autobody news november 2011 northeast edition

Following flooding and damage doneby Hurricane Irene and TropicalStorm Lee, body shops and dealer-ships on the east coast were not pre-pared to have to deal with heavy rainstorms. In northeast Pennsylvania andwestern New York state heavy raindrenched an already inundated areawith more water the week of Septem-ber 26.

During Hurricane Irene, rushingwater ripped the bay doors off theservice department at Maroon Kia inWayne, NJ. The water was so power-ful it washed two front-end alignmentmachines, each weighing an estimated

2,800 pounds, from the service baysinto the nearby Pompton River. About

East Coast Shops and Dealerships Hit by HurricaneIrene Try to Clean Up in the Wake of More Rain Storms

Maroon Kia’s bay doors were damaged andtheir shop floor flooded during Hurricane Irenein Wayne, NJ

See NE Flooding, Page 8

The 2011 SEMA show will occupy the LasVegas Convention Center from October 31to November 4 and attendance numberscontinue to climb as the show draws closer.The show boasts over 2,000 exhibiting com-panies already registered for booths, morethan 500 of which are exhibiting for the firsttime. The ever-popular Paint, Body andEquipment section will also return this year,showcasing companies who offer products,services and equipment suited for the colli-sion repair professional. See page 48 forI-CAR and SCRS RDE Schedule.

Brock Bulbuck, The Boyd Group Steve Grimshaw, Caliber Collision

Cathy Bonner, Service King Rollie Benjamin, ABRA Auto Body and Glass

CEOs of Four of the Largest MSOs in the Industry holdfirst-time MSO Symposium at NACE/CARS

See MSO Insights, 4

Moderator, ASA’s Bob Redding Terri Seefeldt, Rogers Benefit Group

Don Seyfer, Seyfer Automotive Jim Houser, Hawthorne Auto Clinic

Health CarePanel at:

NACE/CARS 2011

An auto service-oriented Health Care Panel at NACE/CARS revealedsurprising misconceptions, passionate disagreement, divided opin-ions and competing priorities for Health Care and how it should bepaid for and managed in America. A three-part series on Health Careand its likely impact on shop owners begins here next month.

See preview at:autobodynews.com

The opening generalsession at NACE/CARS,introduced by MitchSchneider, CARS Chair,and Ron Nagy, NACEChair, (r).Autobody News hasextensive coverage ofthe show at:www.autobodynews.com/events/nace-2001.html

Stay up-to-date at this year’s SEMAshow with Autobody News.Visit http://www.autobodynews.com/events/sema-2011.html for moreSEMA show coverage.

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Amato Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Autoland Scientech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Audi Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . . . 61BASF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7BMW Audi of Turnersville. . . . . . . . . . . 41BMW Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . . 52Cadillac of Mahwah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Central Avenue Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge . 21Chief Automotive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Circle BMW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Cramer Motors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Dover Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge . . . . . . . . . 8DuPont . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Equalizer Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Ford Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . . . 51Fred Beans Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Fuccillo Auto Group . . . . . . . . . . . . 12-13Garmat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14GM Wholesale Parts Dealers. . . . . . . . 49Honda-Acura Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32-33

Hyundai Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 39Jaguar Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . 59Kia Motors Wholesale Parts Dealers . . 53Kia of West Chester . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Koeppel VW-Mazda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Lazare Kia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Lexus Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . . 59Lynnes Subaru. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Malco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Management Success. . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Mattei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Maxon Mazda-Hyundai . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Mazda Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . 45Mercedes-Benz Wholesale Parts Center. 40Mercedes-Benz Wholesale PartsDealers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Metric Subaru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48MOPAR Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 29Nissan/Infiniti Wholesale Parts Dealers . 62Nucar Mazda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Plaza Auto Mall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Porsche Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 56PPG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2RealParts.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15Safety Regulations Strategies . . . . . . . 50SATA Spray Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Scion Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . . 57Security Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep . . . . . . 36Shop-Pro Equipment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Star-A-Liner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Subaru Wholesale Parts DealersDE, NJ, PA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22-23

Subaru Wholesale Parts Dealers. . . . . 47Thompson Organization . . . . . . . . . . . 17Toyota Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . 57VeriFacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16VIM Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60Volkswagen Wholesale Parts Dealers . 54Volvo Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . . 58

Inde

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REGIONALAAA Fight New York-New Jersey Toll Hikes . . 6AASP-PA’s Big E Tool Show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Allstate, Encompass Insurers Fined forViolating Delaware Insurance Law. . . . . . . . 4

CCAR Recognizes Five New York StateCollision Facilities in GreenLink ShopStatus Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Dealers Fight to Control NJ Honda Store . . . . . 6Delaware Local Auto Workers TreasurerPleads Guilty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

East Coast Shops and Dealerships Hit byHurricane Irene Try to Clean Up in theWake of More Rain Storms. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Federal Disaster Assistance Extended toAdditional New York Counties . . . . . . . . . . 18

FEMA Warns NY Residents to Avoid Scamsin Wake of Tropical Storm Lee . . . . . . . . . 36

Fuccillo Kia in FL Unseats NY FamilyDealership at Kia Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

New Restrictions Sought For PennsylvaniaJunior Drivers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

New York’s Suffolk County Had BiggestInsured Property Loss From Irene. . . . . . . . 8

Nissan Leaf Heads to More MarketsIncluding NY, NJ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

NJ Garage Keeper’s Liability InsuranceReduced to $50K . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

COLUMNISTSAmaradio - There is No Such Thing as a ‘BadDecision’ in Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Attanasio, Pro-Spray - Busy Shop ClearlySees Benefits Working with Pro-SpraySolvent & Waterborne. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Attanasio - How to Use Five Different Formsof Social Media to Gain Customers . . . . . . 45

Chess - SEMA’s Repair Driven Education andGovernment Regulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Franklin - Choosing a More Profitable Market . 55Gesterkamp - Taking a Fresh Look at anOld Debate—Color Matching, Blending,or Both?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Insurance Insider - Can the Collision IndustrySupport Two Major Trade Shows? . . . . . . 44

Schroeder - GW & SON Auto Body—BlendingYesterday’s Service with Today’sTechnology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Sisk - Moody’s Collision Centers in Gorham, ME,Is Concerned for the People: Co-workers,Community and EnvironmentalResponsibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Sisk - Richmond, Virginia’s Baugh Auto Body—An Exceptional Shop Made More So byLythos Studios’ Advertising Expertise . . . . 62

Weaver - Dealing with Angry Customers andGrowing ‘Alligator Skin’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Williams - A Relatively Young Audi DealershipMakes Quality Pay Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Yoswick - SCRS Affiliate Groups HelpMembers Address Legislative andRegulatory Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

NATIONAL2011-2012 Chevrolet Corvettes Recalled forRear Hatch Hinges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

A Profile of the Evolving Collision RepairMarketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

AAIA ‘Shop of Tomorrow’ Vehicle Serviceat AAPEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

AAPEX Learning Forum to Provide 30 A/MPrograms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Allstate and Progressive Agree to SettlePatent Litigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

AM Tow Package Wiring Harnesses forHyundai/Kia Recalled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

At NACE, State Farm Announces Change toShop Locator to Allow Ranking Based onInternal Performance Score, Will Use ‘PartsTrader’ for DRPs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

CA Dealers Now Required to StickerSalvaged Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

CARSTAR 2011 Holds National TeleconferenceAt Annual Seattle National Conference . . . 18

Chrysler to Invest $165 Million in Body Shopat MI Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Dollar Thrifty Halts Sale Process, Hertz StillInterested in Acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

DuPont Custom Finishes to Exhibit atSEMA 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

DuPont Exhibit at SEMA Show Live PaintDemonstrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

EPA Federal Office Response to SCRS Letteron 6H Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Fiat 500 Top IIHS Safety Pick . . . . . . . . . . . . 57Florida and Michigan AAA Clubs Join Forces,Now 2nd Largest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Girl Scouts Gear Up at NACE for CollisionHub’s Tools for Success. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

GM Introduces Industry-First Front CenterAirbag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

I-CAR Repairability Summit: Don’t SectionUltra-High-Strength Steel . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Industry Veteran Alerts ‘Collision RepairStandards on their Way’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

IRS Offers Employers Tax Relief if WorkersReclassified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

LKQ Founder Donald E. Flynn Passes Away . 57MBUSA CEO Lieb Ousted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57Mitchell Partners with Enterprise Rent-A-Car,Integrates with Update Promise.com toDeliver Services via RepairCenter™ . . . . . 51

MSOs Share Insights During First-timeSymposium at 2011 NACE . . . . . . . . . . . 14

NABC Nominees for 2012 Board of DirectorsAnnounced. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

State Farm Elects to Settle Three of Gunder’sCustomers’ Lawsuits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

U.S. Deer-Vehicle Collisions Fall 7 Percent . . 60Virginia Branded Title for Water DamageSettles at $2500. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Women’s Industry Network Awards TwoScholarships to NACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

World’s Oldest Running Car Fetches HighPrice at PA Auction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

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

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Fuccillo Kia of Schenectady, NewYork, has relinquished its title as theU.S. dealer with the highest retail vol-ume of Kia sales, according to theBusiness Review. The crown stayed inthe family though; the SchenectadyKia dealership, which held the honorfor two years running, was unseatedby its younger counterpart, FuccilloKia of Cape Coral in Florida. TheCape Coral store beat out 700 U.S.Kia dealerships for the honor. Fuc-cillo Automotive Group operates 31franchises in 22 locations. Nine are inthe Albany area. The awards, pre-sented last week at the National KiaDealer convention in Las Vegas, Ne-vada, recognized the Schenectadystore for having the highest retail salesvolume for Kia’s Eastern region. TheCape Coral Kia franchise was alsonamed Best New Dealer for 2011.

“We’re really doing well there.The guy who placed second did lessthan half of what we did,” says BillyFuccillo, owner of Syracuse-basedFuccillo Automotive Group.

Fuccillo’s Kia sales are going sowell in Florida that the mega autodealer said he plans to open a secondFlorida Kia dealership in the next twoyears. Fuccillo Automotive Groupexpects to finish 2011 with more than$800 million in sales.

Fuccillo Kia in FL Unseats NYFamily Dealership at Kia Awards

Delaware Insurance CommissionerKarenWeldin Stewart has fined All-state Insurance Co. and its subsidiaryEncompass Insurance Co. a total of$50,000 for violations of Delawareinsurance law. The fines are containedin two separate consent orders, signedby Stewart this month.

The Allstate consent order as-serts that the company violated insur-ance law by failing to providedefensive driving discounts to quali-fying policyholders.

The Encompass consent orderasserts the company violated the lawby imposing an accident surcharge onpolicyholders involved in accidentseven though they were not the partyat fault. In all, 3,645 Delaware poli-cyholders were impacted.

Allstate and Encompass citedcomputer errors and programmingoversight as the cause of the violationsand have said the problems have beenfixed. Stewart wrote the orders in away that would allow her to increasethe fines up to $100,000 on each com-pany if the problems re-emerge.

Stewart said she believes bothcompanies did a good job of notifyingand refunding all monies owed to pol-

icyholders, which totaled $848,355.However, Stewart said she re-

mains concerned about the effect thesetypes of mistakes have on highwaysafety efforts, especially her depart-ment’s defensive driving program.

“One of my goals is to improveour state’s highway safety by gettingmore Delaware drivers into our de-fensive driving courses. What ismore, I am committed to making surethat drivers who complete an ap-proved defensive driving course getthe discount to which they are law-fully entitled,” Stewart said.

Allstate, Encompass Insurers Fined for ViolatingDelaware Insurance Law

Four New York collision repair facilitieshave received recognition from the Co-ordinating Committee For AutomotiveRepair (CCAR) in its GreenLink Shopprogram, the organization announced.The newly-recognized shops are:Carubba Collision, Buffalo, N.Y.Carubba Collision, Hamburg, N.Y.Carubba Collision, Tonawanda, N.Y.Carubba Collision, Wheatfield, N.Y.

“We are proud to recognize thenewest recipients of the GreenLink Shopdesignation, bringing our total to 143shops since the program’s introductionin January 2010,” said Daren Fristoe,CCAR president and chief operating of-ficer. “We are seeing more and moreauto repair facilities incorporate envi-ronmental and safety stewardship in theirbusiness and marketing plans, and welook forward to greater levels of aware-ness in the coming months.”

All four shops being recognizedare participants in the GEICO AutoRepair Xpress (ARX) program. CCARand GEICO are partnering to promotethe GreenLink Shop designation forGEICO’s ARX facilities across theUnited States.

The GreenLink Shop status,which serves to promote consumer

confidence in local automotive repairfacilities’ environmental/safety aware-ness and stewardship, is an extensionof CCAR’s CCAR-GreenLink Envi-ronmental Compliance AssistanceCenter and S/P2 Safety and PollutionPrevention E-learning Program.

Repair facilities pursuing Green-Link Shop status must maintain highstandards in environmental, health andsafety (EHS) practices in four cate-gorie. The CCAR initiative recognizesauto service facilities and collision re-pair shops, with separate criteria foreach type of business.

CCAR Recognizes Five New York State CollisionFacilities in GreenLink Shop Status Program

The North American arm of NissanMotors announced that the all-electricNissan Leaf is expanding its availabil-ity in the U.S. Starting September 29,the company is taking orders for the2012 model year Leaf from consumersin Colorado, Massachusetts, NewHampshire, New Jersey and NewYork. “A prioritized ordering phase”will be in place for customers in thesestates who have previously placed areservation for the Nissan Leaf. OnSeptember 26, the company said it willopen to the general public a new reser-vation process for the all-electric car.

Nissan plans to take actual con-sumer orders for the 2012 Nissan Leafin seven more states, including—Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Nevada,Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.

Nissan recently announced low-ered prices for its home charging sys-tem, developed by AeroVironment,which now costs $1,818 for hardwareand home installation services. "Weaim to make the system accessible to awider range of consumers," said Bren-dan Jones, director of Nissan LEAFmarketing and sales strategy for Nis-san North America. The charging sys-tem includes a UL-listed chargingdock, on-site consultation, installation,hands-on user training, and a 3-yearhardware and service warranty.

Nissan Leaf Heads to MoreMarkets Including NY, NJ

On June 7, James Hunter, formertreasurer of United Auto WorkersLocal 1542, pleaded guilty in U.S.District Court for the District ofDelaware to making a false state-ment in records in the Newark, Del.union. He had been charged in Janu-ary. The charge and guilty plea fol-low a probe by the U.S. LaborDepartment’s Office of Labor-Man-agement Standards.

Delaware Local Auto WorkersTreasurer Pleads GuiltyThe Association of Automotive Serv-

ice Providers of Pennsylvania heldtheir Big E Trade show this month.The event was held Friday, October14 from 4:30 pm to 10:00 pm and Sat-urday, Oct 15 from 9:30 am to 3:30pm at the Valley Forge ConventionCenter in King of Prussia, PA. TheBreakfast Keynote Speaker on Satur-day was Scott Luckett, MAAP,AAIAVice President, who gave a talktitled: “Who Will Service the Vehiclesof Tomorrow?”

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Malibu 2011

Auto clubs want a federal judge tostop a toll hike that went into effect inNew York and New Jersey last week,calling the plan an illegal fund for un-related projects like the constructionof the new World Trade Center, ac-cording to Courthouse News Service.

In a 14-page complaint, the Au-tomobile Club of New York and AAANorth Jersey detail toll increases dat-ing back from 1975, when bridge tollsjumped from $1 to $1.50 round-trip.

The new rates top off at $12 fordrivers paying in cash.

First announced on Aug. 5, PortAuthority originally planned to hiketolls by $4 for E-Z Pass holders andby $7 for those paying in cash, butgovernors of New York and New Jer-sey successfully lobbied for an incre-mental raise, according to thecomplaint.

The adopted plan, which cameinto effect on Sept. 18, raised tolls forE-Z Pass users by $1.50 this year andcalled for a 75-cent annual hike until2015.

Drivers without E-Z Pass have topay a $2 penalty on top of the in-creased toll.

The plaintiffs say the plan suspi-ciously followed an announcement bythe Port Authority’s executive direc-

tor about the reconstruction of theWorld Trade Center, now expected tocost $3 billion more than previouslythought.

According to the complaint, PortAuthority has more than $484 millionin surplus fund for its “integrated in-terdependent transportation network,”making the toll increase unnecessary.

“Any determination as to the rea-sonableness of the Port Authority’Srate of return must exclude the WorldTrade Center from the rate base,” thecomplaint states. “The Port Author-ity’s inclusion of the World TradeCenter in its rate base improperly dis-torts its rate of return, creating the il-lusion that a toll increase is justifiedwhen in fact the Port Authority’s in-tegrated, interdependent transporta-tion system is providing a significantsurplus.”

The plaintiffs seek an injunctionblocking the current increase and ajudgment declaring it illegal.

They are represented by MichaelF. Fitzgerald of Farrell Fritz.

AAA Fight New York-New Jersey Toll HikesLegislators in Pennsylvania areconsidering limiting junior driversto just one teenage passenger cutdown on the number of deadly autoaccidents, according to WTAE NewsPittsburgh.

State Rep. Dom Costa thinks so.The Pittsburgh Democrat co-spon-sored House Bill 9, which is being sentto Gov. Tom Corbett’s desk.

If Corbett signs the bill into law,it will add 10 hours of night drivingand five hours of bad-weather drivingto the current 50-hour requirement ofinstruction that a junior driver needsbefore getting licensed.

A junior driver would only be al-lowed to have one teen passenger at atime during the driver’s first sixmonths on the road, with exceptionsfor family members. After six months,the limit would increase to three non-family members.

Under the bill, drivers could bepulled over and charged with a primaryoffense if they have a passenger under18 who is not wearing a seatbelt or ina booster or car seat.

In Pennsylvania, the number ofdeaths from crashes involving 16- and17-year-old drivers increased nearly 43percent from 2009 to 2010.

New Restrictions Sought ForPennsylvania Junior Drivers

Hamilton Honda in Hamilton, NJ, isthriving, but there also has been afirestorm of controversy over how thefranchise was awarded and who really isbehind it, according toAutomotiveNews.

Lawsuits in New Jersey and NewYork—which could lead to perjuryand racketeering charges for some in-volved—allege that Honda awardedthe franchise to former New York Gi-ants linebacker Jessie Armstead andhis partner in 2004 as a minority-owned group, when the venture wasactually backed by Albany, N.Y.-based dealer Don Lia.

David Davis, owner of WillisHonda in nearby Burlington, NJ, wantedto expand his territory, but Honda gavethe open point to Armstead, who wouldown 51 percent of the store, andMichael Saporito, a former dealershipexecutive with Huntington Honda inNew York, which Lia owns.

Davis’ suit maintains that Arm-stead and Saporito were secretlybacked by Lia and that they abused mi-nority-ownership statutes to secure thedealership. When the franchise wasawarded, Lia, Saporito and Armsteadswore under oath that Lia had nothingto do with the enterprise, the suit al-leges. Now a separate lawsuit filed re-cently by Lia in New York accusesSaporito and Armstead of freezing Liaout of the Hamilton dealership’s prof-

its, after Lia invested $10 million in thestartup.

The Willis and Lia lawsuits seekunspecified monetary damages. TheWillis suit contends that because Arm-stead is black, Saporito and Lia wereallowed to use New Jersey minority-ownership laws to bypass state fran-chise statutes that normally shouldhave granted the nearest open point toWillis Honda. The suit contains docu-ments sent to American Honda statingthat Armstead had put $1.015 millioninto the new venture to have a 51 per-cent interest in the dealership, whileSaporito had put in $200,000 for the49 percent interest.

When asked if any money hadcome from Lia, Saporito said that hehad sold some adjoining land to Lia ata $3 million profit, but that Lia had nostake in the dealership or its real estate.In separate testimony at the time, Liaconfirmed Saporito’s statements.

Although Lia’s initial filing didnot include the signed partnershipagreements with Saporito and Arm-stead, Cohn said: “They will be pro-duced at the appropriate time.”American Honda spokesman JeffreySmith said that Honda does not com-ment on pending litigation.

Last week, Willis Honda filed amotion to combine the two suits underone judge’s jurisdiction.

