$400,000 in workeach month with22 employees.“We really take alot of interest in

our employees,” said Mike. WhenElite acquires a locations, they usuallykeep most everything about the busi-ness the same, due to their acquisitionof well-established locations. This in-cludes most of the staff. According to


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The Elite Group Collision Centers Acquires Firestone Auto Body inDowney, CA, Increasing Their Locations to Eight

with Ed Attanasio

Shop and Product Showcase

with Ed Attanasio

Shop Showcase

with Ed Attanasio

Social Media for Shops

with Erica SchroederShop Showcase

The Right Causewith Mike Causey

Industry Insightwith John Yoswick

Erica Schroeder is assistant editor at Autobody News in Carlsbad, CA. She lovesto talk with owners about their shops and goings on in their areas. Contact herat [email protected], or 800-699-8251

Cone Collision Center in Fullerton, CA, was the first locationin the Elite Group of Collision Centers, it still remains thebusiness’ headquarters today

Cone Collision Center has a state of the art reception area

The Elite Group acquired Firestone Auto Body in Downey, CA, at thebeginning of 2012, in order to service their nearby dealership

Mike, a lot of the employees at ConeCollision have been there since hebegan there 17 years ago.

“We take a lot of pride in havingsome of the best techs in the indus-try,” said Mike.

Elite Group also sends a lot oftheir employees to training, mostlythrough Cerritos College, a local jun-ior college.

According to Mike, EliteGroup’s employees have been verysuccessful in those classes and theyhave been able to create some reallygood, new employees. The EliteGroup’s employees also maintaintheir I-CAR Gold and Platinum sta-tuses.

The Elite Group of CollisionCenters’ mission is to satisfy 100 per-cent of their customers, 100 percentof the time. According to Mike, theyachieve this goal by having the bestemployees working together with acommon purpose.

Cone Collision Center600 W. Commonwealth Ave.Fullerton, CA. 92832(714) 871-2545www.elitegroupcc.com


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The Automotive Service Association(ASA) has noted the National Re-search Council’s (NRC) Transporta-tion Research Board recently releaseda study reviewing automotive elec-tronics safety, which will likely resultin electronics safety policy changes.

The committee that produced thereport found that the increasingly ca-pable and complex electronics sys-tems being added to automobilespresent many opportunities for mak-ing driving safer but also present newdemands for ensuring their safe per-formance. These safety assurance de-mands pertain both to the automotiveindustry’s development and deploy-ment of electronics systems and toNHTSA’s safety oversight role. Withregard to the latter, the committee rec-ommends that NHTSA give explicitconsideration to the oversight chal-lenges arising from automotive elec-tronics and that the agency developand articulate a long-term strategy formeeting these challenges.

ASA said the study—which wasrequested by the National HighwayTraffic Safety Administration

(NHTSA) after the 2009–2010 re-ports of sudden acceleration problemsin Toyota vehicles—was meant toidentify how the NHTSA’s regulatory,research and defect investigation pro-grams can be strengthened to meet thesafety assurance and oversight chal-lenges created from the use of auto-motive electronics.

The ASA said key findings fromthe study include the following:• Electronic systems have becomecritical to the functioning of modernautomobiles.• Electronic systems are being inter-connected with one another, and withdevices and networks to provide theirdesired functions.• Proliferating and increasingly in-terconnected electronics systems arecreating opportunities to improve ve-hicle safety and reliability, as well asdemands for addressing new systemsafety and cyber security risks.• By enabling the introduction ofmany new vehicle capabilities andchanges to familiar driver interfaces,electronics systems are presentingnew challenges for system design and

vehicle-level integration.• Automotive manufacturers imple-ment many processes during productdesign, engineering and manufactur-ing intended to ensure that electron-ics systems perform as expected, andto detect failures when they occur.

The ASA said the 16-membercommittee that conducted the studymade the following recommendationsto the NHTSA:• NHTSA should become more en-gaged in standard-setting and otherefforts aimed at strengthening theway auto manufacturers ensure thesafe performance of their automotiveelectronic systems.• NHTSA should convene a techni-cal advisory panel comprised of indi-viduals with backgrounds in thedesign, development and safety as-surance of automotive electronic sys-tems. The panel should be consultedon relevant technical matters thatarise with respect to all of theagency’s vehicle safety programs, in-cluding regulatory reviews, defect in-vestigation processes and research

NRC Releases Automotive Electronics Safety Report

See NRC Report, Page 63


Alan Taylor from Motor Trend Radiocalled me last fall to say he had part-nered up with eBay Motors to ‘per-sonalize’ a 2012 5.0L Mustangdonated by Galpin Ford. Then auctionit during SEMA 2011. He wanted toput a team together to take the carfrom “stock to extreme,” but stillstreet legal. I was in.

They also wanted to do a video-for-the-web program about personal-izing the car from start to finish. Theprogram is called modJOBS, and youcan go to eBay Motors and watch our6–8 minute episodes at cc.ebay.com/mod-jobs. It’s narrated by Alan andDennis Pittsenbarger from Hot RodMagazine Live. (I come in on episode#3, Sweet and Low.) So modJOBSmakes it fun. Everybody gets to teamup and you get to follow along bywatching the episodes of how to builda vehicle and how to add accessoriesand what’s available out there forthese new vehicles.

Alan said the car would be auc-tioned on Ebay and the proceedswould go to a charity called PatriotOutreach (www.patriotoutreach.org)to contribute to treating PTSD. Theultimate team would include VickEdelbrock, Jr. (supercharged en-gine); Revo Reeves (interior), Ryan‘Ryno’ Templeton (paint/airbrush),and me (modified design/fabrication).

I love building cars and washappy to put time and effort to benefitthe people that have served our coun-try and are the real heroes. They goover and risk or sacrifice their lives tomake better lives for us. Here was achance to give something back.

So we started off with Galpin’s2012 5.0L Mustang with the goal of

putting some more personality behindit to represent the men and womenthat serve our country and providesome benefits when they get backfrom serving.

Basically we’re going to take thiscar and partner with a lot of people tomodify the performance, the wheels,the braking, paint, parts, look-and feelconcept, and exhaust. So we’ve gotthe 2012 Mustang and we’re taking itover to get the performance improvedby Edelbrock. So they put a super-charger in this thing, which gives youanother 100–150 horsepower to bringit up to 550-hp at the flywheel. I don’twant to give you all the inside scoopon it because I really want you guysto watch our modJOBS episodes andfollow us along the build that way.

I reached out to a team of guys tohelp me so I didn’t have to carry thewhole weight of this build. We gotRyno Templeton from Blast of Air. Alot of readers will know him from myAllstar team on Car Warriors. I alsoreached out to Revo Reeves whoowns Stitch Craft Interiors. Revo didthe interior and the audio and Rynodid the airbrush art on the headlinerand the paint. The paint was selectedafter voting by eBay members (moreon that later.) We did a logo for PatriotOutreach on a fiberglass headliner thatI made. We don’t really want to getreal loud with this car but we want tomake it kind of subtle and cool.Everybody knows I’m always realloud, so I’ve got to tune it down andback a little bit, which you’ll see by

watching the modJOBS videos.With the interior we’re just going

to do it real subtle but real cool. Sowith my design concept I came upwith, I want to make the car look likeit’s going 100mph and then I want torepresent Patriot Outreach and design

a really cool rim. I came up with a rimand for you guys to see it you’re goingto have to go visit modJOBS and seethe episode. I basically took a wheelwith the Chevron stripes incorporatedin it and it’s also got Army, Air Force,Coast Guard, Marine and Navy repre-sentation on it to represent what theseguys do in a nutshell. What a betterway to give back and show our thanksthan to really put some heart to it and