Dealers Fight to Control NJ Honda Store

A new law in NJ (N.J.S.A.39:13-2.1)amends the insurance coverage re-quirements for damage to property andfor liability arising from bodily injurywhich an auto body repair facility mustmaintain for a full service license. Thelaw reduces the minimum amount ofgarage keepers’ liability insurance thata shop must maintain from $300,000 to$50,000.

Full service licensed auto body fa-cilities must still maintain insurancecoverage for damage to property andfor liability arising from bodily injury,including, but not limited to: eligiblegarage liability or equivalent commer-cial general liability insurance in a min-imum amount of $300,000 or a letter ofcredit in the amount of $300,000;Garage keepers’ liability insurance in aminimum amount of $50,000 or a letterof credit in the amount of $50,000.Limited full service license applicantsand licensees must also comply withthese requirements.

“This will make the law fair to theshops by not forcing a small shop topurchase more insurance than it needs,”said Charles Bryant of the Alliance ofAutomotive Service Providers of NewJersey, which proposed and supportedthe change.

NJ Garage Keeper’s LiabilityInsurance Reduced to $50K

www.autobodynews.comwww.autobodynews.com

40 to 50 new and used vehicles weredestroyed by the floodwaters, accord-ing to a report in Automotive News.

The dealership’s building thathouses the new-car showroom andservice department had severe cracksin the walls and ceilings followingIrene. The dealership’s used-car lotwas littered with holes—one about 15feet long, 10 feet wide and 6 feet deep.

The National Automobile DealersAssociation says it estimates that 10 per-cent of the dealerships in states affectedby the recent storms would be unable tooperate due to storm-related damage,according to Automotive News.

Maroon Kia sustained major

damage and waterlogged vehicles.Other dealerships said the only im-pact came from distracted customers

who prepared for the storm ratherthan shopping for vehicles.

Following Hurricane Irene, Sta-tion Auto Body in Newark, DE, was

left under 3-1/2 feet of water, accord-ing to owner Rob Amadio. Luckily,the shop was able to get out from

under the flood waters and returned tonormal service shortly after the hurri-cane passed through. Amadio saidthey did not experience any recurring

flooding in the storms at the end ofSeptember.

McBride Auto Body in WoodlandPark, NJ, also sustained flood damagedue to Hurricane Irene, and ownerJoseph Carioti III took advantage ofthe mandatory cleanup as an opportu-nity to renovate some parts of hisshop. Most of the flooding damageoccured in the office area of the build-ing, since the shop floor is bare con-crete, but parts of the business wereunder 4-feet of water after HurricaneIrene blew through.

Thankfully not all of the carswere flooded during the storm, butthe business did lose some tools thatgot damaged by all the floodwater.McBride’s office area is now betterthan before Hurricane Irene hit, hetold Autobody News.


Continued from Front Page

NE Flooding

McBride Auto Body was able to not only repairbut totally renovate their office area followingflood damage done by Hurricane Irene

Water flooded 4 feet up the walls of McBrideAuto Body in Woodland Park, NJ, ruiningwalls, floors, and leaving a ‘fishy’ odor

New York State’s Suffolk County suf-fered the highest insured property lossamong the 191 counties affected byHurricane Irene, according to the latestestimate and reports made by Insur-ance Journal.

New Jersey, New York and NorthCarolina were the top three states withsustained insured property damage top-

ping $500 million from Irene. Virginiaand Maryland completed the top five.The estimate was prepared by insur-ance data provider Verisk Analytics andreleased on Oct. 17. Among the indi-vidual counties affected by Irene, Suf-folk County, New York, was followedby Dare County, North Carolina—withmore than $200 million of insured

property damage in each—ranked firstand second by insured damage. Com-pleting the top five worst-hit countiesfrom an insured property damagestandpoint—with more than $150 mil-lion in damages in each—are NassauCounty, New York; Monmouth County,New Jersey; and Worcester County,Maryland.

Overall, eight counties had esti-mated insured property damage in ex-cess of $100 million.

Verisk Analytics’s estimate, calledVerisk Catastrophe Index, was pre-pared for the District of Columbia andthe 13 states and 191 counties withinthese states that were affected by Hur-ricane Irene.

New York’s Suffolk County Had Biggest Insured Property Loss From Irene

State and regional associations—thattogether represent more than 2,000body shops—participated in the sixthannual “Affiliate Leadership Confer-ence” organized by the Society of Col-lision Repair Specialists (SCRS) andheld near Chicago in mid-September.

SCRS Chairman Aaron Clarksaid the event is designed to help thenational association gather input fromits state affiliates on its direction andefforts, as well as to help those groupswork with one another and with thenational organization.

The affiliate groups reported ontheir recent and upcoming legislativeefforts, their interactions with shopand insurer regulators, and other ac-tivities and issues in which they haverecently been involved.

In Montana this past spring, forexample, Governor Brian Schweitzersigned into law a bill, sponsored bythe Montana Collision Repair Spe-cialists, that prohibits a insurer from“unilaterally disregard(ing) a repairoperation or cost identified by an esti-mating system” that the insurer andshop have agreed to use to determinethe cost of repair.

Bruce Halcro, a Montana shopowner and president of the associa-

tion, said gettingthe state auto deal-ers’ association in-volved in backingthe legislation waspart of whathelped push itthrough the legis-lature, where it

narrowly failed just two years earlier.The Montana association this

year had also backed a bill that wouldhave allowed body shops and others –rather than only consumers—to filecomplaints with the state insurancecommissioner’s office. That bill wasoverwhelmingly approved 97-3 by theMontana House, but died in a Senatecommittee.

Jordan Hendler, executive di-rector of the Washington MetropolitanAuto Body Association (WMABA),said that this was the second year theassociation battled efforts in Virginiato raise the threshold of damage re-quiring a flood-damaged vehicle to re-

ceive a branded title from $1,000 to$5,000. Proponents—including a statelegislator whose vehicle was totaled

after the sunroofof his vehicle wasleft open in a rain-s to rm—arguedthat the thresholdhad been setdecades ago, andwas unrealisticgiven inflation and

the increased value of vehicles.Hendler said her group tried to pointout that today’s vehicles have far moreelectronics than cars had decades ago,and that no consumer should unknow-ingly buy a vehicle that has had thou-sands of dollars in water damage. Inthe end, she said, the threshold wasraised to $2,500.

Hendler said the association isalso working with the Virginia De-partment of Environmental Quality ona possible shop registration programthat could prohibit the large-quantitysale of automotive paint to anyoneother than registered shops.

A sales tax issue has recentlyarisen in Indiana, according to TonyPasswater, executive director of theIndiana Auto Body Association. Ashop in that state contacted the asso-ciation after a sales tax audit resultedin a $13,000 assessment plus penaltiesfor failure to collect and remit salestax on items such as sandpaper andtape consumed in the repair of vehi-cles. Passwater said the auditor reliedon a document that refers only to deal-ers of new cars and trailers.

“There’s no possible way youwould infer it had anything to do witha collision repair facility,” Passwatersaid. “The very last section says adealer must pay sales tax on shop ragsand towels and consumables that arenot billed to the customer.”

He said he is discussing the matterwith the state revenue department in aeffort to clarify and resolve the issue.

Ron Stamm of the AutomotiveService Council of Kentucky said hisgroup expects to make a third attemptnext year to push for consumer notifi-cation legislation in that state. The as-sociation-backed bill, which hasnarrowly missed making it through

the legislative process this year andlast, would require insurers to includenotification of a consumer’s right toselect a repair shop on the bottom ofprinted estimates, and to tell the con-sumer of that right prior to explainingany direct repair program.

The Texas Senate this past Marchapproved a bill to establish an advi-sory board of shop, insurer, and public

representatives toprovide recom-mendations on theregulation of autoinsurance in thatstate, But tthe billnever gained trac-tion in the TexasHouse, according

to James Brown of the Houston AutoBody Association.

Likewise the Senate passed (butthe House did not) a bill that wouldhave required insurance companies to

provide written notice to both shopsand consumers explaining how theirpayment policies and claims proce-dures differ between direct repair fa-cilities and non-direct repair facilities.The bill also would have required in-surers to provide to shops, upon re-quest, a written explanation of therequirements to become a DRP facil-ity with that insurer. It also would havemade county mutual insurers— whichaccount for about 45 percent of theTexas market—subject to state anti-steering and consumer choice laws(from which they remain exempt).

More recently and even closer tohome for the Houston association,Brown said his group is opposing (inits current form) new shop and autorecycler licensing requirements beingconsidered by the Houston City Coun-cil. The proposal sets out new disclo-sure and documentation requirements,


Bruce Halcro

Jordan Hendler

James Brown

SCRS Affiliate Groups Help Members Address Legislative and Regulatory Issues

See SCRS, Page 14

Industry Insightwith John Yoswick

John Yoswick is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon, who has a body shop in thefamily and has been writing about the automotive industry since 1988. He is the editor of theweekly CRASH Network (for a free 4-week trial subscription, visit www.CrashNetwork.com).Contact him by email at [email protected].


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More than 400 shops were representedon a panel discussion at this year’s2011 International Autobody Con-gress & Exposition (NACE)—butonly four chairs were needed on thestage.

That’s because the four speakerswere representatives of some of thelargest multiple shop operations(MSOs) in the industry, which com-bined have more than 7,200 employ-ees and annual sales topping $1.26million.

The four were speaking at a newforum held for the first time at thisyear’s NACE in Orland, Fla., a day-long session aimed at (and open to)only MSOs. Much of the content ofthe panel discussions during the sym-posium, however, could have beenequally of value to the single-locationshop owner who wants to expand hisor her business.

During the “Lessons LearnedFrom the Big Four,” panel discussion,for example, Cathy Bonner, the pres-ident of the 47-shop Service King

chain in Texas, was asked what rolesocial media plays in her company’sextensive marketing efforts. Bonnersaid she thinks it’s a stretch to thinkthat people want to “socialize” with acollision repair shop, and that measur-ing return on an investment in socialmedia is difficult given how infre-quently the average driver needs ashop’s services.

Still, she said, Facebook andTwitter are reasonable inexpensiveways to help build a brand and nameawareness by helping promote, for ex-ample, Service King’s charitable ef-forts. Social media are how a growingpercentage of the population may findyour shop and understand your repu-tation, she said.

“People want to do business notjust with good-performing companies,but with companies they like,” Bon-ner said. “They want an emotional at-tachment to that company. Socialmedia can help you develop that.”

The panel was asked what, otherthan improved pricing, they expectfrom their vendors as they have grownas buyers. Rollie Benjamin, CEO of

the 110-shop ABRA Auto Body &Glass chain, said his company focusesmore on service than price whenworking with vendors. In terms ofparts, for example, ABRA looks forvendors that can do more to help withcycle time by getting the right part tothe shop at the right time.

“We survey our people to scorethe vendors on what level of customersatisfaction they giving our managersrunning these shops,” Benjamin said.“We give a report card to the ven-dors.”

Steve Grimshaw, CEO of theCaliber Collision Center chain, whichoperates 92 shops in four states, heconsiders what aspects of businessthat vendors excel in – and then looksfor ways to put that expertise to workfor Caliber.

“Rental car companies are ex-perts at customer service,” Grimshawsaid. “I expect them to leverage thatexpertise to help me train my peoplehow to be customer service experts.You have paint vendors who are ex-perts on lean processes; I expect themto dedicate resources to help improve

our operations. There’s generally a lotof willingness on their behalf to dedi-cate resources to help us achieve ourobjectives. So it becomes more of astrategic relationship than a vendor re-lationship.”

What are the MSOs looking forin terms of expanding into new mar-kets or acquiring other collision repairbusinesses? Benjamin said his com-pany operates company-owned shopsin currently six major metropolitanareas, but 35 of its shops are franchiseoperations in mid-sized cities.

Bonner said her company’smodel is to operate large shops inhigh-visibility locations. The averageService King location, for example,has 13 direct repair programs—nearlytwice that of most other MSOs—anddoes $5.4 million in annual sales. Agood candidate for Service King ac-quisition, she said, may be family-owned like Service King, will have asimilar culture, and will have room toperhaps double its sales from$250,000 to $500,000 a month.

She said that although all of the


and establishes an 11-member “auto-motive board” appointed by the mayor(and not necessarily including a colli-sion repair shop representative). Whilethe proposal includes no minimum re-quirements for equipment or training,it has detailed rules regarding fencingaround the business property, andmakes it unlawful for “grass or vege-tation to grow to a height of more thannine inches above the ground.”

Brown said there is a lot to like inthe 28-page proposal, and he applaudsthe council’s effort to deal with the busi-nesses—including shops connected withtowing storage lots—that “hold vehicleshostage” and charge exorbitant fees torelease a vehicle that a consumer wishesto move to another repair facility.

But, he said, some of the man-dates—such as requiring customer sig-nature on any supplement over $100,and storing (at customer request) oldparts for up to three days to return to thecustomer—are just too cumbersome.His group is also concerned that the pro-posal essentially gives insurers, as the“authorized agent” of the consumer, the

same rights as the owner of the vehicle.In an unrelated effort, Brown said

the Houston association recently had ashop labor rate survey conducted by anindependent third-party. Shops arebeing urged to notify state insuranceregulators if an insurer is unwilling topay the shop’s posted labor rate by tak-ing a photo of the posted rate andemailing it along with the estimate atthe lower rate (with customer andclaim information omitted) to theTexas Department of Insurance.

“Right now they’re just collectingthose and we’re laying the ground-work,” Brown said.

In addition to discussing ways toaddress issues that many of the stategroups are facing, the affiliates alsodiscussed some of the issues SCRS ispursuing, including a survey to insur-ers about their policies on parts usage,and interaction with the Environmen-tal Protection Agency regarding inter-pretation and enforcement of its newrefinishing regulation.

John Yoswick is a freelance writerbased in Portland, Oregon, who hasbeen writing about the automotive in-dustry since 1988. He can be contactedby email at [email protected].

Continued from Page 10

SCRS

MSOs Share Insights During First-time Symposium at 2011 NACE

SeeMSO Insights, Page 26


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Unless specifically recommended bythe vehicle maker, parts with a tensilestrength over 600 MPa should only bereplaced at factory seams. This is just

one of the “best practices” identifiedat a Repairability Summit hosted by I-CAR earlier this year. Summit atten-dees consisted of subject matterexperts from vehicle makers, tool andequipment makers, collision repair fa-cilities, insurance companies, and theAmerican Iron and Steel Institute.

The primary intention of thesummit was to identify best practicesfor working with ultra-high-strengthsteels (UHSS) and the new construc-tion methods found on late modelvehicles. In February 2012, I-CARwill premiere its Best Practices forHigh-Strength Steel Repairs(SPS09) course, highlight-ing issues covered duringthe Summit and other bestpractices.

While vehicle makerrecommendations should befollowed first and foremost,these best practices can beleveraged where none exist.For example, while there’s alot more information on steelstrengths in the vehicle serv-ice information with each new modelyear, sometimes the information is notthere. Summit attendees discussedvarious tests the technician can per-form in the repair facility that helpidentify if the steel is mild, HSS, orUHSS (see Figure 1).

Knowledge GapTo prepare what information wouldbe discussed at the summit, I-CARconducted a survey of technicians

in the field, asking whatkind of information theywould like to see from I-CAR in a future course onthe subject of advancedconstruction. The survey re-vealed a lack of informationamong technicians actuallymaking the repairs, and adefinite need for a courseaddressing the subject.

Summit DiscussionsThe agenda for the summit was laidout like a repair plan. After the dis-cussion on steel strength identifica-tion, the group discussed bestpractices for anchoring and pullingand different removal methods. Thecreated heat-affect zone from heatingand removal methods was a major dis-cussion point (see Figure 2).

A discussion on attachmentmethods focused on GMA (MIG)welding heat-effect on UHSS, thechanges in spot weld machine set-tings, and how destructive testing of

spot welds differs on UHSS panelscompared to HSS or mild steel.

Somewhat new attachmentmethods like MIG brazing and self-piercing rivet bonding were dis-cussed, including the applicationswhere they are recommended and

possible future uses (see Figure 3).To facilitate the conversation,

I-CAR brought in two vehicles withsimilar side damage. The vehicleswere of the same make and model,

and even though separated by onlyone model year, the later modelcontained significantly more UHSScompared to the previous model.The two vehicles were used to iden-tify the necessary changes in re-

pairs due to more use of UHSS.

SummaryIt became clear during the recent I-CAR Repairability Summit that vehi-

cles cannot be repaired usingthe same repair methods thatwere acceptable just a fewyears ago.

Industry experts that at-tended the Summit addressedthese issues and agreed on alist of best practices that canbe used when vehicle makerrepair information does notexist. The list will be avail-able in the Best Practices ForHigh-Strength Steel Repairs

(SPS09) course premiering in Febru-ary 2012.

Watch a video describing some ofthe highlights on the Best PracticesFor High-Strength Steel Repairs(SPS09) course at www.i-car.com.


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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 - Industry experts discuss steel identification

Figure 2 - Industry experts discuss anchoring andstructural straightening of UHSS

Figure 3 - Industry experts discuss MIG brazingapplications

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CARSTAR held their annual NationalConference for 2011 in Seattle, WA,from September 24 through 27. Theconference drew in around 400 indus-try members and franchisees. Duringa teleconference leaders of the multi-ple shop operator (MSO) offered in-sights into their future plans forgrowth over the next few years.

CARSTAR’s CEO, David Byers,who was added to the team as of thisyear, started the conference by high-lighting where CARSTAR ispresently. Byers said the MSO is ontrack to reach total sales of at least$600 million, and that according to in-dustry averages for independentshops, individual CARSTAR fran-chises make about twice as much peryear.

Byers also talked about how theMSO has been able to continue togrow thanks to continued industryconsolidation since the company’s in-ception in 1989 and an increasingtrend of insurers moving towardsusing MSOs.

At the Conference Ryan Kellerwas named the new head of Business

Development, and he is expected tohelp the MSO open 40 to 50 newstores in the next year. This is 2 to 3times more growth than the MSO hasbeen able to produce over the last few

years. This dramatic increase ingrowth is expected because of a re-newed focus on acquiring new storesand adding a lot of new staff, accord-ing to Byers.

Dan Young, Senior Vice Presi-dent of Insurance Relations mentionedthat part of CARSTAR’s success canbe attributed to the way their franchisesare set up. Although each store is a

CARSTAR franchise, there remainsone owner at each location and this en-ables the franchises to self-manage andhave a single point of contact for in-surers and customers per franchise.

Stacy Bartnik, Vice President ofField Services also talked about theMSO’s continued efforts to grow ex-isting stores as well. She mentionedtraining existing shops on leanprocesses so they can improve cycleand touch times.

Gerald Wicklund, Owner ofWicklund’s CARSTAR was also on theteleconference. His franchise was thefirst franchise of CARSTAR and he isthe second generation owner. Hetalked about the Conference’s focuson educating their franchises about ef-fective marketing and website and so-cial media management.

Wicklund also mentioned that themilitary appreciation efforts his fran-chise makes have been very effectivemarketing tools for his business.

“25 to 30 percent of my cus-tomers that come in the door havedone their own research before I writethe estimate,” said Wicklund.

Wicklund’s CARSTAR was alsohonored with the Outstanding CSIAward at the conference this year.For more information please visitwww.carstar.com.


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New York Governor Andrew Cuomoannounced that federal disaster assis-tance is now available for homeown-ers, renters, small businesses, andmunicipalities in additional countiesas a result of damages incurred byTropical Storm Lee.Additions include:● Public assistance: Ulster County● Individual assistance: Oneida, Or-ange, Ulster Counties

The individual assistance declara-tion allows homeowners, renters andsmall businesses to apply for the follow-ing federal aid: the individuals andhouseholds program, crisis counseling,disaster unemployment assistance,USDA food coupons and distribution,USDA food commodities, disaster legalservices, the disaster supplemental nutri-tion assistance program, and small busi-ness administration disaster loans. Thecounties currently eligible for assistancefrom Tropical Storm Lee are as follows:● Individual assistance (assistance toindividuals and households): Broome,Chenango, Chemung, Delaware,Oneida, Orange, Otsego, Schenectady,Tioga and Ulster counties.● Public assistance (assistance for debrisremoval, emergency protective actionsand the repair or replacement of disaster-damaged facilities): Broome, Chemung,

Chenango, Delaware, Otsego, Orange,Tioga, Tompkins and Ulster counties.