Doing a Charity Build for Patriot Outreach on a Donated Mustang

Custom Cornerwith Rich Evans

On Creative Marketingwith Thomas Franklin

Action Countswith Lee Amaradio Jr.

with Sheila LoftusYour Turn

Opinions Countwith Dick Strom

Shop Showcasewith Janet Chaney

Industry Overviewwith Janet Chaney

Industry Interviewwith Janet Chaney

Industry Insightwith John Yoswick

Rich Evans is the owner of Huntington Beach Bodyworks and an award winning painter andfabricator. He offers workshops in repair and customization at his facility to share his uniquetalents. For contacts and design samples visit www.huntingtonbeachbodyworks.com

The 2012 Ford Mustang, seen here at SEMA 2011, was built by the modJOBS team to benefitPatriot Outreach. The car was donated by Galpin Ford in LA and auctioned off on eBay Motors. Ityielded $50,100, all of which will go to Patriot Outreach to support treatment for PTSD

With Dennis Pittsenbarger (l) checking out thecaliper covers by MGP Caliper Covers

Ryno Templeton airbrushed the tribute to thearmed forces on the headliner

that’s what I did in that wheel design.I’ve got Brian with Onward Coatingcutting my wheels and I want to thankhim for being able to get these wheelsout on time. It came down to a pinchwhere we had to put these wheels ona plane and get them out here in timeto make it for the big unveiling at2011 SEMA. I wanted to incorporateits own stand alone grille, so I createda grille kit for it, and also a scoop.From there we’re incorporating a rac-ing stripe down the side, a graphic,

and then Ryno’sgoing to do histhing with somestars and stripes.The process is re-ally cool. It’s aboutpeople getting to-gether. We calledon Hurst Shifters.My buddy Nateover there sent overa shifter for theproject and alsoreached out toMagna Flow. Theyalso sent out someproduct for Bolt onand we were actu-

ally able to take it over to them andhave them install it. There were awhole lot of other sponsors that cametogether on this, I’d really like youguys to tune into modJOBS, that’s thewhole purpose behind this story. I cantell the story but being able to circleback and watch it, just go to Ebay Mo-tors and click modJOBS and followalong. Another cool thing was that wegot to interact with eBay customersand let them choose. I created threeconcepts with the help of Ryno and let

them choose which concept and paintjob to go with. If we do more of thesewe will probably incorporate wheels,body kits, and stuff like that and makeit a build your own car. It makes itunique when you’re interacting withthe viewers and the customers in find-ing what they want. After creating all

this and building this car, the journeywas cool. Benchmark Productions arethe people that produced everything.We did most of the build here at Hunt-ington Beach Body Works, where wehave Rich Evans Designs, my shop.MGP Caliper Covers provided someRich Evans One Off Caliper Covers.To see them go to mpgcalipercov-ers.com and get your own covers thatyou can install within 20 minutesmax. That’s an easy way to personal-ize your car. It’s very inexpensive andit looks really cool.

I need to thank my sponsors foreverything they do: BF Goodrich al-ways comes to play with a set of tires.G Force is what we used on this build.They have a new tire coming out aswell so look for that it’s going to be re-ally cool. I don’t want to spill thebeans before I’m able to but BFG is re-ally working hard and keeping yousafe on the road. The guys that partic-ipated in this, Gil did a lot of work onthe finishing part of it, the buffing andthen we had to come in where we gotsome white compound on the plasticso I can’t forget to mention SolutionFinish. All body shop guys out therehave problems getting that white spitoff when you’re buffing the cars. andit’s getting in the black and you’reusing laquer thinner to clean it out andit turns it white. SolutionFinish.com—check it out. It will resolve your oxi-dation problem. Wipe it on, wipe it

off, you’re good to go. No mistakesand you don’t have to buy new partsto replace those that are only oxidized.

You can go to my website, Hunt-ingtonbeachbodywork.com, and/orrichevansdesigns.com, or go to EbayMotors, huge site for used and newparts and, of course, sale of cars. Socheck out my new parts, check outthe new car, check out my newwheels.

You don’t have to do a lot tochange and personalize a car, andthat’s proven by what we’ve got goingon here with this project.

The biggest thing is I wanteveryone to check out is Patri-otOutreach.org and if there’s any-thing you can do to bring awareness

to that organization, do it. For everyset of wheels I did for this project thatare sold, a portion is going to thatcharity. I like to tie myself to projectswhere we’re not just thinking of our-selves. That’s what makes projectslike this fun and it makes getting upin the morning feel worthwhile.

I’ve got some really cool stuffcoming up for you guys next month.2012 is going to be a good year andI’ve got a lot of good things going on.I’m fortunate enough to have projectsthat I can pick and choose from. Whenyou can bring the cool into buildingprojects it makes life that much better,especially when you love what youdo. I eat, breathe, live, sleep, what Ido and I was fortunate enough to findit early in life. Let’s remember to keepit positive, keep consistent and alwaystry to better ourselves at what we do.Peace out!


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Setting up for the video

The set of modJOBS’ production in my shop, Huntingdon BeachBody Works

A daylight view

Another daylight view

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by Ed Attanasio

It all began 20 years ago as a knee-jerkreaction to a bad experience with aparking meter maid, but today it hasbeen lauded as a successful social ex-periment while evolving into a highlyeffective viral marketing endeavor.They’re called the G & C Meter Beat-ers, a creation of Gene Crozat, theowner of G & C Auto Body, with

seven locations in the Northern Cali-fornia Bay Area, and an eighth open-ing in June.

During the 10 days right beforeChristmas, the G & C Meter Beaterssave drivers from getting parking penal-ties by replenishing their meters beforethe City of Santa Rosa’s parking en-forcement officers are able to nail themwith a $33 parking ticket. It’s a programthat Crozat began when he was upset

over what he felt was anunfair parking ticket is-sued two decades ago.

“I was rushing backto my car after shoppingand the meter maid wassitting there waiting forthe meter to expire,”Crozat said. “She saw mecoming, but she gave methe ticket anyway. I wasreally mad, so I went tothe bank and got a bunchof quarters. I told mykids—get out there andput money in all thesemeters before they ex-pire. That’ll show ‘em.”

But brilliant ideas don’t alwaystake traction overnight and the MeterBeaters were a prime example. To saythat the powers-that-be in Santa Rosaweren’t enamored with Crozat’s ideawas a major understatement. “Theythreatened my kids and told them

‘your daddy is going to jail,’” Crozatexplained. “They didn’t like the factthat we were helping people from get-ting parking tickets and said we wereinterfering with their operation. The

media flocked to the story and prettysoon the city backed off.”

Over the years, Crozat and hisMeter Beaters have touched manylives positively, he said. “Once peopleget our flyers on their windshieldstelling them they’ve just saved themfrom a parking ticket, they’re sothrilled they send us money, which wedonate to charity. I have some incred-ible letters here from people, includ-ing one gentleman who thought hewas getting a ticket when he returnedto his car after being at the hospital.His doctor had just informed him thathe was dying, so when he saw theticket it really hit him hard. But, thenwhen he realized there was no ticket,it made his day. Here was a guy withtragic news, probably still in shock,but avoiding that parking ticket was abig deal for him.”

When people return to their vehi-cles and see something on their wind-shield resembling a parking ticketthey’re obviously upset, but insteadthey get this little holiday greetingfrom the Meter Beaters of G & C AutoBody:


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Hitting the Streets with California’s G & C Auto Body Meter Beaters

The Meter Beaters (from left) include Brendan Harris, MB ChiefJohnny Reguera, Monique Grayson, her son Jerome Graysonand Dawn Marie Vance, as they hit the streets of Santa Rosa,Calif. every holiday season for 10 days to pay for people’s park-ing and avoid parking tickets

Steve P. from San Francisco happily displayshis parking voucher, purchased on his behalfby the Meter Beaters, sponsored by G & CAuto Body in Santa Rosa

The inter-high school automotive re-pair course for Wayne Hills andWayne Valley High Schools in Wayne,NJ, won $10,000 in cash and suppliesin the Why My High School AutoShop Needs a Make-Over nationalcontest at the end of January.