The counties currently eligible forassistance from Hurricane Irene are asfollows:● Individual assistance (assistance toindividuals and households): Albany,Bronx, Columbia, Clinton, Delaware,Dutchess, Essex, Greene, Herkimer,Kings, Montgomery, Nassau, Orange,Otsego, Putnam, Queens, Rensselaer,Richmond, Rockland, Saratoga, Sch-enectady, Schoharie, Suffolk, Sulli-van, Ulster, Warren, Washington andWestchester counties.● Public assistance (assistance for de-bris removal, emergency protective ac-tions and the repair or replacement ofdisaster-damaged facilities): Albany,Bronx, Clinton, Columbia, Delaware,Dutchess, Essex, Franklin, Greene,Hamilton, Herkimer, Kings, Mont-gomery, Nassau, New York, Orange,Otsego, Putnam, Queens, Rensselaer,Richmond, Rockland, Saratoga, Sch-enectady, Schoharie, Suffolk, Sullivan,Ulster, Warren, Washington andWestchester counties. Direct federalassistance is authorized.

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As a paint manufacturer’s rep, there isnot a single month that goes by with-out being put in the middle of colli-sion repairers and insurers; expectedto chime in on a dispute about what isnecessary for a proper repair. In theJuly 2010 edition of Autobody News, Iwrote an article on the debate aboutColor Match, Blending or both and nomatter how many industry expertssince then have expressed a similarpoint of view—this debate neverseems to loose momentum.

While arguing my point a monthago, I realized that we could end thisdebate once and for all. For a moment,let’s assume that in 2011, all partiesinvolved in collision repair have cometo the conclusion that blending is notonly an option, but a necessary and re-quired part of a quality repair process.I like to compare this to the restaurantexperience. If you go out for an ex-pensive dinner and the restaurant sim-

ply slaps the food on your plate, with-out creating a pleasant arrangement,the food will still tastes the same.Chances are the customer will notconsider this a satisfying experience,or be a repeat customer at this estab-lishment. Just like the owner of arestaurant, collision repairers and in-surers want the same thing to maintaina successful business. We need happyvehicle owners that give us high CSIratings and long-term customer reten-tion. Blending is for collision repair-ers and insurance companies, whatarranging the food is to the restaurantbusiness. It is a must have in today’sbusiness world.

So let’s assume we all agree onthe point of blending, where does thisleave the color match portion of theestimate? During my last conversationI had with an insurance representative,I noticed clearly why we go around incircles on this issue. It is the classical

case of misunderstanding or misinter-pretation of the term color match.

When I asked what he felt consti-tutes color match, he explained to me,what we all know as the process oftinting the color. It is not overly sur-prising to me to find this to be the casewith insurance adjusters. More oftenthen not, they didn’t repair vehicles asa professional prior to their current po-sition. It is nobody’s fault by the way,just a matter of fact. What I foundmore disturbing was the fact that somecollision repairers felt similar whenasked.

Let’s take a close look at what theterm color match really represents. Itis a combination of a number of dif-ferent tasks and operations that haveto be accomplished to get to the stageof painting. This includes locating andverifying the paint code on the vehi-cle. If you repair a wide array of dif-ferent makes and models, this can be a

tricky task. Paint codes are located inevery imaginable location on automo-biles. They can be located anywherein the engine department, door open-ing, glove department, the centercouncil or hidden somewhere in thetrunk. And let’s not forget some carsthat have no code anywhere on the ve-hicle.

After locating and verifying thecode, the painter has to retrieve allavailable information the paint manu-facturer’s computer system providesfor the repair. In general, the color re-trieval systems will display more thenjust one solution. The next step fromthere is checking variant decks for theavailable solutions, or spraying outsamples for what was not available asa chip. Although paint companies tryto supply paint samples for the mostcommon variants on the market, it isimpossible to have a chip for each andevery one of them.


Taking a Fresh Look at an Old Debate—Color Matching, Blending, or Both?with Stefan Gesterkamp

Paint Management Stefan Gesterkamp is a Master Craftsman and BASF representative who has been inthe automotive paint industry for 27 years. He started his career in a custom shopbefore turning to collision repair. Stefan graduated from the University of Coatingsand Colorants in Germany and is the author of “How to Paint Your Show Car.”

Now and only now are we get-ting to the portion of the color match-ing process that is debatable. Is thebest variant found good enough for asuccessful blend? Reality is that 90%of the color matching activity has tobe accomplished simply to paint,blending or not.

I am not an expert on estimating.I haven’t written one in 17 years. I amalso not a data provider to this indus-try, but it became clear to me that weneed to change the terminology. It re-quires separating and itemizing all ac-tivities currently bundled under thecolor match line item on an estimate.The vast majority of what is consid-ered color matching can be comparedto and should be handled like setuptime for frame work. A repair opera-tion on its own that should not bebundled with color tint time. It has tobe done, should be itemized andneeds to be paid for.


At NACE, State Farm Announces Change to Shop Locator to Allow RankingBased on Internal Performance Score, Will Use ‘PartsTrader’ for DRPsState Farm has changed its shop locatorsystem, accessible from its consumerwebsite, to now rank its Select Serviceshops based on current performancescores as assessed by State Farm in thegeographic region the customer selects.Previously the system listed shops inorder based only on proximity to the ad-dress entered.

State Farm’s Claims Consultant,George Avery said that once the systemis fully implemented, if a customer istrying to find a Select Service shopwithin 15 miles of a certain zip code,they will see a list of all Select Serviceshops in that area. The system defaultsat 15 miles, but they can contract theirsearch or expand it up to a 50-mile ra-dius.

The shop with the best score in thearea will be listed first, the shop with thesecond best score will be listed second,and so forth. State Farm said it’s possi-ble the customer would have to advancea page to see the bottom-ranked SelectService shops if the search area is largeenough, but again, all Select Serviceshops in the area specified by the cus-tomer will be shown.

The scores themselves will not beshown on the shop locator, but SelectService shops always have access to

their score and performance data. Ashop’s score, on a scale of 1 to 1,000, isupdated monthly and is establishedusing a proprietary formula that takesinto account the key performance indi-cators State Farm uses to track eachshop’s performance.

Several other features of the repairfacility locator have been modified in aredesign of both Statefarm.com andState Farm’s B2B site for shops.

“We’re not going to list the highestperforming shop that’s 100 miles away,”saidAvery. “It’s all pulled from the samesource,” he said. “It’s the same data feedthe repair facility uses. My guess is thatthe day the shops get their update, theymay go to the locator to see where theyfall in the list.”

Avery continued: “We’ve evalu-ated what our capacity needs are basedon the needs of our customers and askedlocal management to use some tools wehave to determine how many SelectService shops they need in their givenmarkets,” he said. “We’re always inter-ested in dealing with high performers.Some repairers have improved, and ifthey have, we encourage them to con-tact local management and share somekey KPIs to give them a sense of howthey’re doing business.And then if there

is a capacity need, local managementwill approach them. Most local man-agement has an ongoing dialogue withmany repairers in their neighborhoodbecause, just because you’re not on Se-lect Service, doesn’t mean you’re notgood. So don’t be offended if there areno openings.”

As far as the electronic parts order-ing system that State Farm is exploring,Avery says they continue to explore thatconcept as they feel it’s in the best in-terests of their customers and repairers.

“We want to be very transparentthat we’re gathering information andvisiting people and getting their input tohelp us build an application,” saidAvery. “We think it will help everyone.”

Insurer will Require ‘PartsTrader’Avery also said thatPartsTraderwill bethe electronic parts ordering system theinsurer expects it will eventually requireits Select Service shops to use. He saidtesting of the system in several marketscould begin in December. “It’s hard totell for sure, but we would like to getsome testing started before the end ofthe year,” Avery said. PartsTrader hasyet to launch but has a provisional web-site at www.partstrader.us.com. Notethis is not ThePartsTrader.com.

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First let me say that there is no “right”answer to most of the challenges acollision owner faces today. Thingsthat worked in the past will no longercut it today and we need to constantlyre-invent the wheel. I will give someexamples of ways to cautiously moveforward in today’s market.

One example is advertising, inthe past we would get a bigger yellowpage ad, and maybe we would donewspaper and maybe some TV. Intoday’s market the consumer rarelypicks up the phone book and newspa-per sales are at an all time low, whileTV is still questionable with DVR’speople can fast forward through yourexpensive 30-second commercial.

Another example is purchasingequipment and your ROI. In the past ashop would buy a thirty thousand dol-lar frame rack or measuring systemand they would be able to close a salebased on something they had that theircompetitors didn’t. Today, repair stan-dards and requirements to repair a col-lision have become so advanced thatmost decent collision facilities havethe same equipment. So purchasing alarge piece of equipment in today’smarket most of the time offers “no”return on your investment.

ChallengesDecision-making is the key to busi-ness success, and there is “no suchthing as a bad decision.” As business-men we decided to venture out on ourown and start or purchase a business.No one gave us any guarantees or se-curity blankets. We made the decisionand went for it. I know I went forbroke. No one stood behind me. I wason my own and I had to make deci-sions every moment that would set thedirection of the future of my company.There was no road map then and thereisn’t one now.

I have learned that when I make adecision I need to make it based on theinformation I have at the time. Wedon’t have a crystal ball to see the fu-ture but many of us tend to beat our-selves up when these decisions don’tpan out. I always remember this be-cause, when I think back, I would nor-mally make the exact same decision ifI had the exact same information at

the time. In other words, all else beingequal, I wouldn’t change the decisionsthat I’ve made in the past.

When we hire a new technician,for example, we check all their refer-ences and make sure they have all ofthe required training. Some turn out tobe our worst nightmare. But that deci-sion to hire someone was based on theinformation we had at the time. Weneeded someone and we hired them.We only know much later that it wasthe wrong person. Hiring was a gooddecision—but the wrong person mayhave been hired. So, not making a de-cision is the only wrong decision here.We could never have known this techwas right or wrong unless we had ven-tured out and made a decision to hirethem.

All business challenges requiredecision-making—that’s our job—embrace it because its what we do. It’swho we are. Another name for a busi-nessman should be “Master DecisionMaker.” I say this because if someoneasks me what my job description wasI would say more than anything elseits making decisions, and they are allgood.

ChangesIn the past we made advertising deci-sions based on information we hadthen. The younger generation are alliPhone and internet savvy now andnever pick up a phone book or newspa-per so we are changing our advertisingplans to accommodate this high-techfuture generation. We just canceled ourlast phone book ad. We do more “Mar-keting” and leave less to chance and weare not really sure of our final destina-tion but we do know the direction haschanged. Will this be a good decision?‘Yes,’based on the information we haveat the time (now).

Similarly, we must continue topurchase major equipment (to keep upwith vehicle technology), but we areno longer expecting a return on our in-vestment. We treat it as a liability likea rent increase—something that wecan’t do anything about but we needto deal with, and this forces us to runa leaner operation.

In retrospect, I made a decision toexpand my operation at the worst pos-

sible time, but when the decision wasmade it was based on the best infor-mation I had at the time. Many wouldsay it was the wrong decision—whowould expand in the middle of a re-cession? The answer is “no one,” noteven “me,” but I didn’t know therewas a recession when I expanded and,given the same set of circumstances, Iwould make the same decision againbecause it was a good decision. So re-member there is no such thing as a“bad decision in business” becausethat’s what we do. ‘Not deciding’ isnot an option.

With this in mind, it may be timeto go back to the drawing board andre-invent yourself. As the leader ofyour company take charge and makethose tough decisions quickly andmatter-of-factly based on the infor-mation you have at the time. Don’tlook back and never second-guessyourself. Once you make a decision,

move forward to the next deci-sion—like firing that tech you nowwish you hadn’t hired (because of theinformation you have now that youdidn’t have before.)

Think of yourself as a Generalleading your troops into battle. Youneed them to trust your decisions andfollow you. No one wants to followsomeone that is indecisive and inse-cure. If you don’t trust your own deci-sion making, how can you expectanyone else to trust it and follow yourlead?

And quit beating yourself up(about events that turned out differ-ently in hindsight)!


There is No Such Thing as a ‘Bad Decision’ in Business

Action Countswith Lee Amaradio Jr.

Lee Amaradio, Jr. is the president and owner of “Faith” Quality Auto Body Inc. in Murrieta,California. Lee is president of the CRA as well as an advocate for many other industrygroups. He can be contacted at [email protected]

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17 shops Service King has added thisyear have been in Texas, the companyis interested in expanding into otherstates.

“My father used to tell me youcan plan your work, but don’t plan onit working out,” Bonner added as acaveat. “It is important to plan, but interms of growth and decisions aboutacquisitions, you have to have adapt-ability as well.”

Grimshaw said reputation withina market is critical when consideringbusinesses to acquire.

“If you think you’re going to buya (shop) that wasn’t performing welland that when you put your name onthe sign, all will be forgiven, that’sbeing a bit naïve,” Grimshaw said. “Ittakes a long time and you have tomend a lot of fences to reestablish areputation.”

The panel was asked to commenton a proposition, espoused by an in-surer in the United Kingdom, thatbusiness often “trip over themselves”trying to exceed customer expecta-

tions when they would be better offjust ensuring they consistently meetthose expectations every time.

Brock Bulbuck, CEO of TheBoyd Group, a Canadian-based firmthat also operates 128 shops in theUnited States (many under theTrue2Form and Gerber tradenames)said the problem with that concept isthat customer expectations keep ris-ing.

“If you don’t strive to wow andexceed and set the bar as high as youcan, I think you run the risk of estab-lishing a culture in your organizationwhere just doing your job is goodenough,” Bulbuck said. “I don’t thinkthat’s conducive to create promoters(among customers) and growing yourbusiness.”

Grimshaw, too, said exceedingexpectations is the key to differentiat-ing your business from the competi-tion.

But Bonner said there is somelogic in what the U.K. insurer was es-pousing.

“I think in collision repair, theprimary customer is insurance, and ifyou don’t exceed their expectations,you will not be rewarded with

growth,” she said. “The secondarycustomer is the traditional retail cus-tomer. I think it’s true that you don’thave to exceed their expectations; youjust have to satisfy them. That’s whatwe’re rewarded on by the primarycustomer, the insurance companies,whether we have satisfied those cus-tomers and given them great service.”

As the panel discussion ended,Bulbuck said he’s interested in seeingother MSOs succeed because itdemonstrates the success of the busi-ness model overall.

“I truly believe the success ofeveryone in this room is dependentupon the collective success of theMSO sector,” Bulbuck said. “So myadvice is a bit self-serving: Never putyour business at risk, never bet thefarm, either operationally or finan-cially.”

The MSO symposium was a newevent at what was the first NACE heldoutside of Las Vegas in seven years.NACE organizers said the return towhat will likely be a 3-city rotation(Orlando, New Orleans and LasVegas) appears to have paid off; re-ported attendance at this year’s event(more than 18,000 people) was up 15

percent over 2010. About 40 percentof those who pre-registered indicatedthey were first-time attendees.

Next year’s event will be heldOctober 10–13 in New Orleans, andorganizers say the success of thisyear’s MSO symposium will result ina similar session being held next year.While it will continue to be open onlyto MSOs, organizers point out thatNACE includes nearly 90 other train-ing sessions that have no such restric-tion on attendance.

John Yoswick, a freelance writerbased in Portland, Oregon, who hasbeen writing about the automotiveindustry since 1988, is also the edi-tor of the weekly CRASH Network(for a free 4-week trial subscription,visit www.CrashNetwork.com). Hecan be contacted by email [email protected].



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A half decade has passed since westarted tracking collision repair organ-izations that generate repair revenueof $20 million or greater annually.During these past five years we haveseen a remarkable amount of change,not only within the collision repairand auto physical damage aftermarketindustries, but also with our U.S. andworld economies.

July 2010 marked the “official”start of the recovery from the 2007 to2009 recession, but it feels like a re-covery in name only for many people.Our economy has been described bymany economists and media punditsas being in a “soft patch.” A growingnumber of forecasters believe we areat risk of a double-dip recession dueto the sluggish economy and a broadspectrum of increasing dynamic, com-plex U.S. macroeconomic and globaldowndraft variables that continue toinfluence fundamental structuralchange within our business, financialand government institutions withsome currently identifiable and still

indeterminable impact on the collisionrepair, property and casualty insur-ance, and OEM and aftermarket autophysical damage segments.

Who will lead the collision repairindustry and how those leadershipcompanies will influence the collisionrepair, property and casualty insuranceand related auto physical damagebusiness segments is an evolving storythat is playing out at this very mo-ment. This evolving story can be sum-marized by viewing it as part of along-term continuum involving threesimultaneously active industry chang-ing phases: Contraction, Consolida-tion and Convergence. We have seenboth long-term historical and real timecontraction within the auto repair andaffiliated industries. Collision repairindustry contraction is due to an in-creasing number of complex dynamicmacroeconomic and industry-relatedvariables including, but not limited to:● Continued overcapacity and frag-mentation● The persistently weak U.S. econ-omy’s impact on consumer attitudes,confidence and spending habits

● The multitude of fluctuating andconflicting trends affecting collisionfrequency, the number of accidentsand vehicle repairs● Proliferation of vehicle accidentavoidance and safety technology● Safer drivers due to aging popula-tion, insurance company auto policypremium discount programs based ongood driver/vehicle monitoring tech-nology, accident and incident-freedriver experiences, graduated teenagedriver training programs, and feweralcohol-related accidents● The changing profile of business-to-business relationships and their in-terdependencies and partnershipexpectations on how business is andwill be conducted in the future● Globalization

This contraction stimulates andaccelerates market share land grab,which in turn increases the likelihoodof further consolidation, which thenplays out through merger and acquisi-tion expansion.

The contraction and consolida-tion phases open the door to a conver-gence of businesses across different

and similar business segments. Thesecompanies combine and integratetheir organizations’ strategic interestsand competencies to win and furthersucceed through leadership, innova-tion, technology, market share gains,competitive positioning, and businessexecution.

Following are examples of con-vergence among some key auto phys-ical damage segments. This type ofconvergence includes clear examplesof merger and acquisition activity,globalization and the integration ofmerged technology platforms amongdifferent business segments that willcontinue to alter and change the land-scape for the collision repair industryand related auto physical damagebusiness segments.

♦ P & C Insurance▪ Mapfre Insurance acquires Com-merce Insurance▪Liberty Mutual acquires Ohio Casu-alty and Safeco▪ AIG acquires 21st Insurance▪ Farmers acquires AIG/21st Century▪ QBE Insurance - acquires Balboa In-


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A Profile of the Evolving Collision Repair Marketplace

surance▪ Allstate announces Esurance acqui-sition▪ Nationwide announces acquisition ofHarleysville Insurance

♦ Collision Repair▪ Boyd Group acquires True2Form▪ Boyd Group acquires Cars Collision▪ Service King acquires Alamo Colli-sion▪ Service King acquires B&B Bodyand Paint

♦ Paint, Body and Equipment▪ Uni-Select acquires Finish Master

♦ Parts▪ LKQ acquires Keystone▪ LKQ acquires Greenleaf▪ LKQ acquires AKZO (40 Locations)

♦ Rental-Technology▪ Enterprise acquires National andAlamo▪ Clayton Venture Group acquiresCynCast▪ Audatex acquires New Era Software▪ Audatex acquires See Progress, Inc.

People frequently ask where the

collision repair industry is headingand what does its future look like.Since perception frequently influencesreality, one guess is as good as an-other. However, one way that questioncan be answered is by following theactual numbers and by tracking thetrends. This white paper provides thatinformation for the growing $20 mil-lion-plus collision repair organizationsegment. We are now beginning to de-velop insight and understanding intoanother important and evolving colli-sion repair segment that includes op-erators processing $10M to $20Mannually.