Students in the course created, ed-ited and entered a video for the con-test. Students from both high schoolsare enrolled in the course, the only oneof its kind in the district where stu-dents from one school travel to anotherto attend class.

The video received 2,483 voteson Facebook, good for second placeand only 118 votes more than thethird-place winner.

The first-place school received3,320 votes. More than 100 videosfrom schools across the country weresubmitted. Eight were named finalists.

The Universal Technical InstituteFoundation (UTI), a non-profit organ-ization dedicated to raising funds tosupport technical education in thetransportation industry, sponsored thecontest.

The schools’ program will receive$5,000 worth of products from Snap-On, a manufactured of automotive re-pair tools and equipment, vouches fortires from Bridgestone and Firestone,and cash as their second-place win-nings.

High School Automotive Repair Program in Wayne, NJ,Wins $10,000 in Equipment and Cash With Video

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While you shoppedThe Meter Maid stoppedTo give you a Christmas Treat The price of this giftCould cause you a fitAs well as a present so neatThe G & C ElvesThought your rage could be shelvedIf the system could just be beatSo we put in a dimeTo add to your timeAnd keep that maid in her jeep.Your expired meter was paid for by:G & C Auto Body “Meter Beaters”Happy Holidays

To see the Meter Beaters in action forourselves, we walked around downtownSanta Rosa with them one sunny, warmDecember afternoon. The crew con-sisted of eight high school students earn-ing extra money during the holidays.

By skillfully feeding electronicparking machines and distributing thevouchers on cars whose time wasabout to expire, The Meter Beaterstake their jobs seriously. Just ask theleader of the pack, Johnny Reguera,who runs G & C’s towing division andoversees the Meter Beaters effortsevery holiday season.

“We get better at this every year,”Reguera explained. “It’s an art form ac-tually. With the old parking meters, itwas all about feeding coins into themand now we have to pay for the vouch-ers and continually check the times. But,it works well and we know that we’resaving shoppers and residents from get-ting parking tickets. Some people knowwhen we’re coming, so they don’t payfor their parking during that time. They

know we’re going to beat the meter, sothey rely on us. I wouldn’t recommendit, but it seems to work for some.”

As we observed the Meter Beat-ers in action, we encountered several

people right after avoiding a parkingticket, courtesy of G & C. A shoppernamed Odessa J. was upset and hold-ing what she thought was a parkingticket in her hand when she ap-proached us. When Reguera told herto look again, she screamed out injoy. Would you now take your car toG & C if you get in an accident, weasked her? “Definitely,” she ex-claimed. “What a nice thing for themfor do, especially during the holi-days!” And that was pretty much thesame thing we heard from every onewe ran into.

Toni Guanella is the Manager ofParking for the City of Santa Rosa.She explained that at one time the citywasn’t happy with Crozat’s MeterBeaters, but now they embrace themfor obvious reasons. “We love them,because in the end it brings moremoney to the city. With a staff of justfive, we can’t catch everyone. I knowthere may have been some issues withthe Meter Beaters in the past, but nowwe appreciate it and never interfere.By filling these meters before they ex-pire, we’re getting a boost in revenuefor Santa Rosa. I know they spend alot of time and money on this project,

but in the end the goodwill pays off,I’m sure. I tell my people to stay outof the Meter Beaters’ way and let themdo their jobs. I know that people intown anticipate it every holiday sea-son and we do too, honestly.”

Do the G & C Meter Beatersmake a difference in Santa Rosa everyyear, we asked Chief Johnny Reguera?“No doubt about it,” he said. “I can tellby the smiles and the warmth we getfrom people right after we’ve savedthem a ticket. It’s not cheap doingthis—we’re going to spend around$10,000 this year—but for us, it’sworth every quarter…or dime!”


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One of the proud Meter Beaters is Dawn MarieVance, whose father works at one of the G & CAuto Body locations

Meter Beater Brendan Harris purchases parkingvouchers to distribute them on car windshieldsthroughout downtown Santa Rosa, Calif.

With new car and light car sales plung-ing from an average of nearly 17 mil-lion units per-year (1999 to 2007) toless than a 12 million new vehicle an-nual average between 2008 and 2014,there will be a rapid drop in used ve-hicles seven years and newer through2017, with used-vehicles shortages inkey model years continuing to 2020.

Major Dealer Profit Streams Virtually all Dealer profits come fromtwo sources: used-vehicle sales alongwith parts and labor volume. For mostDealers, new car and light truck salesdo not contribute to the bottom line.

With the coming plunge in usedvehicles available for Dealers to sell,Dealer profits from used-vehicle oper-ations will crater. To compensate forthis income loss, Dealers need to driveother sectors of their business.

The only major opportunity forDealers to expand profits (to compen-sate for the loss of income from lowerused-vehicle sales) with be to promoteparts and labor sales, primarilythrough their bays.

Renewed DIFM Competition FromDealer BaysThis means Independent (non-Dealer)service outlets will face renewed com-petition from Dealers who are beingsqueezed by a lack of used vehicles

and dwindling warranty dollars (re-sulting from improved vehicle qualityand reduced new vehicle sales).

Repair Specialists While many Repair Specialists are ex-panding their menu of repair jobs,their business still remains more con-centrated among a core group of repairoperations than general repair shopssuch as Service Stations and Garages.

Ten-Year DIFM Growth RunBetween 2000 and 2010, Repair Spe-cialists expanded their DIFM productvolume at an annual rate more thantwice the pace of overall Service mar-ket growth. Their share of Servicemarket product volume increasednearly one-quarter between 2000 and2010 as their combined DIFM productvolume soared over 50% at user-price.

Foreign Specialists Outlets focusing on the repair andmaintenance of foreign nameplates op-erate a smaller number of outlets andservice bays than Repair Specialists.Foreign Specialists achieved nearly5.0% Service annual market productexpansion during these 10 years, higherthan the growth pace of Repair Spe-cialists which account for a much largershare of total Service market productvolume than Foreign Specialists.

Used Car Drought Ignites Dealer Bay Competition

From the moment I came across theBody Shop of Athens’ online, I couldtell there was something special aboutthis shop. Their offer of insider tips,latest news updates and the detailed

description of the repair processhinted at a shop dedicated to educat-ing the customer and keeping currentin the industry, but I had no idea howdedicated owners Carl and CarlaColquett also were to their Georgia

community and the environment.In November 2008, the Body

Shop of Athens in Athens, GA, was thefirst in their market to convert to a wa-terborne paint system. They also recy-cle all paper, plastic, cardboard andmetal materials, providing recyclecontainers for each employee, andthey have three separate dumpsters toaccommodate their efforts, includingone that is made of recycled materialsitself. The Body Shop of Athens vol-unteered to be the first shop inspectedin their area for 6H compliance, andCarla sat on the EPA/EPD Stakehold-ers Federal 6H Rule Committee forthe state of Georgia, representing thecollision industry segment. Carl andCarla also support local green energyexpos by hosting a booth to explainwaterborne paint and recycling.

The shop shows its communityefforts in many ways. In addition tosponsoring and donating to many or-

ganizations, such as Junior League ofAthens, Athens Area Cancer Auxiliaryand Business Network International,they also sponsor their local BoyScouts and Food 2 Kids organizations.