Our profile of $20 million multi-ple-location collision repair operators(MLOs) continues to include:● Independent, dealership and insur-ance company-owned and managedcollision repair operators processing$20 million or more annually withinthe U.S. market● Operators with one or more loca-tions in single or multiple geographicmarkets within the United States● Professionally-managed operatorsproviding performance-based, brand-recognized and competitively-differ-entiated collision repair services

● Companies focused on achievingtop-tier performance results, high cus-tomer satisfaction, and consistent andsustainable quality repairs● Businesses that tend to pursue mul-tiple customer segments for collisionrepair revenue including property andcasualty insurance, automotive dealer,accident management, rental car, anddirect-pay consumersWe believe that the $20 million-plusand the $10 to $20 million collisionrepair segments will continue to growtheir share relatively faster than othersegments of the collision repair mar-ket. This growth will be driven by anumber of variables.● The segment’s local and multi-mar-ket footprint which offers greater con-sumer and insurance company choiceMulti-level selling and marketing for

insurer choice brand preference withaccess to insurance company direct re-pair claims● Ongoing operational improvementresulting in increased vehicle repairquality, daily throughput and reducedcycle time● Business service differentiation andmarket segmentation● Market leadership through sustain-

able top-tier competitive performanceresults● Expanded business hours of opera-tion including multiple daily shifts,hybrid work shifts and weekends

Single point of contact with opera-tional conformity and predictable re-pair quality and performanceoutcomes● Access to capital for business andmarket growth, expansion and infra-structure development● An integrated sales and marketingapproach to capturing consumer, in-surance, rental, and fleet businessthrough brand recognition, reputation,performance, and multi-level insur-ance company focused selling andmarketing● Mergers and acquisitions

Examples of this type of acceler-ated growth and expansion is BoydGroup’s 2010 mid-year acquisition ofTrue2Form’s multiple-location, multi-market business which had 37 loca-tions and $71.0 M in annual revenueat the time of acquisition and theirJune 2011 acquisition of Cars Colli-sion. With the Cars acquisition,Boyd’s U.S. business increased its lo-


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cations by another 28 repair facilitiesfor a total, of 164 locations in NorthAmerica, 127 located in 13 U.S. mar-kets. This expanded Boyd’s networkreach and operating platform and isseen as being advantageous by a num-ber of insurance companies. Thesetypes of acquisitions and mergers willcontinue to influence the consolida-tion and right-sizing of the collisionrepair industry as well as increase theMLO market share in the U.S.

The $20 million MLO collisionrepair profile used for this analysis ex-cludes repair facilities that focus ex-clusively or primarily on expeditedpaint and cosmollision, small dent,glass repair only, mechanical only, andcollision repair related primarily toauction vehicles. We do recognize thatwithin this segment some companiescontinue to be in various stages ofstrategic growth, transformation andtransition to business models ap-proaching that of an insurance com-pany DRP wholesale or diversifiedcustomer segment platform.

Portions of this report include aspecific segment of collision repairconversion and multi-segment cus-tomer-focused franchisors which we

refer to as multiple-location networks(MLNs). The MLNs included areMaaco, CARSTAR, ABRA franchis-ing, and Fix Auto, currently a hybridmodel which includes both a franchiseand non-franchise brand banner net-work model. These organizations rep-resent a significant market segment ofthe collision repair industry that webelieve warrants continued trackingand monitoring.

We recognize that there are vari-ous types of multiple-location net-works that are not currently includedhere such as integrated and outsourcedauto physical damage and glass net-works like LYNX APD and the Inno-vation Group, buying networks suchas Assured Performance, accidentmanagement providers such as CEI,and peer performance groups like TheEverest Partners.

Key findings of our 2010 $20M MLOdiscovery, research and analysis in-clude:● The 56 $20 million MLO organiza-tions process 10.8 percent of the $31.0billion in collision repair revenue na-tionally representing $3,350 million,up from 9.1 percent in 2006.

● Within the top ten $20 millionMLOs, five are independent and fiveare dealer groups. These top ten or-ganizations account for 44.9 percentof all $20 million MLO production lo-cations and 53.3 percent of all $20million MLO revenue.● $ 20 million MLOs have 2.9 percentof the 37,700 locations and 10.8 per-cent of the revenue.● On average, the $20 million MLOsprocess $3.1 million per location, overfour times more than the average an-nual revenue for non-MLO repairersof $754,949.● Revenue for the top ten independ-ent and dealership MLOs was $1.8billion, an increase of $495 millionover 2006’s revenue of $1.3 billion● Our early research on the $10 to $20million collision repair segment indi-cates that there are roughly 1,000 to1,200 independent and dealer-ownedcollision repair businesses represent-ing approximately 3,000 to 4,500shops that process between $4.0 bil-lion and $5.0 billion in revenue. Whencombined with our 2010 findings forthe $20 million MLOs, these two seg-ments represent a range of revenuebeing processed of $7.5 to $8.5 billion

through approximately 4,100 to 5,600repair facilities.● Training does matter for collisionrepairers when maintaining and ex-panding the scale of their business.Our research and collaboration with I-CAR indicates that over 90% of the 56MLOs have and maintain the I-CARGold Class Professional designation.Many of these organizations also haveor are working toward increasing thenumber of Platinum technician desig-nations within their employee ranks.

There continues to be a widerange of opinions, anecdotal informa-tion and various government and pri-vate sector data reporting on anddetermining a meaningful and rele-vant collision repair market size. Thisis especially true in light of the after-math of our last recession, the currentweak economy, and the macroeco-nomic conditions which have influ-enced the accelerated loss of bothdealership and independent collisionrepair operators in 2009 and 2010.

Based on our longitudinal re-search and analysis involving pub-lished third-party industry sources,property and casualty insurance and


See Evolving Marketplace, Page 39


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Brewster HondaBrewster

845-278-4177Dept. Hours:

M-F 8-5; Sat [email protected]

Dick Ide HondaRochester

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

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

[email protected]

Lamacchia HondaSyracuse

315-471-7278Dept. Hours:

M-F 7:30-5:30; Sat [email protected]

Lia Honda of AlbanyAlbany

800-272-6741518-482-2598

Dept. Hours:M,T,W,F 7:30-5:30; Thur 7:30-8; Sat 8-5

[email protected]

Lia Honda of WilliamsvilleWil l iamsvi l le /Buf fa lo877-659-2672716-632-3800

Dept. Hours:M-Thu 7:30-8; Fri 7:30-5; Sat 8-5:30

[email protected]

Ray Laks HondaWest Seneca

716-824-7852Dept. Hours:

M-F 7:30-8; Sat 7:30-5:[email protected]

Coast HondaSea Gir t

732-974-8960732-974-2211 Ext. 3

Dept. Hours:M-F 7-5:30; Sat 7:30-4

[email protected]

Honda of PrincetonPr inceton

800-682-5941609-683-5941

Dept. Hours:M-F 8-4:30

[email protected]

Honda of TurnersvilleTurnersv i l le

800-883-0002856-649-1584

Dept. Hours:M-F 8-6; Sat 8-4

[email protected]

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

Dept. Hours:M-F 7-7; Sat 7:30-5; Sun 8-3

[email protected]

Rossi HondaVine land

800-893-3030856-692-4449

Dept. Hours:M-F 6:30-5; Sat 7:[email protected]

Route 22 HondaHi l ls ide

973-705-9100Dept. Hours:

M-F 7-7:30; Sat [email protected]

Apple HondaYork

800-960-9041717-848-2600

Dept. Hours:M-F 7-6; Sat 7-4; Sun 10-4

[email protected]

Baierl HondaWexford

724-940-2006Dept. Hours:


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

Dept. Hours:M-Thur 8-6; Fri 8-5; Sat [email protected]

Mike Piazza HondaLanghorne

215-702-2614215-702-2615


Shadyside HondaPi t tsburgh

800-468-2090412-390-2908

Dept. Hours:M-F 7:30-5

[email protected]

Sussman HondaRoslyn

800-682-2914215-657-3301


[email protected]

NEW YORK NEW YORK NEW JERSEY PENNSYLVANIA

NEW JERSEY

PENNSYLVANIA

The Honda and Acura Dealers Listed Here are Subscribers:HONDA

NEW YORK NEW YORK PENNSYLVANIA PENNSYLVANIA

ACURA

Acura of WestchesterWestchester

914-834-8887Dept. Hours:

M-F 7:30-8; Sat 8-4; Sun [email protected]

Curry AcuraScarsdale

800-725-2877914-472-7406


[email protected]

Paragon AcuraWoodside

718-507-3990Dept. Hours:

M-F 8-6; Sat 8-5; Sun [email protected]

Smithtown AcuraSt . James

888-832-8220631-366-4114

Dept. Hours:M-F 7:30-5:30; Sat 8-4

[email protected]

Acura of TurnersvilleTurnersv i l le

888-883-2884856-649-1884


[email protected]

Elite AcuraMaple Shade

856-722-9600Dept. Hours:


Apple AcuraYork

877-5APPLE5717-849-6639

Dept. Hours:M-F 7-5:30; Sat 7-3

[email protected]

Baierl AcuraWexford

800-246-7457724-935-0800


[email protected]

Davis AcuraLanghorne

866-50-ACURA215-943-7000


[email protected]

Lehigh Valley AcuraEmmaus

877-860-3954610-967-6500


[email protected]

Smail AcuraGreensburg

866-261-4999724-219-1476


Sussman AcuraJenkintown

800-826-4078215-884-6285


[email protected]

NEW JERSEY

www.autobodynews.comwww.autobodynews.com

NEWSNEWSNEWSNEWSService, Diagnostic

and MechanicalService, Diagnostic

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and MechanicalAutobody News November 2011NEW YORK • NEW JERSEY • PENNSYLVANIA • DELAWARE


General Motors announced the indus-try’s first-ever front center air bag onSeptember 29. The airbag is an inflat-able restraint designed to help protectdrivers and front passengers in far-side impact crashes where the af-fected occupant is on the opposite,non-struck side of the vehicle.

The front center air bag will beintroduced on the Buick Enclave,GMC Acadia, and Chevrolet Traversemidsize crossovers in the 2013 modelyear. This new safety feature will bestandard on Acadia and Traverse withpower seats and all Enclaves.

The front center air bag deploysfrom the right side of the driver’s seatand positions itself between the frontrow seats near the center of the vehi-cle. This tethered, tubular air bag isdesigned to provide restraint duringpassenger-side crashes when thedriver is the only front occupant, andalso acts as an energy absorbing cush-ion between driver and front passen-ger in both driver- and passenger-sidecrashes. The air bag also is expectedto provide benefit in rollovers.

GM analysis of the NationalHighway Traffic Safety Administra-tion’s Fatality Analysis ReportingSystem database, found that far-sideimpact crashes, which the front cen-ter airbag primarily addresses, ac-counted for 11 percent of the beltedfront occupant fatalities in non-

rollover impacts between 2004 and2009 involving 1999 model year ornewer vehicles. These far-side fatali-ties, where the occupant is on the non-struck side of the vehicle, alsorepresent 29 percent of all the belted

front occupant fatalities in side im-pacts.

“The front center air bag is notrequired by federal regulation, andno other air bag in passenger vehi-cles today offers the type of restraintand cushioning this air bag is de-signed to provide for front occu-pants,” said Scott Thomas, seniorstaff engineer in GM’s advanced re-straint systems.

The front center air bag is ex-pected to add to the vehicles’ recordof third-party crash test performance.The 2012 model year editions of thesemidsize crossovers have receivedfive-star Overall and Side Crashsafety ratings from NHTSA’s NewCar Assessment Program, and 2011Top Safety Picks from the InsuranceInstitute for Highway Safety.

“The front center airbag has realpotential to save lives in sidecrashes,” said Adrian Lund, presi-dent of the insurance Institute forHighway Safety. “GM and Takata areto be commended for taking the leadin this important area.”

GM and technology supplierTakata developed the front center airbag over the course of three years,testing many design iterations toachieve packaging, cushioning, andrestraint for a variety of crashes andoccupant positions. Numerous ele-ments of the air bag’s jointly patentedcushion design address the restraint’sunique performance characteristicswhile considering a range of occupantsizes.

“While no restraint technologycan address all body regions or all po-tential injuries, the front center air bagis designed to work with the other airbags and safety belts in the vehiclesto collectively deliver an even morecomprehensive occupant restraintsystem,” said Gay Kent, GM execu-tive director of Vehicle Safety andCrashworthiness. “This technology isa further demonstration of GM’sabove-and-beyond commitment toprovide continuous occupant protec-tion before, during and after a crash.”

More information can be foundat www.gm.com.

GM Introduces Industry-First Front Center Airbag

GM’s industry-first front center airbag willdeploy from the right side of the driver’s seatand protects the driver in side crashes

Curt Manufacturing is recallingabout 2,400 tow package wiring har-nesses because moisture can seepinto the converter module and defeatthe internal circuit protection, ac-cording to reports made by Con-sumer Reports.

This could potentially cause themodule to overheat, leading to a firehazard.

Sold as an aftermarket product(not through Hyundai), the tow pack-age wiring harnesses connect tow ve-hicle lighting circuits to trailerlighting circuits for 2009 through2011 Hyundai Veracruz and KiaSorento vehicles. The affected unitsthat are not water tight, will havepart number 56024.

According to the NationalHighway Traffic Safety Administra-tion, Curt Manufacturing has alsoidentified a similar problem with thetow harnesses designed for 2009 to

2011 model year Hyundai Santa FeSUVs.

NHTSA and Curt have ex-panded the recall to include thesemodels, part number 55538, believedto be installed in approximately2,254 Hyundai Santa Fe vehicles.

The safety recall to notify own-ers begins this month, and the towpackage wiring harness will be re-placed for free.

Veracruz and Sorento ownerswho are uncertain the brand of towgear on their vehicle should check,as it is possible that many consumersdid not register their purchase andtherefore would be difficult for CurtManufacturing to reach.

For more information, con-sumers can call Curt Manufacturingat 715-831-8713, or contact the Na-tional Highway Traffic Safety Ad-ministration at 888-327-4236, orvisit Safercar.gov.

AM Tow Package Wiring Harnesses for Hyundai/Kia RecalledThe National Highway Transporta-tion Safety Administration (NHTSA)has announced a recall for 2011 and2012 model year ChevroletCorvettes, according to reports madeby Consumer Reports.

The sport coupes have rearhatches that can separate during acollision and cause further injuries.

According to NHTSA, the prob-lem stems from faulty hinges, whichmay not be able to bear the weight ofthe sport car’s rear hatch.

These rear hatch hinges, whichfail to meet federal safety standards,may have been installed in about5,755 Chevy Corvettes from Januaryto September of this year.

General Motors is currentlyworking to iden-tify whichCorvettes are in-volved in thislatest recall. Thecompany willcontact ownersaffected by thisrecall to bringtheir cars tolocal dealerships

where mechanics will replace bothrear hatch hinges free of charge.

For more information, con-sumers can contact Chevrolet (800-630-2438) or NHTSA (toll-free:888-327-4236) or visit the Safer Carwebsite: www.SaferCar.gov.

2011-2012 Chevrolet Corvettes Recalled for Rear Hatch Hinges


If there is one thing I find hard to dealwith in this topsy turvy world of theauto repair business is the way somepeople will react when they are at therepair shop. It’s the way they conductthemselves at the shop when it comestime to get their car repaired.

Over the years I’ve been praised,and degraded. I’ve been called a saintand I’ve been called the devil (orworse). I’ve heard the shouting andthe stuff I probably wasn’t suppose tohear (walls don’t always block soundyou know). After awhile you’ve heardit all before, and the attitudes that yousee at the front desk become a part ofthe daily grind. Coping with all this iswhat I call; “growing alligator skin”. Itry not to take things so personal, I’lllet the alligator skin handle it, and thentake off my protective coat before Iget back home to the wife and kids.

What gives with the need forsuch a thing as “alligator skin”? I be-

lieve there a several factors inherentto the automotive industry that bringson this crocodile coat of protection.

Mistrust of the automotive repairworld in general is what I believe isthe number one factor; but whatbrings on that mistrust? Is it the in-competent mechanic? I doubt that isalways the case. Is it the money out oftheir pockets which they were not ex-pecting when they drove down theroad to the repair shop? I believe it’smore in the hands of the unknowingconsumer who reads and watches toomany evening news reports on the un-scrupulous business practices of thefew out there that really are rip offsand not the normal operations ofcountless decent shops in this coun-try.

If you tie that into the other partof the equation it starts to make somesense. What is that other part? Thecustomer, their car, and what they do

or don’t do with their family trans-portation.

As I try to tell my customers;“Maintenance on a new car doesn’tdo much to the value of the car or itscurrent condition. It’s when it’s olderand the miles are creeping up that allthe previous maintenance pays off”.The inevitable degrading condition ofthe car doesn’t happen all at once, ittakes time and miles for that to hap-pen. And, sometimes some old fail-ures will cause new failures to occur.

“General Maintenance” isn’t aguy in the Army reserves, it’s some-thing we all need to do. It is almost al-ways overlooked, and a lot of timeswe will avoid or put it off, until it’stoo late. That’s when the raised voicesor mistrust starts at the servicecounter and that alligator skin be-comes a necessity again.

Of course, there are alwaysthose TV scammers that will try to

tell you they have the latest greatestproduct to aide in the diagnosing ofyour vehicle. Let’s not forget aboutthe internet and the “wonderful”sources of information out there thatthe customer will no doubt informyou about when they show up with acomplaint.

I’m sure there are doctors,lawyers, and many other professionaltrades that know who’s the best andthe worst in their field. We sometimeshear about those on the evening news,just not as often as the car repair busi-ness seems to be focused on. But carsare needed by everyone, no matterwhat the condition. Think about it,you may not need a lawyer tomorrowmorning to get to work, but I’ll betyou’ll need your car.

Educating the customer shouldstart from the time they sign on thedotted line and purchase their vehicle.

Dealing with Angry Customers and Growing ‘Alligator Skin’with 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 Alligator Skin, Page 36


No recourse is given to educate thenew owner on what needs to be donein the future with their new foundhorsepower. It’s up to the owner todeal with the maintenance issues andany repairs that come up. I personallyhave never bought a car and had thesalesman walk over to me and men-tion, “Now you know, you’ll need toset some money aside for generalmaintenance and the usual breakdowns.” Without the needed “know-how” the car is left to its own demiseand the maintenance is left for anotherday. So, once you add up all these fac-

tors there is only one thing that isgoing to happen at the repair shop—adisgruntled owner with an issue abouttheir car.

Now we are back to the originalproblem, how do you deal with all ofthis? Start with a bit of Alligator skin,be prepared for the customer to tellyou their life story about their car.They’re going to tell you what theythink no matter what you say or do.Let them get it out and keep your alli-gator skin intact. Stay calm, but pro-fessional.

Most of the time, if you explainthe diagnostic procedures and the re-sults of the repair in terms that theycan understand. Things will go a lotsmoother. Sometimes I might have to

go through it a few times but it’sworth the effort.

So the key to this whole ordeal isto do a good job, be prepared to backup what you do with an explanationthat can be understand by the typicaldriver. As long as you do that you cankeep your wits about you and youwon’t lose too much skin for your ef-forts. Keep in mind; it can be a littlerough around the water’s edge. Youmay have to stand your ground andmake your point known. Keep it ascalm as possible and explain as best aspossible.

These issues usually don’t applyto the person who keeps up with theirmaintenance schedules or comes in ona regular basis. They understand the

need and respect the work you do. It’sthe ones that only show up when theircar has reached the water’s edge andcan’t go an inch further without fallinginto the crocodile infested water. Theywill stammer around trying to find away to get their car repaired withoutstepping off into the deep end and risklosing money, time, and their temper.We’ve all been there, and we can allunderstand the problems involved.

Let’s not forget that explainingthings can only go so far. You don’twant to have to resort to their tactics,that’s not good business.

But, remember one thing, thecustomer is still dealing with an alli-gator, and they can bite back if they’renot careful.


Alligator Skin

New York residents are urged to bealert for potential fraud during recov-ery and rebuilding efforts followingTropical Storm Lee, officials with theNew York State Office of EmergencyManagement (NYSEMO) and the Fed-eral Emergency Management Agency(FEMA) announced on Oct. 15, ac-cording to Insurance Journal.