They participate in Toys for Tots aswell and are in collaboration with theState Police for free child seat safetychecks at their shop. They offer freemeeting space in their conferencerooms to the community, and they

subsidize space for the InternationalOffice of Women to the World, whereCarla also serves as a board member.

Even though they are busy withthe day-to-day business of running asuccessful body shop, Carl and Carlaalso take time out of their hecticschedules every Saturday morning torecord a radio show on 1340 NewstalkAM and Bulldog 103.7 FM called“CarChat with Carl and Carla” wherethey discuss details consumers shouldknow about their vehicles as well ascurrent events in the community.

Carl Colquett founded the BodyShop of Athens in 1995 after graduat-ing Athens Technical College andspending fifteen years at the localGMC/Cadillac dealership. Carla be-came active in the business about fouryears ago, using her background insales, marketing and upper manage-ment to improve the business. Sincethe shop was dated and located on a


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WE WANT TO BE YOUR SOURCE FOR REAL VOLKSWAGEN PARTS.With your skill and our parts, every collision repair will be a bang-up job. And that will add up to more repeat business for both of us. Call your order in today.

KoeppelVolkswagenWOODSIDE

771188--772288--88111111FAX: 718-278-0319

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ThompsonVolkswagenWARRINGTON

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New York Pennsylvania

Customers Expect Quality in All Respects from The Body Shop of Athens

with Rick WhiteShop Management

with Stefan GesterkampPaint Management

with Gonzo WeaverGonzo’s Toolbox

with Richard ArnoldJobber Journal

with Dale DelmegeAsk Dale

Mainstream Media

Automakers’ Actions and Analysisby Autobody News Staff

Shop Showcaseby Autobody News Staff

with Ed AttanasioShop and Product Showcase

with Ed AttanasioConsumer Callout

with Walter DanalevichShop Strategies for Savings

with The Insurance InsiderInside Insurance

with Ed AttanasioCustom Corner

with Chasidy Rae SiskCompany Connections

with Chasidy Rae SiskNortheast News

with Chasidy Rae SiskShop Showcase

with Erica SchroederShop Showcase

with Erica SchroederShop Snapshot

Chasidy Rae Sisk is a freelance technical writer from Wilmington, Delaware, whowrites on a variety of fields and subjects, and grew up in a family of NASCAR fans.She can be contacted at [email protected].

The Body Shop of Athens Owners Carl andCarla Colquett

The Body Shop of Athens occupies a 4,000square-foot building on Atlanta Highway

side street, when they decided theywanted to grow in the last quarter of2010, they moved 1.5 miles down theroad to their current location on amain highway between downtownAthens and the mall. According toCarla, “we relocated because of thecustomer experience and to meet andexceed the environment required byinsurance providers.”

Their dedication to customerservice can be seen in each repair thatleaves their shop. Expectations arehigh as evidenced by a sign in theirestimator’s office reading “AlwaysExpect Excellence.” They even havea climate-controlled drive-through es-timating and delivery area. They havealso opened a sizable Jittery Joe’s Cof-fee Shop in their lobby for customers.It’s more than a caffeine fix, it’s a so-cializing hub for the whole commu-nity.

As a final “chocolates-on-the-pillow” gesture, each repair is deliv-ered with a care package consisting ofa car-shaped cookie, a logo bag, logobottle of water and a rose with a hand-written thank you card, along with thecustomer’s final paperwork and war-ranty information. The CSI scores, not

surprisingly, are near 100%.The Body Shop of Athens offers

on-site rental vehicles as well as asmartphone application called “Help ICrashed My Car,” an car accidentemergency assistant where drivers canstore all of the information they needin case of an accident.

The shop is also in the process ofobtaining their Female Friendly Cer-tification through askpatty.com, andthey embrace modern social media byfrequently updating their Facebookpage. Since opening, the shop hasnearly doubled their revenue by build-ing relationships, experimenting withnew ideas and expanding their view ofwhat it means to be a quality autobody shop.