Many legitimate persons—insur-ance agents, FEMA Community Rela-

tions personnel, local inspectors andreal contractors—may have to visit astorm-damaged property.

Officials warned, however, thatsurvivors could encounter people pos-ing as inspectors, government officialsor contractors in a bid to obtain per-sonal information or collect paymentfor repair work. The best strategy toprotect oneself against fraud is to ask tosee identification in all cases and to

safeguard personal financial informa-tion. Recently, residents in TiogaCounty in New York State have en-countered a potential fraudster canvass-ing certain neighborhoods claiming tobe a “financial consultant” allegedlydoing a survey for FEMA in a bid to ob-tain personal financial information.

All New Yorkers are remindedthat all FEMA employees and contrac-tors wear a laminated photo identifica-

tion—a FEMA shirt or jacket alone isnot sufficient proof that someoneworks for FEMA. FEMA inspectorsmay require verification of identity butwill not ask for personal financial in-formation during a home inspection.

If you believe you are the victimof a scam, contact local law enforce-ment and report it to the New YorkState office of the attorney general.Visit www.ag.ny.gov for more info.

FEMAWarns NY Residents to Avoid Scams in Wake of Tropical Storm Lee


SHOP & PRODUCTSHOP & PRODUCTSHOWCASESHOWCASE

As the owner of Icon Collision inMemphis, Tennessee, Tim Russellruns a body shop that fixes approxi-mately 210–230 cars every month,does $6 million in business annuallyand oversees six busy divisions—in-cluding two detailing businesses, aPDR department, a glass division, aretail collision branch and a whole-sale body shop. Specializing in high-end luxury vehicles, Icon works withseveral Memphis-area car dealer-ships that don’t have their own colli-sion centers, such as Lexus ofMemphis, Wolfchase Toyota-Scion,Performance Toyota and WolfchaseDodge, Chrysler Jeep. Russellneeds a paint system that will pro-duce top tier paint jobs each andevery time, either waterborne or sol-vent, depending on the job. That’swhy he’s pleased to be using both ofPro-Spray’s paint systems—the Sol-vent Basecoat and the H2O Water-borne Basecoat.

Russell, now 51, worked for six-teen years at a Memphis dealershipgroup running their collision centerand servicing their eight dealerships.When the group was sold to a largecompany, the climate changed rap-idly. Russell wasn’t happy with thenew corporate environment, so hedecided to start his own shop. IconCollision was opened in 2006 andthe business grew at an alarmingrate. The shop did $80,000 in salesthe first month and doubled that thesecond month. Today, the businessgrosses roughly $500,000 everymonth.

When Russell opened the doorsat Icon six years ago, he initiallysigned with another paint company.“In the end, I left them because theircolor matches were not accurateenough. We just weren’t able to hiton a lot of the colors. They broughtin their managers and it got towhere I couldn’t even hit whitepearls for Lexus cars anymore andit got embarrassing. So, we startedlooking around for a better solu-tion.”

Russell sat down with MikeAguirre from Color Connection, whohe had known for quite some timeand who was now representing Pro-Spray. They met with Todd Berry,Pro-Spray’s local distributor and PhilRich, Pro-Spray’s territory salesmanager and went through the ad-vantages and savings associatedwith the Pro-Spray products. As theysay, the proof is in the pudding, soRussell and his crew tested and re-tested the products.

Recalls Russell, “One day, Icouldn’t get a match on a Lexus wewere painting, so I called Mike atColor Connection and said can youmatch this color?” He said, ‘we canbutt match it.’ I told him, ‘get downhere and if you can butt matchthese panels, we’ll talk.’ He gave usthe Pro-Spray paint and without tint-ing or mixing, we hit it right the firsttime. I thought that was pretty in-credible.”

“All of the Pro-Spray peoplecame here to the shop and we talkedto them. I looked at the pricing andrealized it’s about 40 percent lessthan what I was paying with the othercompany. I could also see that theyhadn’t done a price increase in threeyears, while our other paint companywas raising their prices about6–10%, or even more, every year.”

Other benefits became clear themore he looked at Pro-Spray. “I ana-lyzed Pro-Spray’s clear coats, be-cause that is always one of the mainthings I look at. I like high solidclears, and they have 52% high solidclear, with the competition coming inat 48%. It doesn’t look like a big dif-ference, but if I can get a better clearat a lower price, why not? “The majorthings we were concerned aboutwere the color matches and the pro-tection provided by the clear coats.It’s not rocket science. If it’s preppedproperly, it will last. We’re more con-cerned with the color match and theclear.”

Hitting on color matches withPro-Spray also got his attention,Russell explained. “Hey, I‘m not ex-pecting every paint manufacturer to

match every color every time, be-cause it just isn’t going to happen.

There are times you’re going tohave to tint, for various reasons, andthat’s a reality. But, Pro-Spray defi-nitely impressed me and I made adeal with them. We started with Pro-Spray in late 2009 and we’ve beenspraying it ever since.”

Adopting Pro-Spray was a grad-ual yet fairly drama-free process,Russell said. “We started by usingtheir solvent product and about sixmonths ago we added their water-borne line. They brought in their peo-ple and we didn’t have to sendanyone to a school, so it was con-venient. They had five people herefor a full two weeks with the solventand two people here in the shop withone week for the waterborne. Weadded the waterborne because moreand more of these newer models arepainted with waterborne.

Right now he’s painting morecars with solvent, but that maychange, Russell stated. “I have bothsystems in place and I’m letting mypainters decide. They’re picking90% solvent right now, becausethey’re comfortable using it and rightnow it takes them 15-20% longerusing the waterborne. So, I’m goingto have to make a decision soon onwhether to make a full changeoverto waterborne or use both. My guysget paid flat rate and the more carsthey paint means more money intheir pockets. Everyone hateschange, but we like the Pro-SprayH2O waterborne, so once we canget faster at using it, the transitionwill be easier to make.”

Owner Tim Russell values Pro-Spray’s color-matching capabilities, as well as its attractivepricing and the quality of the finished product.

Icon Collision ServicesLocation: Memphis, TN

Telephone: 901-213-3266www.iconcollision.com

Company At A Glance...

Type: Collision Repair

Facility Employees: 23

In Business Since: 2006

DRP Programs: Zero

Number of Locations: One

Combined Production Space:24,000 square feet

Pro-Spray Automotive FinishesPhone: (800) 776-0933email: [email protected]: www.ProSprayFinishes.com

www.ProSprayH2O.com

Tim Russell at Icon Collision knows that no paint company will come up with perfect color matches100% of the time, but Pro-Spray gives him the best matches he’s ever achieved.

Busy Shop Clearly Sees Benefits Working withPro-Spray Solvent & Waterborne

Icon Collision in Memphis, Tennessee, is cur-rently using both solvent and waterborne prod-ucts by Pro-Spray in his busy shop. They’repainting more than 200 cars monthly.

by Ed Attanasio

With over 100 girls registered andnearly that number in attendance, Col-lision Hub’s second annual GirlScouts: Tools for Success program wasa huge success. For the event, the GirlScouts of Citrus Council in Orlandocame to the NACE show floor for anhour of conversations with leaders inthe industry about the incredible op-

portunities available to young womenin the collision repair.

The girls learned about frameequipment and measurement systemswith Bob Holland of Chief, the his-

tory of DuPont with Petra Schroeder,the chemistry of paint and color withLaura Yerkey of ProSpray, advancedsoftware and new technologies fromCCC’s Susanna Gotsch, scholarshipopportunities with the Women’s In-dustry Network, and more.

Following the NACE Tools forSuccess tour, Collision Hub hosted a

Women’s Panel sponsored by LKQand moderated by Eileen Sottile,which featured:●Kristen Felder—Founder andCEO, Collision Hub●Denise Casperson— Manager,ASA Collision Division●Audra Fordin—Owner, GreatBear Auto Repair and Auto BodyShop, Flushing, NY●Stacee L. Royce—LaboratoryManager, Paint Applications andMasking Systems, 3MAutomotive Aftermarket Div.●Petra Schroeder—Brand Devel-

opment Manager Standox, DupontPerformance Coatings●Victoria Jankowski—P&C ClaimsConsultant, State Farm and Presidentof WIN

Girls heard from these incrediblewomen about everything from theirpersonal journeys into the industry towords of advice going forward. Colli-sion Hub offers this program as a wayto connect with the leadership pipelinethat is the Girl Scouts and to possiblylight the spark that will one day usherthem into the industry as our futureCEOs, Marketers, Painters, Lobbyists,Technicians, Mechanics, Shop Own-ers, Engineers, Chemists, Industry An-alysts and more.

“In addition to their time on theNACE floor visiting selected companybooths, we were able to introducethese dynamic young women to thework of the Women's Industry Net-work and the National AutobodyCouncil's Recycled Rides Program,”said Kristen Felder, Collision HubFounder and CEO. “We believe thatOctober 8, 2011 was yet another steptowards a wonderful career explo-ration and mentoring program betweenthe Girl Scouts of America and the col-lision repair industry at large.”

Tools for Success was PresentedBy Enterprise Rent-A-Car with the

Women’s Panel Discussion and lunchProvided By LKQ. Other event sponsorsincluded: Chief Automotive Technolo-gies, 3M, PPG, VeriFacts Automotive,AutoBody America, AkzoNobel, FixAuto, DuPont, CARSTAR, Mitchell,Esurance, Pro-SprayAutomotive Refin-ishes, Automotive Service Excellenceand CCC Information Services.

The Girl Scouts is reforming itsmission to incorporate an emphasis onengineering, science, and technologyand are seeking avenues to achievethis goal. As the collision repair indus-try continues to seek ways to recruitnew talent and creative methods forconnecting with costumers, CollisionHub hopes to offer access to a truly un-tapped demographic.

Tools for Success offered aunique opportunity for leaders in ourindustry to speak with a premieregroup of goal-oriented and intelligentyoung women and capture their poten-tial as future leaders and consumers aswell as the support of each scout’s ex-tensive personal network as potentialcustomers and champions of the colli-sion industry.


718.728.8111x3019/3040

Parts Dept.

718.278.0319 Fax

Hours:Mon-Thur 7:30am - 6pmFri 7:30am-5:30pmSat 8am - 4pm

[email protected]

www.koeppelvw.com

Koeppel VolkswagenWe’re open to serve you!57-15 Northern Blvd., Woodside, NY 11377Parts: 3251 57th St., Woodside, NY 11377

• Value Products & Tires Available• Free Dedicated Delivery• Large Stock of OEM Parts

• Value Products & Tires Available• Free Dedicated Delivery• Large Stock of OEM Parts

718.626.7200718.721.9100

718.626.1427 Fax

Hours:Mon-Thurs 7:30am - 6pmFri 7:30am-5:30pmSat 8am - 4pm

[email protected]

www.koeppelmazda.com

Koeppel MazdaThe Source for Mazda Parts!57-15 Northern Blvd., Woodside, NY 11377Parts: 3250 57th St., Woodside, NY 11377

Parts Dept.Parts Dep

Girl Scouts Gear Up at NACE for Collision Hub’s Tools for Success

Local Girl Scouts were able to tour the NACE floorand get a taste of the collision repair industry inCollision Hub’s second annual Tools for Successprogram

government sources, primary and sec-ondary research, and industry “knowl-edgeable and experienced,”

professionals, we continue to ascertainthat there is no one certain numberthat is universally rec-ognized or accepted asbeing the “correct”number of collision re-pairers in the U.S. today.

Our estimated U.S.market size for the num-ber of collision repairersthrough year end 2010is 37,700. This estimate

continues to reflect the long-term de-cline which began in the late 1980s.As seen in the chart below, the numberof independent and dealership colli-sion repair facilities in the U.S. has de-clined by 53 percent over the past 30years. Since 2006, we see a reduction

of approximately 7,300independent and dealer-operated collision repairfacilities within theUnited States, a 16 per-cent decline.

Over the nextdecade, we believe thatgreater market share willcontinue to shift to the$20M plus MLOs, the$10 to $20M MLOs, and

MLNs. Their focus will be on growth-oriented strategies which deliver high-

quality and consistent repair perform-ance, have strong insurance and con-sumer brand recognition andreputation, and adapt quickly to mar-ket, consumer, and insurance needsthrough innovative solutions, technol-ogy and services. This market shareshift will move the industry toward aless fragmented and capacity-normal-ized model.

Using our best-efforts approachin sizing the collision repair insuranceand consumer-paid auto repair claimsmarket size, insurance-paid repairable

claims expenditures for 2010 roseslightly to $28.3 billion from $27.7billion in 2009. Consumer-paid claims

were relatively stable at $2.7 billion.We estimate that the combined insur-ance and consumer-paid claims for re-pairable vehicles for 2010 wasapproximately $31.0 billion.

The total number of collision re-pairers within the United States con-tinues to have value as the traditionaldata point for calculating marketshare. Repairers who operate and in-tegrate within their business collisiondamage estimating and shop manage-ment systems while leveraging otherclaims processing and management

software such as audit-ing, capacity utilization,scheduling and key per-formance metrics analy-sis will be the collisionrepair providers laststanding and preferredby insurance and otherclaims production com-panies.

Our analysis ofMLO production mar-ket share includes threeprimary market defini-

tions: the total number of collision re-pairers, total estimating systems andmanagement system software users.


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Evolving Marketplace

Source: The Romans Group LLC

Source: The Romans Group LLC

Values for these market size datapoints are represented in the followingchart.

Our summary findings concludedthat in 2010 there were 56 independ-ent and dealership collision repair $20million MLOs processing over $3.3billion annually through 973 produc-tion locations.

We attempted to identify non-production estimating and drop-off lo-cations and base our market share onproduction locations only. While these$20 million MLOs represent 2.9 per-cent of the estimated 37,700 collisionrepair facilities nationally, theyprocess 10.8 percent of the $31.0 bil-lion in insurance and customer-paycollision repair revenue.

The National Automobile DealersAssociation, NADA, estimates that5,841 dealers processed $6.4 billion in

repair revenue in2010 versus $6.6 bil-lion in 2009. Thebalance of $24.6 bil-lion is beingprocessed by ap-proximately 31,859independent colli-sion repair locations.On average, the $20million MLOsprocess $3.1 millionper location, overfour times more thanthe average annualrevenue for non-MLO repairers of$754,949. There aremany smaller inde-pendent and dealer non-MLO repair-ers that achievegreater-than-the-industry average an-

nual revenue, especiallythose who represent andoperate in the $10.0 mil-lion to $20.0 million seg-ment.

While this paper isfocused on independentand dealership multiple-location operators, we

think it is important to recognize thecontinued interest in other collision re-pair models which we identify as mul-tiple-location networks or MLNs.These MLNs are growing competi-tively with their service offerings, in-surance-preferred value proposition,and market influence. When com-bined, their market share for vehiclerepairs processed and their local, re-gional and national footprint becomerelevant.

We have included ABRA,CARSTAR and Maaco, all franchis-ing organizations, and Fix Auto USA,a hybrid franchisor and brand bannernetwork, as part of our multiple-loca-tion network segment for 2010. To-gether they represent a total of 884locations repairing approximately$1.3 billion in vehicle revenue. We seeinterest on the part of collision repair-ers to investigate and consider thebenefits of multiple-location fran-chisor and banner networks.

The independent-brand model,historically believed by many repair-ers to be the most desirable way tosuccessfully maintain and grow theirbusiness, may now be seen by a grow-ing number of collision repairproviders as possibly more risky thanbeing associated with an MLO orMLN, especially in light of currentmacroeconomic, market and competi-tive conditions. Some repairers see theopportunity to adopt and integrateMLN member benefits as a potentiallybetter way to sustain and grow theirbusiness through:● Leveraging the MLN value propo-sition, brand association, multi-seg-ment customer reach, multi-level sales


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1 May have more than one installation per location. Includes bothcommunicating and non-communicating systems.2 Assumes one per location

and marketing, and insurance com-pany business affiliation● Franchisee performance tools forbusiness and customer analysis,benchmarking and peer ranking● Personnel, operational and generalbusiness training and development

● Standardized processes and proce-dures● Utilization and integration of a tech-nology platform● DRP insurance relationships andbusiness considerations not previously

available as an independent operator● Expense reduction through large-scale supply chain management andprocurement

Our regional location market rep-resentation for these $20 millionMLOs is highest in the Southeast at

25.2 percent. In2008 the West wasthe dominant regionwith a 25.4 percentshare; it now repre-sents 22.9 percent ofthe market. The low-est $20 million MLOrepresentation con-tinues to be in theNortheast at 6.1 per-cent which is down4.3 percentagepoints from their2006 share of 10.4percent.

Another way toview regional repre-

sentation is to assess the geographicreach of the $20 million MLO organ-izations. Do they tend to containthemselves in a relatively small areaor do they expand their influenceacross many states?

● Of the 56 $20 million MLO organi-zations, 31 do business in only onestate. Of those 31 or-ganizations, 25 areindependents and 6are dealers.●Within the top tenrankings, only twoindependent and three dealer MLO or-ganizations strategically positionthemselves in only one state.

The West has the highest numberof MLOs with at least one location inthat region, 26 MLOs are representedwhich represents 46.4 percent of MLOs.

The companies representedwithin the top ten MLO organizations

have not substantiallychanged since 2006 andhave only lost onemember. While theirshare of all collision re-pair locations has beenrelatively constant, rev-enue among this grouphad been increasingyear over year in total aswell as per location.

Within the top ten$20 million MLOs, fiveare independent and

five are dealer groups. These ten or-ganizations account for 44.9 percent

of all $20 million MLO production lo-cations and 53.3 percent of all $20million MLO revenue. These top tenMLOs display trends similar to thetotal $20 million MLO group; higherrevenue produced through fewer pro-duction locations.

Smaller and non-MLO repairers,those with total collision repair rev-


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enue below $20 million annually, varywidely in claims processed per loca-

tion. For the top ten independent $20million MLOs, the average repair rev-enue per location significantly sur-passes that of their smaller andnon-MLO counterparts at $3.0 millionversus $740,619,over four timesmore average rev-enue per location.Top ten dealer $20million MLO per-formance also ex-ceeds their smallerand non-MLO coun-terparts at a repairs-processed averageof $3.9 million perlocation versus$964,691 per loca-tion for smaller andnon-MLO dealer re-pairers; four timesmore revenue perlocation. The trendfor both the inde-pendent and dealergroups is towardhigher revenue perlocation in both theMLO and non-MLO segments.

Comparing the top ten independ-ent and dealer group $20 millionMLOs, the independents have 69 per-cent more locations producing 27 per-cent more revenue than dealer repairorganizations. However, in 2010 thetop ten dealer repairers manage $3.9million in average revenue per loca-tion versus $3.0 million per locationfor independent organizations.

Within the top ten independent$20 million MLO group, the ranking

has remained fairly consistent over thepast four years. The total number of

production locationshas increased alongwith their represen-tative share of all$20 million MLO lo-cations to 40.7 per-cent from 40.5percent in 2006. Thisgroup’s share of all$20 million MLOrevenue has in-creased to 39.7 per-cent, up 5.7percentage pointsfrom 34.0 percent in2006.

The trend in thenumber of dealer-ships operating colli-sion repair facilitieshas continued to de-

cline since 2006 when 41 percent hadrepair locations down to 33 percent in2010. Both the number of new cardealerships and the number of dealersoperating collision repair facilities de-

clined significantly since 2006. UsingNADA’s reported total of 17,700 deal-ers at the end of 2010, this representsan estimated 5,841 dealer-operatedcollision repair facilities, a decline of32.8 percent or 2,851 fewer dealercollision repair operators from 2006when there were 8,692 dealers operat-ing collision repair facilities.

As can be seen in the followingchart, the number of dealerships oper-ating on-site body shops since 1994has dropped significantly from a high

of 52 percent to a low of 33 percent in2010, a 19 point drop over 16 years.

Looking at the dealership share

of the collision repair marketplace,and according to NADA, revenue de-rived from collision repair work per-formed by dealerships declined to$6.4 billion in 2010, down nearly 33%percent from $9.5 billion in 2007.

During the past 22 years, dealer-ships had seen their collision repair

revenue increase steadily until around2005 when the industry’s total salesdollars began to decline to what arenow levels equal to 1998. The revenuedecline has started to tapered off since

2008.There was a 4.1

percent decline in thenumber of new car deal-erships from year-end2009 to year-end 2010,along with a 10.3 per-cent decline in the num-ber of dealershipsoffering collision repairservices. The significantdecline in the number ofdealerships in 2009

slowed in 2010. About 1,550 dealer-ships closed in 2009 and 760 closed in2010, leaving the dealership count at

17,700, a drop of 4.1 per-cent.

Within the top tendealer group, there has beensome minor shifting. Forthose dealers, average rev-enue per location has in-creased over the past yearby $500,000, a considerableswing from the $300,000decline in 2009.

We expect that theevolving collision repairlandscape will be the resultof a number of industry-spe-cific and macro-economic

conditions likely causing a continua-tion of collision repairers exiting thebusiness, MLO mergers and acquisi-tions, market share growth and expan-sion, and innovative partnerships andstrategic alliances. Some of the pre-vailing conditions include:● Insurance companies working with

a more limited numberof single and multiple-location operators

○ DRP claims con-version is expected toincrease over the nextfive years

○ Performancemanagement results willdrive DRP claims uti-lization and influence totop-tier collision repairperformers

○ DRPs and pre-ferred provider pro-grams are influencinglarger repair volumes toemerging end-gamewinners

○ Insurance com-panies increased adoption of the mul-tiple-operator business model andsingle point of contact● Fluctuating and conflicting trendsaffecting accident frequency and the

Source: NADA, The Romans Group LLC

Source: NADA Industry Analysis Division



number of repairable claims.The negative impact of the current

macroeconomic and business condi-tions and their influence on collisionrepairers remaining in business or de-

ciding to exit their business● Acceleration of aggressive repairerselling, marketing and branding oftheir competitive value propositionsand performance to current andprospective wholesale and consumersegments● Development, marketing and im-plementation of new and innovativeservices that many repairers will nothave the ability or the inclination to

pursue with their customer base● Lean production and its businessbenefits leading to competitive advan-tage and long-term business sustain-ability for some repairers compared to

their competition● Hybrid claims manage-ment and process modelsthat not all repairers are will-ing or able to accept, adoptor maintain● Insurers co-managing withrepairers a growing numberof their insured’s collisionrepairs through direct repairprograms.● Innovative, risk-taking re-pairers will move toward aself-managed vehicle repairmodel which will require

less insurance company oversight, in-volvement and disintermediation.● Technology and its affect on theevolution and movement toward anintegrated electronic claims process-ing model● Continued contraction, consolida-tion and convergence of all industriesassociated with and including colli-sion repair● Globalization and the potential U.S.

market entry of for-eign companies inthe collision repair,property and casu-alty insurance andauto physical dam-age industries

The good newsis that there is stillmuch opportunitywithin the collisionrepair industry forthose who adapt tothe changing condi-tions and leveragetheir business, mar-ket, financial, andstrategic competen-cies and capabilitiesfor growth and fu-ture success.

For further information, contactVincent J. Romans or Mary JaneKurowski of The Romans Group at

[email protected], [email protected] or visitwww.romans-group.com.


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“The Insider” is an auto insurancecompany executive who wishes to re-main anonymous. This column reflectssolely the opinion of The Insider in hisunvarnished view of various issuesimpacting the collision industry.

Can NACE Survive as a ‘traveling re-gional trade show’?Well, it’s that time of year again:lights, slots, dice, scantily-cladwomen, lavish parties, casinos andNACE? Actually, it’s not—NACE isalready over. In case you missed it,NACE (the International AutobodyCongress and Exposition) took placein early October in Orlando, the firsttime it moved from Las Vegas in morethan a half-dozen years.

Yes, I was one of a handful ofpeople that showed up to support theindustry’s longest-standing nationaltrade show. I have missed only four ofthe 29 of these annual extravaganzas,and I wasn’t about to let a trip tosunny Florida deter me from attend-ing.

I have to admit, I was apprehen-sive about spending the money andtime to attend two shows this year. .How this small industry can supporttwo national trade shows (NACE andthe SEMA show in November, whichI will discuss in my next column) isbeyond comprehension. In fact, Iwould say it’s not possible.

Here’s my best guess: We will beback to one national industry tradeshow in the next three years. There’sno way that the large companies buy-ing booth space will continue to throwgood money after bad. Even asidefrom the poor economy, national tradeshows like NACE are a dying breed.Yup, even the mighty dinosaur even-tually went extinct.

The once-almighty NACE isdying a slow death. Before anyonesubmits an obituary, please note thatthe show still stands some chance ofsurvival. Although this year’s NACEwasn’t the typical NACE we’ve beenaccustomed to, there was somethingdifferent and positive. Aside from thefact that there weren’t a lot of peoplethere, which made it easier to navi-gate the show floor, the smaller eventmeant my feet were intact after a few

days of walking. Usually, I can hardlywalk after the weekend marathon.

All kidding aside, the positivenews is the reality that NACE couldsurvive and possibly reinvent itselfas a traveling regional trade show.There is a small percentage of peo-ple who have attended NACE in thepast few years who walk a tradeshow floor to find a special deal orsee something new. But the vast ma-jority of the attendees attend theshow to participate in other relatedindustry events, or to network andreduce future travel expenses bymeeting with large groups of peopleover a short period of time.

Because this article is aboutsharing inside information and help-ing my dedicated readers gain abroader perspective, I suppose Ishould tell you something you prob-ably don’t know. NACE transform-ing into just a large regional tradeshow didn’t happen overnight or byaccident. It’s been a slow death. Inthe years leading up to its demise, theindustry tried to tell organizers it wastime for change. They assembled acommittee of industry experts thatwere supposed to help guide them to“NACE: The Next Generation.” Thegoal: to actually create a trade showthat met the demands of their cus-tomer and once again generated ex-citement.

NACE organizers slowlychanged the direction of the show, butby then it was too late. The excitementof NACE was basically reserved forthose looking for a Las Vegas vaca-tion. Attendance plummeted. The re-ported show attendance becamesimilar to an Enron annual report:There was a lot of inflated numbersand not a whole lot to support the factthat the trade show floor looked like abocce ball court on the weekend. Onewould swear that they were using adog-years multiplier where every oneattendee accounted for seven [orga-nizers said 15% more attended thanlast year].

Although NACE organizersmade a lot of mistakes along the wayand often acted with arrogance, therewere other contributing factors. Thisis kind of like a murder mystery:

There are a lot of suspects and clues,but we still aren’t sure of the killer orthe murder weapon.

But I think that the real killer ofNACE was the SEMA show. SEMAis offering something that NACE nolonger does: attendees, attendeesand more attendees. Oh, and some-thing else: attendees. SEMA can befound in the dictionary under theword “excitement.” SEMA willhave about 10 times the number ofattendees as NACE did this year.

As far as the murder weapon, Ithink it was a vote at a Collision Indus-try Conference (CIC) meeting in early2010. The attendees of this conferencewere asked to vote when and wherethey would like their fall meeting to beheld: keep it as scheduled in Novemberin Las Vegas, or move it a few weeksearlier to when NACE had beenrescheduled to be held. They voted forthe conference to be held in Las Vegas

at the same time as SEMA [by onevote—Ed.]. The rest is history and wenow have two trade shows to support.

That’s it for now. See you inVegas, baby.

The Insider is a corporate-levelexecutive with a Top 10 auto insurerin the U.S. Got a comment or questionyou’d like him to address in a futurecolumn? Email him at [email protected].


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I mentioned social media to a bodyshop owner recently and, to my sur-prise, he was almost hostile to the con-cept. There seems to be a verylocalized group in the collision indus-try that really understands socialmedia and this guy was not one ofthem.

“Why would I put my shop onFacebook?” he said. “I don’t have alot of customers who are teenagegirls!” I told this gentleman that Face-book and most other forms of socialmedia aren’t being used exclusivelyby teenage girls. Facebook’s 800 mil-lion members aren’t all teenagers, andthey certainly aren’t all girls.

Last month’s NACE meeting fea-tured a keynote speaker, Chris Bro-gan, who’s a social media guruaccustomed to talking to large auto-motive groups like those attendingNACE/CARS, and the GM Dealers ofCanada, for example.

What’s going on here? Whywould some shops and associationsspend valuable time instructing on so-cial media while others can’t run awayfrom it fast enough?

David Moore, the owner of Col-lisionBuilder.com, a company that de-signs web sites and develops socialmedia plans for body shops and re-lated businesses, has seen a recentspike in body shops getting involvedin several forms of social media.

“It’s unavoidable,” Moore ex-plained. “Three or five years ago, hav-ing a company web site was enough,but now your shop’s customers areusing more and more social media. It’snot just for students or people in their20s anymore. Corporate types, seniorcitizens, your employees and yourcompetitors are using it and in manycases, several times daily. To keep intouch with your clients on a regularbasis and attract new ones, more and

more body shops are gravitating to-ward sites like Facebook, Twitter,LinkedIn and even Youtube, with solidresults.”

One of the early adopters of so-cial media in the collision industrywas Wren’s Body Shop in Dou-glasville, Georgia, a company that re-pairs 160 cars monthly, employs 20people and does approximately $3million in annual sales. Owner JamesWren jumped into the social mediagame with both feet several years agoand it’s paid off for him in a big way.

“I know for a fact we’ve receiveda good amount of business throughour involvement in Facebook andLinkedIn,” Wren said. “Sometimes weget several new customers everymonth and the social media keeps usin touch with our past customers.We’re still doing the other forms ofadvertising, but now we’re focusingmore on social media. All it costs us

is our time, so it makes a lot moresense. Facebook has been great for usgetting new business. LinkedIn hasbeen booming for us recently andwe’re definitely interested in usingYoutube to get exposure for a videowe produced.”

Facebook and LinkedIn are idealvehicles for body shops or profes-sional organizations, such as the Cal-ifornia Autobody Association, to keepits members informed and in the loopabout news and events. Rather thangetting an avalanche of e-mails fromyou, people interested in your busi-ness can check in for updates alongthe way. It’s not as disruptive as e-mail because you don’t have to worryabout spam. When your neighbors andpeers see your social media posts, itadds immediate value to your mes-sage, and the interaction among thegroup can rapidly build.


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See Social Media, Page 47


Moody’s Collision Centers in Maineare well-known by their communityfor their quality service, but they alsodisplay exemplary environmental ef-forts and a culture based around em-ployees. In addition to the manyenvironmentally friendly efforts madeby the shops, owner Shawn Moodyhas also established an employeestock ownership plan (ESOP) for thecompany which allows employees topurchase a share in the business, thusinspiring morale and dedication.

In July 2011, Moody’s Collisionwas acknowledged for their environ-mental consciousness, employee-fo-cused culture and work with thecommunity when they received Akzo-Nobel’s FIT award.

“Receiving the FIT award was alegacy event. Moody’s is extremelyhonored to accept this prestigiousaward. We really place a great deal ofthought and consideration to all thatwe do and consider sustainability ourcornerstone of decision making,” saidMoody. Moody’s switched to Akzo-Nobel’s Sikkens paint in 2003, andMoody considers it one of the best de-cisions in the thirty-three years he hasbeen in business.

In 2010, Thad Moody led thechange to AutoWave waterbornepaints in all of their shops, becomingone of the first shops in Maine tomake this conversion which mini-mizes VOC emissions and reduceswaste. Since the shops repair allmakes and models, switching to wa-terborne presented the challenge of re-building their color library. Moodyadmits the first six months were achallenge but says they are gettingbetter constantly.

In addition to switching to wa-terborne, Moody’s was also the firstin the industry to join the Governor’s

Carbon Challenge, reducing their car-bon footprint by 30% over the pastthree years. They did this by installinghigh-efficiency T-5 lighting, variablefrequency drive (VFD) compressorsand spray booths. These efforts havealso proven financially beneficial asit allows Moody’s to lower energycosts 35%. The shops also contributeto environmental conservation by re-cycling as many of their materials aspossible.

When there was a lot of concernin the early part of the century aboutSocial Security being solvent intwenty to thirty years, Moody’s de-cided to explore the possibility of anESOP because they did not want em-ployees to suffer upon retirement afterspending many years working dili-gently for the company. The ESOPwas established in 2003 and now hasover $2,000,000 in the trust. Thoughthe ESOP is complex and costly to im-plement as well as to administer goingforward, Shawn Moody feels “our co-workers deserve some sweat equity.”and the fact that employees own stockin Moody’s gives them a “vested in-terest in day-to-day decisions and op-erations”.

Moody’s leadership structureplaces a high value on constructivefeedback and ideas. While the busi-ness is still operated as it has beenhistorically, they have legal responsi-bilities which require participant vot-ing for major decisions as well asquarterly profit sharing meetings withall co-workers in which they sharevarious information about the busi-ness. According to Shawn Moody,“We truly operate Moody’s with com-plete transparency. This style of openbook management is consistent withthe ESOP ownership culture. It’spowerful!”

Moody’s believes in “taking careof people.” and this extends to cus-tomers, co-workers, insurance com-panies and the community. “You’vegot to cover all the bases to be suc-cessful in today’s competitive andchallenging business climate.” Assuch, the company contributes to avariety of causes, both locally and

statewide. They also credit co-work-ers PTO time to participate in com-munity activities and organizations.“Giving back is a tremendously im-portant focus of Moody’s,” accordingto Shawn Moody.

Shawn Moody started the firstMoody’s Collision Center in 1977 bybuying a piece of land and borrowing$6,000 to construct a 34’X 30’, three-bay garage when he was seventeenyears old and going into his senioryear of high school. Between 1988

and 2000, Moody’s focused on grow-ing their auto recycling business,Gorham Auto Parts, eventually be-coming one of New England’s largestauto recyclers. They sold that businessto LKQ Corp. in 1999 and began fo-cusing on their collision business, sell-ing their salvage auction business,Rogada Services, to IAA in Septem-ber 2011.

Shawn Moody states, “we didn’treally focus on growing the collisionrepair business until 2001. So to gofrom our original Gorham facilitywith ten co-workers in 2001 to six lo-cations and close to one hundred co-workers in ten years has been quite ajourney.”

Moody’s Collision Centers cur-rently consists of four nearly identical17,500 square foot “Greenfield” shopsin Gorham, Scarborough, Biddefordand Portland, as well as a 7,000 squarefoot center in Sanford. They are nowconstructing an additional 17,500square foot shop in Lewiston, sched-uled for Grand Opening on November1, 2011. They chose this location be-cause it was the next populated mar-ket outside of the greater Portlandarea. Moody’s plans to continue this

rapid growth: “We are currently look-ing at acquisition opportunities to addto our Greenfield schedule. Our goalis to be in the NH and VT markets bythe end of this decade.”

Each Moody’s Collision Centeraverages between fourteen and sixteenco-workers, totaling eighty-two cur-rently. In addition to all of the standardequipment, each location also boaststwo frame machines and two spraybooths, with the exception of the San-ford shop which has one of each. Theshops possess Continental, Chiefand/or Chisum racks, and their spraybooths are a combination of USI Italiaand Junair booths. Each of the 17,500square foot shops average betweenone hundred, fifty and two hundredcustomers per month.

The shops are all I-CAR Goldcertified and have been dubbed De-partment of Environmental ProtectionEnvironmental Leaders. Moody’smaintains direct repair relationshipswith fourteen insurance companies.Moody’s largest challenge continuesto be procuring parts since Maine is arural state and does not have access tolarge dealership groups with large in-ventories.

While discussing his shops, Mr.Moody also took the time to discussthe current state of the auto body in-dustry. He notes that because the valueof the US dollar has decreased, a lotof auto salvage is exported to othercountries, therefore reducing theavailability of good affordable LKQparts.

“The lower volume shops arefaced with higher costs and no pricesincreases to offset. Their overheadgoes up and squeezes what little profitthere is,” said Moody. He believes thefuture of the industry lies in continu-ing “to innovate with Lean and Greenefficient business processes. Qualitycontrol and great customer servicewill identify the winners and losersgoing forward.”

Moody's Collision Centers200 Narragansett StreetGorham, ME 04038207-839-2500

Moody’s Collision Centers in Gorham, ME, Is Concerned for the People:Co-workers, Community and Environmental Responsibility

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].

The whole crew at Moody’s Gorham location

Shawn Moody and George Harrison

The first thing you need to do inorder to start a social media plan, (inmy opinion), is to create a Facebookpage. Then, invite friends to your pageand spread the word. Get your em-ployees, customers and vendors whouse Facebook to invite their friends aswell. This will enable you to contactanywhere from hundreds to thousandsof people just be tapping into youremployees’ friends’ lists. For a directapproach, it’s very easy to find spe-cific people by searching for them onFacebook and sending them a mes-sage through the link that’s under theirprofile picture.

What types of information shouldyou post about your shop? Well, prettymuch anything and everything to cre-ate ongoing online conversationsamong your friends. Did you recentlyrepair a rare or classic vehicle? Didsome of your techs win an award fortheir job performance or recentlycomplete some I-CAR courses? Doesyour painter have an amazing hotwings recipe (forward it to me,

please)? These are the types of thingsthat will keep your circle of friendsengaged and continually checking outyour social media. Make it fun andreadable and people will come backagain and again.

The process with LinkedIn is ba-sically the same, but focusing more onyour professional contacts. With anyform of social media, setting it up is abig step, but administrating and main-taining it is also crucial. Too manyshops start doing it because their com-petitor down the street is doing it, buteventually they let their social mediasit dormant. People think “If I build it,they will come” but that couldn’t befurther from the truth. Ideally, youshould have a person dedicated tokeep the dialog flowing and your so-cial media up-to-date, with at 2-3 newposts monthly.

The advantage of Twitter is thatanyone out there in cyberland can findyour shop. I suggest putting the nameof your city in your Twitter address(like @joesbodyshopsanjose) so thatpeople can find you searching thatway. Hopefully, if you’ve been tweet-ing for sometime already, you alreadyhave a considerable Twitter commu-

nity assembled, but if not you can rap-idly build one by letting all of yourcurrent and former customers, ven-dors and associates about your newTwitter account, by sending notifica-tions to everyone on your e-mail list.

Blogspot.com (others are blog-ger.com, wordpress.com, tumblr.com)is an easy site to use for setting up andmaintaining a blog for your shop.Blogs are stronger than ever beforeand they provide advantages over websites, because they can easily be up-dated on a regular basis. Think of anewsletter concentrating on yourshop. Blog readers will anticipate andexpect fresh information. Give cus-tomers helpful tips; talk about yourpaint, parts and equipment vendors(they appreciate it) and continuallysell your brand. It’s fairly easy to pub-lish a blog and by leveraging it andlinking it to your main web site, you’llget major mileage out of it. To learn alot quickly about blogging, there are aton of books and online tutorials. But,trust me—blogs are easy to create. Ifyou know how to attach a photo or cutand paste text, you’re already there.

Finally, Youtube can help you toattract people to your company. Shoot

some video of the shop, interviewingyour managers or your techs andcounter people. You can even inter-view your vendors and/or customers,but get them to sign releases first. Andthen post the videos on Youtube, link-ing them to your social media, includ-ing your blog and your web site. Onesuggestion is make your videos lessthan two minutes in length, becausestudies show that people have veryshort attention spans and won’t sitthrough anything longer.

A step beyond a blog would be amore dedicated phone app which pro-vides a service but also helps cus-tomers find your shop such as thosecreated by shops like Nigro’s inPhiladelphia. See last month’s Auto-body News or go online to check thisout.

Hopefully we’ve outlined somebasic forms of social media for you touse to promote your business, attractnew customers, strengthen your rela-tionships with your existing customersand make money. All it takes is time,a rudimentary knowledge of softwareand the willingness to induct yourselfinto the new age of customer-focusedadvertising.