Carl and Carla attended theNACE expo in Las Vegas in 2010, andthey found the amount of educationaland networking opportunities to beamazing. It was enjoyable for Carlabecause “we were able to spend timeworking on our business, not in ourbusiness.”

In regards to the modern businesspractices, the shop has been embrac-ing the current trends of meticulousdisassembly and lean processes which

lead to more efficient repairs. Theynote that the trend towards waterbornepaint products is good all around,from the environmental benefits to theexceptional color matching. Addi-tional sources of revenue includeglasswork, paintless dent repair, stor-age and mechanical work. They arealso currently working on an expressbumper repair lane.

When asked about challenges theshop has experienced lately, Carlanoted that many consumers do not un-derstand their rights of repair choiceand that the shop provides a warrantyof the workmanship, not the insurancecompany. Also, with the influx of newtechnology, many customers are re-questing estimates by emailing or tex-ting photographs of their damagedvehicles.

Carla noted the tendency of con-sumers to delay repairs and use fundsfor other obligations due to the currenteconomy as well as challenges con-cerning aftermarket parts.

The Body Shop of Athens is ASEand I-CAR certified. Carl and CarlaColquett are both AMI graduates (Ac-credited Automotive Managers), andboth sit on the Athens Tech AdvisoryBoard for the Collision Division. Ad-ditionally, Carla is a state certifiedcontinuing education instructor for in-surers, the vice president of CollisionASA NE Georgia and a member ofWIN, Womens’ Industry Network.

The Body Shop of Athens is a

14,000 square foot shop of which4000 sq. ft. is dedicated to the lobby.There are nine employees working inthe shop. The shop uses a SaicoDowndraft Paint Booth, Chief FrameMachine, Rotary Lifts and SpotWelders. Their CCC One estimatingand management system has been es-pecially useful in enhancing produc-tivity, and Carla also credits thewaterborne paint system as a majorbenefit to their business. In the lastquarter of 2011, the Body Shop ofAthens averaged seventy vehicle re-pairs monthly. They utilize PPGAquabase paints, and though they geta mix of older and newer model vehi-cles, they do not have any difficultymatching the paint on older vehicles.Carl and Carla strive to educate cus-tomers on all aspects of the refinishprocess.

The Body Shop of Athens cur-rently does not participate in any di-rect repair programs. Although theyare in favor of obtaining such rela-tionships, they are doing their researchbefore securing any agreements forfear that mandates on parts and proce-dures can jeopardize the quality oftheir repairs. As always, Carl andCarla think about the customer first.

The Body Shop of Athens2950 Atlanta HighwayAthens, GA 30606(706) 546-1158thebodyshopofathens.com


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needs assessments.• NHTSA should undertake a com-prehensive review of the capabilitiesthat the Office of Defects Investiga-tion (ODI) will need to monitor andinvestigate safety deficiencies in elec-tronics-intensive vehicles. A regularchannel of communication should beestablished between NHTSA’s re-search program and ODI to ensurethat recurrent vehicle safety problemsare the subjects of research.• Event data recorders (EDRs) shouldbe commonplace in new vehicles. • NHTSA should initiate a strategicplanning effort that gives explicitconsideration to the safety challengesresulting from vehicle electronics.

“This report likely assures thatNHTSA will proceed with policy

changes relative to automotive elec-tronics review and safety. The recentsecurity breaches or hacking activitiesin some vehicles increases the need forautomotive repairs to be done by pro-fessionals,” said Bob Redding, ASA’sWashington, D.C., representative.

“The automotive industry’s ef-fort with the National AutomotiveService Task Force’s (NASTF) Se-cure Data Release Model is an exam-ple of independent repairers workingwith automobile manufacturers to en-sure vehicle security. We are hopefulthat NHTSA will include independentrepairers in the strategic planningprocess for automotive electronicssafety.”


NRC Report

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Autobody News February 2012 Northeast Edition

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