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November 1Tuesday / 8amTitle: I-CAR: Plastic and Composite Re-pair (PLA03) /Where: Las Vegas Con-vention Center, N231-242 / I-CAR, theInter-Industry Conference on Auto Col-lision Repair, 2011 SEMA ShowI-CAR,the Inter-Industry Conference on AutoCollision Repair, is returning to theSEMA Show in 2011 with I-CAR train-ing available to attendees each day ofthe SEMA Show

Title: I-CAR: Exterior Panel DamageAnalysis (DAM10) /Where: Las VegasConvention Center, N231-242

Tuesday / 12:30pmTitle: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Having Your Cake and Eating it Too:Marketing Practices / Repairer DrivenEducation, RDE, SCRS, 2011 SEMAShowSCRS REPAIRER DRIVEN EDU-CATION (RDE) series will feature sem-inar offerings

Title: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Load Leveling – The Hidden Enabler forShop Performance

Title: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Understanding Design Based Repairs

Tuesday / 3pm

Title: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Economic Pricing Considerations forthe Collision Industry in 2012

Title: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know- How New Auto Regulations Impactthe Body Shop

Title: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Leading for Performance & Profitability

Lean 3.0 = A Practical Path to UsingLean to Improve Process Flow

Wednesday / 3pmTitle: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Educate NOT Alienate: The Key to Suc-cessful Collision Negotiations (Part II)

Title: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Design Thinking for the Collision Re-pairer

Title: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Getting Ready for the Water Wave

try: The wins, the losses and a view ofthe future

Title: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Achieving Service Excellence (Part I) /Where: LVCC

Thursday / 3pmTitle: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Achieving Service Excellence (Part II) /Where: LVCC

Title: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Right and Wrong Ways to Repair NewMetals and their Reactions / Where:LVCC

Title: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Contracts: Terms and Ties that Bind /Where: LVCC

Thursday / 5:30pmTitle: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Mission: Control – Flawless Executionin Business Combat / Where: LVCC

Wednesday / 8amTitle: I-CAR: Restraint Systems Dam-age Analysis (DAM11) / Where: LasVegas Convention Center, N231-242

Title: I-CAR: Corrosion Protection(CPS01) / Where: Las Vegas Conven-tion Center, N231-242

Wednesday / 12:30pmTitle: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Educate NOT Alienate: The Key to Suc-cessful Collision Negotiations (Part I)

Title: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:How to Capture More Cars, Customersand Revenues Through Digital Market-ing

Title: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:

November 2

Thursday / 8amTitle: I-CAR: Steel Unitized StructuresTechnologies and Repair (SPS07) /Where: Las Vegas Convention Center,N231-242

Title: I-CAR: Unitized Structures andFull-Frame Damage Analysis (DAM12)/Where: Las Vegas Convention Center,N231-242

Thursday / 12:30pmTitle: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:Estimology and P-Page Logic 101

Title: SCRS Repairer Driven Education:A New Legal Era in the Collision Indus-

November 3

Friday / 8amTitle: I-CAR: Advance Material DamageAnalysis (DAM08) /Where: Las VegasConvention Center, N231-242

Title: I-CAR: Recycled Parts for Colli-

November 4

DuPont Custom Finishes to Exhibit at SEMA 2011DuPont Custom Finishes will partici-pate at the annual Specialty Equip-ment Market Association (SEMA)tradeshow in Las Vegas, NV.

The show will be held at the LasVegas Convention Center, Nov. 1 - 4.DuPont Custom Finishes, exhibiting inbooth #22789 in Hot RodAlley, CentralHall, will feature DuPont™ Cromax®

Pro, ChromaPremier® and Hot Hues™custom paint products. Industry airbrushand pinstripe artists will be showcasingtheir skills with live demonstrations inthe booth using DuPont™ Cromax® Prowaterborne products.

Vehicles on display in the boothwill include a 2012 DuPont Calendarwinning ’61 Chevy Impala, owned byTim Brown of Jacksonville, FL; a ’71Challenger owned by Bob and KaronZeitler and painted by John Riehn ofJohn's Autobody and Paint. Imperial,MO; and a ‘50 Fleetline built by TimStrange, owner of Strange MotionRod & Custom Construction and hostof PowerBlock TV series Search&Re-store. Strange will make appearancesto sign autographs in the booth 10a.m.to 12p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 2 and1p.m. to 3p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 3.

The SEMA Show takes place at

the Las Vegas Convention Center.In addition, the SEMA Show

provides attendees with educationalseminars, product demonstrations,special events, networking opportuni-ties and more. The SEMA Show is atrade-only event. For additional de-tails about the show, or to register toattend, visit: www.semashow.com.

More information about DuPontCromax® Pro Waterborne, Hot Huescustom finishes or ChromaPremier®

paint products is available by visitingwww.pc.dupont.com or by calling 1-800-GET-DUPONT.

DuPont has been bringing world-class science and engineering to theglobal marketplace in the form of inno-vative products, materials, and servicessince 1802. The company believes thatby collaborating with customers, gov-ernments, NGO’s and thought leaderswe can help find solutions to suchglobal challenges as providing enoughhealthy food for people everywhere, de-creasing dependence on fossil fuels, andprotecting life and the environment.

For additional information aboutDuPont and its commitment to inclu-sive innovation, please visit:http://www.dupont.com.


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California automobile dealers muststart labeling salvaged vehicles witha red warning sticker under a newlaw signed Sept. 26 by Gov. JerryBrown. The new law also requiresdealers to use electronic vehicle reg-istration for all car sales and allowsdealers to charge consumers more torecoup added costs.

Under most states’ laws, a sal-vage vehicle is a vehicle that hasbeen wrecked or damaged to suchan extent that it is considered tooexpensive to repair. In almost allcases, salvage title is given to anyvehicle that has sustained damageworth 75% or more of its value. Re-quirements are going to vary bystate. In Florida, a car has to bedamaged to 80% of its value beforethe accident. Vehicles in Minnesotaare considered salvaged when theyare declared “repairable total loss”by an insurance company, wereworth at least $5,000 before thedamage or are less than six yearsold.

The title, license plates, and arequired fee are submitted to the

state Department of Motor Vehicles(DMV) and a Salvage Certificate isissued for the vehicle.

Although many salvage vehi-cles are expertly repaired, some ve-hicles: are not properly repairedand/or tested and may be dangerousto operate and have been repairedwith stolen parts. In California, if theCalifornia Highway Patrol or DMVdetermines the vehicle or its partshave been stolen, the vehicle cannotbe registered and the vehicle or partswill be seized.

All sellers, including dealer-ships, are legally required to disclosethe vehicle’s salvage title and his-tory, but the law is difficult to en-force, especially when cars come infrom another state.

Both the California New CarDealers Association and consumeradvocates backed the new law.

“No other state can match thebuilt-in protections and conven-ience awaiting Californians,” PeterWelch, president of the state’s deal-ers association, said in a statement.“Like every small business, dealers

want to focus on customers insteadof paperwork.”

About half of California’s deal-ers already participate voluntarily inthe electronic registration system.Under the new law, they will be ableto increase the maximum documen-tation charge from $55 for sales and$45 for leases to $80 for both.

Even with that jump, documentcharges in California will be the sec-ond lowest allowed in the nation.Registrations also will be processedmuch faster. Consumers will waitonly a month for their license plates,instead of as long as six monthsunder the current system.

Consumers also will benefitfrom the new warning sticker re-quirements. California is the firststate in the nation to adopt that man-date. All new- and used-car dealersmust post a red sticker on any usedcar flagged in a federal database asjunked, salvaged or flood-damaged.

“Consumer advocates have longsought the protections offered in thisbill,” said Rosemary Shahan, pres-

CA Dealers Now Required to Sticker Salvaged Vehicles

See California Stickers, Page 50


Visit Us at:SEMA Booth 11068

Virginia Branded Title for WaterDamage Settles at $2500Jordan Hendler, executive director ofthe Washington Metropolitan AutoBody Association, said a Virginia statelegislator whose vehicle was totaledafter the sunroof of his vehicle was leftopen in a rainstorm was a proponentthis year of legislation to raise thethreshold of damage requiring a flood-damaged vehicle to receive a brandedtitle from $1,000 to $5,000. Advocatesfor increasing the bar said that the four-decade-old limit was unfair, especiallybecause of inflation and rising stickerprices. They argued that the higherlevel would help consumers at resale aswell as used-car dealers that don’t wanta vehicle branded because of $1,000 ofdamage to a luxury car’s sunroof orleather seats. Hendler said WMABAtried to point out that today’s vehicleshave far more electronics than cars haddecades ago, and that no consumershould unknowingly buy a vehicle thathas had thousands of dollars in waterdamage. The threshold was raised to$2,500, down from the $3500 pro-posed. The Virginia water damagethreshold had been unchanged since1966. Only Virginia, Washington, D.C.,and Hawaii set thresholds—all at$1,000—on water damage allowed be-fore a vehicle’s title is branded.

The IRS has launched a new programthat will enable many employers to re-solve past worker classification issuesand achieve certainty under the tax lawat a low cost by voluntarily reclassify-ing their workers. The new programwill allow employers to get into com-pliance by making a minimal paymentcovering past payroll tax obligationsrather than waiting for an IRS audit.The IRS says under the VoluntaryWorker Classification Settlement Pro-gram companies will owe about 1 per-cent of wages paid to reclassifiedworkers in the past year, with no inter-est or penalties due. The program is partof a larger “Fresh Start” initiative at theIRS to help taxpayers and businessesaddress their tax responsibilities. Theprogram will allow businesses thathave been improperly labeling theiremployees as independent contractorsto reclassify workers and make only asmall payment to cover past payrolltaxes. To be eligible, a company musthave consistently treated the workers asnon-employees; have filed required1099 tax forms for the past 3 years; andnot be under a worker classificationaudit. Part of the program will be in-creased vigilance about misclassifica-tion of workers in the future.

IRS Offers Employers Tax Relief if Workers Reclassified

NABC Nominees for 2012Board of Directors AnnouncedThe National Auto Body Council(NABC) hasclosed nominations forthe seven 2012 board positions comingopen at the end of this year’s term.Every nominated individual has ex-pressed their interest and desire to workfor the NABC board. They were of-fered the opportunity to participate inthe discussions and approval of theNABC’s new mission and vision state-ments, as well. The candidates arelisted in their order of nomination:Keith Bell, Akzo Nobel; Stacy Bartnik,CARSTAR; Kenneth Seavey, HertzFirst Edition; Mike Jordan, Manches-ter Collision; Karen Fierst; FredIantorno; Jon Faris, Enterprise CarRental; Kristen Felder, Collision Hub;Elizabeth Stein, Fix Auto; David Nie-stroy, 3D Body Works; Richard Perry,Chief Auto Technologies; Mark Lovell,Precision Collision. Based on NABCbylaws, an official ballot will be sent toall NABC members for their consider-ation. The actual election will takeplace at the NABC annual meeting tobe held in the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegason Tuesday, November 1, 2011 at12:30 p.m. concurrent with the SEMAShow. Only Individual members in at-tendance or their designated represen-tative can participate in the vote.

DuPont Custom Finishes (DuPont)will participate at the annual SpecialtyEquipment Market Association(SEMA) tradeshow in Las Vegas, Nov.1–4. DuPont Custom Finishes, ex-hibiting in booth #22789 in Hot RodAlley, Central Hall, will featureDuPont™ Cromax® Pro, Chroma Pre-mier® and Hot Hues™ custom paintproducts. Industry airbrush and pin-stripe artists will be showcasing theirskills with live demonstrations in thebooth using DuPont™ Cromax® Prowaterborne products. Vehicles on dis-play in the booth will include a 2012DuPont Calendar winning ‘61 ChevyImpala, owned by Tim Brown of Jack-sonville, Fla.; a ‘71 Challenger ownedby Bob and Karon Zeitler and paintedby John Riehn of John’s Autobody andPaint. Imperial, Mo.; and a ‘50 Fleet-line built by Tim Strange, owner ofStrange Motion Rod & Custom Con-struction and host of PowerBlock TVseries “Search & Restore.” Strangewill make appearances to sign auto-graphs in the booth 10 am–12 pm onWednesday, Nov. 2 and 1–3 pm onThursday, Nov. 3. More informationabout DuPont’s paint products is avail-able at www.pc.dupont .com or phone1-800-GET-DUPONT.

DuPont Exhibit at SEMA ShowLive Paint Demonstrations

ident of Consumers for Auto Relia-bility and Safety. “For the first time,auto dealers will be required to pro-vide vital information about a vehi-cle’s safety, reliability and worthbefore consumers even start negoti-ating.”

The California Department ofConsumer Affairs has found thatmore than 700,000 structurally dam-aged and 150,000 salvaged vehiclesare returned to streets and highwaysevery year without a safety inspec-tion, and pose a potential hazard toall of the state’s motorists

The State of California“brands” its titles. These brands in-dicate the vehicle’s past history:

● Salvaged: Vehicles marked with a“salvaged” brand were involved inan accident or incurred considerabledamage from another source, such asa flood or vandalism. This brand in-cludes previously dismantled(junked) vehicles.● Original Taxi or Prior Taxi: Vehi-cles formerly used “For Hire” which

usually have high mileage.● Original Police or Prior Police:Vehicles formerly used by law en-forcement and which usually havehigh mileage.● Non-USA: Vehicles manufacturedfor use and sale outside the UnitedStates which have been converted tomeet Federal and California safetyand emissions standards.● Warranty Return or Lemon LawBuyback:Vehicles which have beenreturned to the manufacturer underCalifornia’s Lemon Law.● Remanufactured; Vehicles con-structed by a licensed remanufac-turer and consisting of used orreconditioned parts. These vehiclesmay be sold under a distinctive tradename.


California Stickers

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Mitchell Partners with Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Integrates with Update Promise.com to Deliver Services via RepairCenter™Mitchell has announced a partnershipwith Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Under theterms of the agreement, Mitchell willdirectly integrate Enterprise Rent-A-Car services into both its auto repairmanagement software and insuranceclaims management software solu-tions, RepairCenter™ and WorkCen-ter™, by automating and simplifyingthe end-to-end vehicle rental workflowfor insurance carriers. Planned forearly 2012, the integration simplifiesthe rental process by eliminating man-ual updates and “middleman” commu-nication between the insurer, bodyshop, rental agency and consumer.When a repair is delayed, an automaticnotification can be sent from Repair-Center’s shop management system di-rectly to WorkCenter insurance usersor to the Enterprise representative to letthem know they need to perform arental task. Representatives and claimshandlers will be able to send rental re-quests, extend rentals and receiverental updates.

Paul Rosenstein, Mitchell’s VicePresident of Claims Solutions, said“Partnerships with respected industryleaders like Enterprise Rent-A-Car area part of our commitment to simplifyand optimize complex claims and busi-

ness environments, ultimately creatingan exceptional customer experience atevery stage of the claims process.”

Dave Smith, Vice PresidentStrategic Solutions Sales, for Enter-prise Rent-A-Car, said, “This is a sig-nificant opportunity for insurers tospeed up automotive claims processingand increase customer satisfaction. Inaddition, direct integration of Enter-prise Rent-A-Car into Mitchell’s solu-tions empowers small insurers to gainaccess to rental integration withouthaving to build it themselves.”

Separately, Mitchell has alsoteamed with UpdatePromise.com™ toenhance its RepairCenter™ auto repairshop software with proactive repairstatus updates. UpdatePromise is aWeb-based service provider that deliv-ers automated repair status updates tocollision customers via text messageand e-mail. This allows body shopusers to manage delivery date prom-ises, repair status updates, and cus-tomer responses from within theRepairCenter body shop softwareworkspace. The widespread use of textmessaging gives auto repair shops animproved option to communicate andconnect with their customers in a con-sistent, proactive way.

Allstate and Progressive Agreeto Settle Patent LitigationAllstate Insurance Co., Allstate Fire &Casualty Insurance Co. and ProgressiveCasualty Insurance Co. announced theyreached a settlement agreement over lit-igation involving technology patentsand questions of trademark infringe-ment. In the suit, Progressive allegedthat Allstate infringed on its usage-based car insurance and online insur-ance policy servicing technology.Progressive also alleged trademark in-fringement. The companies entered intoa trademark co-existence agreement in-volving the Drive and DriveWise trade-marks. They also cross-licensed certainpatent rights with each other.

“This was about protecting andleveraging Progressive’s investment ofmore than 15 years in usage-based in-surance research, development, testingand piloting,” Chuck Jarrett, Progres-sive’s chief legal officer, said. “We havealways said we are willing to license ourintellectual property rights to others andthat we will enforce those rights whennecessary.”Allstate said: “Althoughconfident in the merits of its case, All-state is pleased to be able to leverage itspatent portfolio in this settlement byproviding a license to Progressive andto eliminate the distraction from this lit-igation.”

Two AAA clubs have combined opera-tions to become the second largest AAAclub in North America. AAA Auto ClubSouth, based in Tampa, Fla., affiliatedand combined with The Auto ClubGroup based in Dearborn, Mich., effec-tive Oct. 1. The new enterprise, knownas The Auto Club Group, now servesmembers and customers across 11states and two U.S. territories. They are:Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Ne-braska, North Dakota, Wisconsin,Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.The group also serves most of Illinois,Minnesota and Tennessee, as well as aportion of Indiana. The new organiza-tion provides membership, travel, in-surance and financial services to morethan 8.4 million members throughabout 300 office locations. It is main-taining corporate headquarters in bothDearborn and Tampa. Robert Sharp,chair of the former Auto Club Southboard, is now chairman of the board ofThe Auto Club Group. CharlesPodowski continues as CEO, and JohnTomlin, former Auto Club South CEO,is chief operating officer. The AutoClub Group will provide access to abroader array of insurance products andservices in the former Auto Club Southregion.

Florida and Michigan AAA ClubsJoin Forces, Now 2nd Largest

SEMA is just around the corner andmany of you will be attending the tradeshow and SCRS repair-driven educa-tion. I am teaching a class on how gov-ernment regulations will impact thecollision industry right now, but forthose who cannot attend, I am going tohighlight my presentation here. Let’slook at the US Government CAFÉ(corporate average fuel economy)standards. By the year 2015, the CAFÉstandard for the industry (cars andtrucks combined) is 31.6 MPG (35.7for cars and 28.6 for trucks). How willthese standards affect body shops?

First, cars will need to get lighterand smaller. The use of aluminum willincrease. You will see more hoods,deck lids, fenders and other body partsbeing made from aluminum. Manyaluminum hoods are double paneledwith virtually no access to the backside. Most shops today do not the ca-pability to repair this type of damage.What is needed is an aluminum studgun.

The unit pictured first comes withthe stud gun and a number of handtools for repairing aluminum. The ma-chine pictured second is just the studgun with the puller. You will need toinvest in hand tools because aluminumtools can’t be used on steel compo-nents because of the likelihood of gal-vanic corrosion. Dent Fix, ReliableAutomotive Equipment and ProSpotare a few examples of companies thatsell aluminum repair equipment. You

will also need to invest in training. Re-pairing aluminum is not difficult, butthere are a few techniques that need tobe learned to achieve a successful re-pair.

You will also see smaller vehi-cles. With smaller cars, you will see anincrease in the use of ultra highstrength steels in cabin reinforcementsfor passenger protection. Nearly allmanufacturers require full replacementof these reinforcements and that willlead to more total losses. Let’s look atFederal Motor Vehicle safety standard216A.

FMVSS 216A deals with roofcrush. The standard for 2009 was 2.5times Gross Vehicle Weight. In otherwords, if a car weighs 2000 pounds,the roof would need to support 5000lbs. The Insurance Institute for High-way Safety did not think the 2.5 stan-dards were sufficient, so they set astandard for 2009 at 3 times GVW and4 times GVW by 2012. To gain a 5 starrating, the vehicles manufacturers hadto increase the strength of the ‘B” pil-lar reinforcements. How does this in-creased strength affect the collisionindustry?

The first thing that comes to mindis the need for OEM data. You cannotdo structural repairs or structural partsreplacement without it. For example,you can section a “B” pillar on (lowerportion) on a Toyota Venza, but youwill need to replace the entire rein-forcement on a Toyota Camry.

The following page was takenfrom Toyota’s Technical InformationSystem or TIS for short. The sheetshows where to section and the type ofwelds that are needed for a quarterpanel replacement. You can subscribeto TIS or you can subscribe to ALL-DATA (they obtain the OEM data foryou).

While at SEMA, check with the

OEMs for their current data (most ofthe time they make it available free) orcheck out ALLDATA. It is another in-vestment that any body shop will needmake. The stronger reinforcementshave also created a need for pre-mea-suring for damage analysis.

Besides the roof crush, thesesuper strong reinforcements are de-

signed to transfer energy and deform.This energy will travel to the oppositeside of the vehicle and, if not measuredbefore an estimate is written, can leadto all kinds of problems. The “B” pil-lar on the opposite side of the car canmove (side impact), but the floor maynot and this can lead to all kinds of im-proper fit issues. You will need to lookat measuring systems that can measure“A” and “B” pillars without placing avehicle on a frame machine.

Tech Notes

National News in BriefWEB WINDOW: - www.autobodynews.com

Regional News in BriefWEB WINDOW: - www.autobodynews.com

with Jeremy HayhurstPublisher’s Page

with Karyn HendricksShop Showcase

with David M. BrownShop Showcase

Shop Showcasewith Jeremy Hayhurst

Hey Toby!with Toby Chess

California Autobody Associationwith David McClune

Collision Repair Association of CA.with Richard Steffen

Insurers Excel at Steeringwith Richard Steffen

Year in Quoteswith John Yoswick

Transition Planningwith John Yoswick

Mainstream Media

My Turnwith Joe Momber

Toby Chess is an I-CAR program instructor, Welding specialist, and former salvage yardoperator. Toby is universally known in the collision industry for his charitable works,worthy causes, and magic tricks. He can be reached at [email protected]

SEMA’s Repair Driven Education and Government Regulations


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Some of the manufactures thatmake this type of equipment are,Celette, Car-O-Liner, The CollisionEquipment Group and Chief Automo-tive Equipment. You see all of thesemachines at SEMA. Still dealing withthe stronger “B” pillars, you will need

to invest in an inverter spot welder.Ultra High Strength steels are verysensitive to heat. MIG welding pro-duces a large heat affected zone.

The weakest part of the weld is inthe heat affected zone. The tempera-ture when MIG welding can approach

2000 degrees Fahrenheit and UHSSsteel becomes mild steel at that tem-perature. It’s weaker and it loses all ofits energy transfer properties. A spotweld, on the other hand, has a verysmall heat affected zone.

Inverter Spot welding machineshave computers to reduce the heat af-fected zone on HSS and UHSS metals.

Manufacturers of these smart ma-chines include Car-O-Liner, Elektron,Wielander+Schill, Tecna, and Com-puSpot. Besides being able to producea smaller heat affected zone, comparedwith their predecessors, they are fullyautomatic and can keep records on thewelds for each repair job. But don’trun out and buy one without doingyour homework. First and foremost,you will need to check your electricalsupply. These machines only work on3-phase power. They also require largegauge wires (minimum of 4 gauge isrecommended) due to the increase inamps that is needed. Again, before youpurchase one of these “bad boys,’ getthe electrical needs and consult with a

qualified electrician. One more item pertaining to side

impact, is the side curtain. Side cur-tains will be mandatory on all vehiclessold in the United States by the year

2013. With more vehicles with sidecurtains, knee bolsters, and betweenseat air bags, the cost of repairs isgoing to skyrocket and that will in turnlead to more total losses. Moreover,with a number of insurance companiesnot paying sublet markups (they arenow calling them handling fees), youbetter start doing the work yourself.That translates into more training andequipment.

A scan tool will be needed to resetthe codes on the SRS system. Youneed this tool to clear the codes on theoccupant classification system, when

you R&I the front passenger seat. Youwill need this tool to reset the steering-angle sensor.

Let’s review the SAS. The gov-ernment has mandated all vehicles bythe year 2012 have some sort of elec-tronic stability system. Part of that sys-tem is the steering angle sensor. Thesteering angle sensor counts the steer-ing-wheel revolutions accordingly.The overall steering wheel angle isthus made up of the current steeringwheel angle together with the numberof steering wheel rotations. If a cor-rection is needed, the ABS is activatedand/or the engine is retarded to slowthe vehicle down to prevent skids androllovers. Every time an alignment isneeded, a complete 4 wheel alignmentis done followed by a recalibration ofthe steering angle sensor. If this is notdone, the ESC may not work properly

Heat Affected Zone

Heat Affected Zone

See Hey Toby!, Page 56


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Following Ray Gunder’s charge al-leging altered documents that showState Farm’s manipulation of theirmarket survey of rates and allowances,State Farm has elected to pay thecharged amounts of Gunder’s AutoCenter, in Lakeland, FL, and avoid fur-ther discovery of its business records.See sidebar.

In seeking discoverable informa-tion pertinent to three separate lawsuitsby three of Gunder’s customers (ofwhich Gunder was acting on behalf ofeach customer through power-of-attorney) State Farm’s refusal/failure toprovide the requested documentationwithin the time-frame provided re-sulted in a court’s order compelling thenation’s largest personal auto insurer tocomply and present the subpoenaedrecords ‘or else.’

As a result, State Farm first madeovertures of a global settlement toavoid further litigation (and discovery)by inviting Gunder’s to mediate themore than 30 pending lawsuits pressedagainst them on behalf of Gunder’scustomers for claims including, but notlimited to Tortious Interference againstState Farm employees including LarrySwearengin and Bob Davis as well asBreach of Contract and Bad Faithclaims against State Farm Insurance.

While guarded, Ray Gunderagreed and thus the Contempt of Courthearing scheduled for September 22ndwas postponed and mediation wasscheduled for October 6th, 2011.

On September 27th, Gunder re-ceived notice that State Farm wouldprovide full payment for the amountsoutstanding on the three lawsuitswhich were pending which includedthe issue of Contempt of Court.● Raymond Ellsworth Gunder[Wincey] v. State Farm Florida Insur-ance Company Case No.: 53-2008SC-005094-0000-00, County Court, PolkCounty, FL Initial amount at issue$163.31● Raymond Ellsworth Gunder [Miller]v. State Farm Florida Insurance Com-pany Case No.: 53-2008SC-005093-0000-00, County Court, Polk County,FL Initial amount at issue $124.48.● Raymond Ellsworth Gunder[Dewey] v. State Farm Florida Insur-ance Company Case No.: 53-20011SC-00895-0000-LK, CountyCourt, Polk County, FL Initial amountat issue $1,461.01

The payments included consider-ation for the underpaid amounts for

paint & materials (supported by PMCLogic invoicing), low labor allowancesand refusal to provide consideration forrarely questioned simple proceduresfrom R&I of hardware and trim opera-tions to refinish related processes suchas car-cover, color sand and buff, etc.

The initial mediation betweenGunder’s and State Farm took place onthe morning of October 6th and whilea monetary offer (which would nodoubt be considered substantial bysome) was presented by State Farm’slegal counsel, it was found by Gunderto be insufficient and thus rejected.

Following the mediation Gunderstated: “While I'm disappointed that wecouldn't come to an agreement; as Iwould very much like to put the issuesbehind us and be compensated fairly torestore people's vehicles and theirpeace of mind; we are encouraged tocontinue on with discovery and havingour day in court. We have no fewerthan 30 similar cases in the process ofbeing filed on behalf of our customers;all with same or similar issues. StateFarm is paying approximately$120,000 in legal fees and costs forthese three cases which they have nowelected to settle and will no doubt bepaying substantially more in the com-ing months and years should thingscontinue as in the past.” Shortly aftermediation, a settlement letter camefrom State Farm. Review of the letterfrom State Farm legal counsel states inpart: “After further consideration, andto discontinue the need for further liti-gation, State Farm has decided to ten-der the amounts at issue in each of theabove-referenced matters, with inter-est.” The amounts State Farm will payare: $163, $124 and $1,461, totalling$1748 and change.

“In summary, with this letter,State Farm has paid the amount as-serted by the insured to be in disputefor the above referenced claim, therebycuring any circumstance relating to anyalleged improper estimate of damageor payment under the applicable pol-icy, and any claim or coverage denial,claim handling or trade practice as theresult of same,” the settlement contin-ued. Ray Gunder stated further; “we'vebeen sharing our legal journey with thecollision repair industry and we'll con-tinue to do so in the hopes our suc-cesses will encourage others toconsider their legal options. Mean-while, we'll continue to ‘Pound theRock!’”

State Farm Elects to Settle Three of Gunder’s Customers’ Lawsuits

These claims on behalf of customersof Gunder’s Auto Center are part of along legal history between the autocenter and State Farm. In early 2010Gunder filed a claim against StateFarm for Tortious Interference andSlander following disparaging com-ments allegedly made by employeesof the insurer to their customers re-garding the body shop. See autobo-dynews.com for more.

“This entire matter hinges onwhether any insurer, including StateFarm, can merely target a repairer andhave the right to say anything they wishwith the intent to harm the repairer anddisparage their good name in an effortto interfere with the relationship be-tween the repairer and their customer;so long as the insurer does not breachthe legal limit referred to as ‘ExpressedMalice’, said Ray Gunder, owner of theshop, in a statement last May.

The suit has gone through the ap-peals process multiple times since theinitial complaint was filed. Most re-cently, in April of 2011, the U.S.Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Cir-cuit upheld a lower court’s ordergranting summary judgment in favor

of State Farm in Gunder’s claim ofslander and tortious interference witha business relationship against the na-tion’s largest personal auto insurer. InJune Gunder filed an appeal of the de-cision with the U.S. Supreme Court.

“After considerable thought,counsel and discussion with familyand close friends, and as a result of re-cent activities on other pending casesagainst State Farm, I decided to pro-ceed with submitting what is referredto as a Petition for Writ of Certiorarito the United States Supreme Courtrequesting their review and opinion ofthe lower court’s ruling,” Gundersaid. “As we continue to ‘pound thatrock,’ I see we are standing on a sub-stantial amount of gravel…and asI’ve said before, we’re all-in andwe’re too close to quit now and willcontinue until we either prevail or ex-haust all opportunities to do so.”

Some History in Gunder’s Case Against State Farm


on Facebook

These days going to the movie theatercan be very expensive. Theater own-ers have come to realize that formerpatrons now get their films onlinefrom services like Netflix. To com-pensate for the loss of these cus-tomers, they have begun to add luxuryamenities like select seating and per-sonalized service in the auditorium.And of course the price of a ticket hasskyrocketed, in my area to around$14.00 for a ticket.

Sadly, in this economy, lower-in-come car owners have also migratedto cheaper paint and body providers.Shops like “One Day Paint and Body”are getting much of the business thatquality shops used to get to keep theirtechnicians busy and keep paint pur-chase volume up.

It may be time for shop owners totake a hint from theater owners andmore thoroughly focus on higher in-come prospective customers. Many

shops already do aim their marketingat higher end European vehicles likeBMWs and Mercedes, but the rangeof vehicle choices has also increasedgreatly. The Korean automakers havebegun to claim a larger share of themarket. Like theater owners, a shopowner has to ask, “What specialamenities will get all better qualitycar-buyers to choose my shop overany other?”

Many shops have already fo-cused on pampering their customers.They go beyond proving a rental carto taking the rental car to the customerand having a lock box for keys so thecustomer can drop off the rental car atthe shop after hours. A shop may alsochoose to cover the difference in costfor a luxury rental vehicle. A luxurylounge with big TV, WIFI, computergames for kids and up-scale refresh-ments are already commonplace.Many shops offer a car wash and inte-

rior clean. For higher end customers,shops may even include exterior andinterior detail. But who pays for all ofthese amenities when insurance com-panies are working to reduce whatthey will pay for?

Like theater owners who raise theprice of tickets, astute shop owners arerealizing the need to offer more self-pay options even for insurance payjobs. Unlike theater owners, they can’task for $5.00 for a box of popcorn ora cold drink. More ingenuity is calledfor. Time is a major concern for manyvehicle owners, so one new specialtycalled “Cosmetic Car Repair” in-cludes an in-house bumper repair kitthat can sometimes enable the shop toturn out a bumper repair in just a fewhours. This eliminates outsourcingcosts and also delivers the rapid repairthe customer wants.

Another aspect of the same sys-tem is a more sophisticated version ofpaintless dent repair. Once again,speed of repair is the special value. Al-though cosmetic car repair is a spe-cific system, other cosmeticimprovements may be desired. Manyshops have a contract with a vehiclegraphics provider who will do pinstriping, clear car bras and more.

Another dimension of the luxurytheater game is a focus on providingselect films specifically chosen for anaudience with those preferences. Invi-tation-only showings have alreadybegun. If a shop has managed to cap-ture sufficient information about cus-tomers, it may be in a position to doinvitation-only showings. For exam-ple, as baby-boomers age, there are

more handicapped drivers. A showingof power lifts, power running boardsand special driver’s seat modificationscould bring in previous customerswho were, or have become, handi-capped. Prior customers whose chil-dren are reaching driving age mayrespond to an invitation to see black-box driving controls and speed gover-nor systems.

Parents of younger children aremore concerned with child car seats.These must be placed properly to pro-vide maximum protection. Manufac-turers of products like these may bewilling to send a representative to theshop to do an invitation-only demon-stration for customers with small chil-dren. More than a million pets arekilled every year in vehicle accidents.Pet restraints and other controls arenot only another add-on a shop canoffer pet owner customers, but if ashop has collected customer informa-tion about pets, an invitation-onlypresentation of pet control products ispossible.

As a shop gets more involved inproviding a few luxury accessories,significant opportunities open up to gobeyond repairs and become an infor-mation provider. Like the child carmanufacturers or distributors, theseaccessory providers have a wealth ofrepresentatives eager to go out to gen-erate business for their companies. Allyou, as the shop owner, have to do issend out the invitations and providethe space and perhaps a few refresh-ments. In a sense, you become thenew theater owner in a business oncelimited to collision repair.


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Choosing a More Profitable Market

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


Tom Franklin has been a sales and marketing consultant for fifty years. He has writtennumerous books and provides marketing solutions and services for many businesses.He can be reached at (323) 871-6862 or at [email protected]. See Tom’s columns at www.autobodynews.com under Columnists > Franklin

World’s Oldest Running Car Fetches High Price at PA AuctionThe oldest existing car in the world,an 1884 De Dion Bouton Et Trepar-doux Dos-A-Dos Steam Runabout,was sold at auction for 4.62 milliondollars at October’s RM Auctionssale in Hershey, PA.

The car, named La Marquise,set a record price for vintage vehi-cles. The oldest car was put up foran American auction house RMAuctions. Auction organizers hopedto gain for rarity 2-2.5 million dol-lars. the auction house did not dis-close the La Marquise Buyer’sname , who became the fifth owner

of this car in its history.The first owner of La Marquise

was a French nobleman, Count deDion, who took part in its creation. In1906 De Dion sold the car to theFrench army officer Henri Doriolyu,whose family has owned La Mar-quise until 1987.

The next owner was a memberof the British club classic cars, TimMoore , who restored the car andtook it to fully operational status.

In 2007, La Marquise was soldto a collector from Texas, JohnO’Quinn.

The newest member of the AutobodyNews Distinctive Dealerships Groupis Audi-Mission Viejo in SouthernCalifornia. A relatively new dealer,only seven years old, Audi-MissionViejo has managed to thrive by alwaysputting quality first.

Quality is in all areas of the partsdepartment. Justin Stinnett is a partsdirector who knows how to makequality pay off. Justin began only twoyears ago, with a bloated inventoryand untrained personnel. He needed

all of his twenty years experience tochange that. Since then, there has beena steady rise to the top and is one ofthe best Audi parts departments in theregion. His secret has been to insist onquality. Quality means the newest andbest available technology for his de-

partment, and the best employees hecan find.

Justin’s investments in technologyinclude state-of-the-art inventory con-trol, and a simple and easy internetorder system. Audimv.com is a goodexample of how to set up a simple on-line parts link. A well organized depart-ment holds over a half-million dollarinventory, and a modern communica-tions system completes the basics.

Justin has four quality counter-men, led by Armando with twenty

years experience,then Henry andRobin with eightyears, and Mariowith six. A bilin-gual crew workswell in the south-ern Californiamarket, languageissues are noproblem. Thisteam works to-

gether with common goals, to keeptheir department the best in the region.Their efforts have been rewarded,their wholesale business has tripled!

Customer service is the standardhere, promises are kept, and orders arealways completely filled. Such serv-

ice creates the friendships and loyaltyso necessary to success in these times.

Justin sees himself as a business-man, instead of a parts man, and re-gards the changes he has made asinvestments, not expenses. He believes“You get what you pay for. And if youhave great people, you will achievegreat results.” Results, for a dealer,equal profits. This parts departmentcreates profit, which is exactly my phi-losophy. With proper management, theparts department will be a dealership’sbest investment, not its worst.

Again, no dealership can succeedwithout support. Audi is a companythat wants to have the best parts de-livery system possible. They have in-stituted a “local parts council,” whichmeets quarterly, to communicate withdealers and ensure a smooth flow ofparts to all of their customers. Audirecognizes Justin’s hard work, and haschosen him for membership in their

council. When important visitors ar-rive from Germany, Audi-MissionViejo’s parts department is on theirtour, as an example of growth, organ-ization, and cleanliness.

An aside to all body shops in theMission Viejo area… Should youneed any parts for an Audi, call Audi-Mission Viejo. You are guaranteed toget great service, and I am proud to in-clude them in my list of DistinctiveDealerships.

In other areas, I’d also like to rec-ommend Audi of Downtown LA in LosAngeles and Circle Audi in Long Beach.

To see all of Larry Williams’ arti-cles go to autobodynews.com and se-lect Williams under the Columnistsmenu. See also Larry’s popular seriesof Parts for Profit articles in his col-umn section. You can also link di-rectly at: www.autobodynews.com/columnists/williams-larry.html


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with Kathy Steck-FlynnAutobody CSI

with Dan EspersenALL OEM Information

with Tom McGeeALL OEM Information

with J.R. CarlsonConsumer Callout

Automaker Actions and Announcementswith Jeremy Hayhurst

Autobody Techwith Jeremy Hayhurst

Parts Profileswith Larry Williams

Automaker Actions and Announcementswith Janet Chaney

I-CAR Tech

Amaradio Explains CRAwith Lee Amaradio Jr.

Consumer Callout

The Right Causewith Mike Causey

with Ed AttanasioShop Showcase

Say What?!

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

A Relatively Young Audi Dealership Makes Quality Pay Off

or, even worse, not at all. Most sys-tems will not show a fault code on thedash, therefore, a scan tool will beneeded to reset the steering angle sen-sor. A couple of other governmentalitems that are on the horizon that youshould be aware of are the new Freonrefrigerant—HFO-1234yf and, ofcourse, waterborne paints for those notyet mandated.

HFO-1234 yf is a new type ofFreon that is now being used in Eu-rope. GM will be using it on their U.S.vehicles next year. This new Freon ismuch safer to the environment than134A. You will have to invest in a newrecovery system, leak detection equip-ment, and new manifolds.

Many states have mandated theuse of waterborne paints in areas of

poor air quality. It is only a matter oftime before the paint companies willswitch entirely to waterborne so, ifyou’re not already there, you better geton-board soon. You will have to retrainyour paint staff and invest in newequipment. It is easier to do it now andnot when it is mandated. Where areyou going to get the money to pay forall of this equipment?

It comes from profits and everytime you give something away, youare making a lot less in profits. I sug-gest that you visit the Society of Col-lision Repair Specialists web site(scrs.com). Scroll to the center of thepage and click on the Guide to com-plete repair planning. There are over800 not-included items on their esti-mating guide and by adding a few ofthese items to all your estimates; youcan achieve some higher profits. Thebest part of all, it is free for everyone.Enjoy SEMA, I know I will.


Hey Toby!


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Chrysler to Invest $165 Million in Body Shop at MI PlantChrysler Group plans to invest $165million to build a new 1 million-square-foot body shop at its assemblyplant in Sterling Heights, MI, accord-ing to reporting by Bradford Wernle inAutomotive News.

The body shop will begin produc-ing Chryslers next generation of mid-size sedans in 2013, said Chryslerspokeswoman Jodi Tinson. The plantcurrently builds Chryslers two mid-size sedans: the Chrysler 200 andDodge Avenger.

The announcement marks thesecond major investment in the Ster-ling Heights plant. This follows anannouncement in December 2010that the company would spendnearly $850 million to build a newpaint shop for the plant. ChryslerGroup has now invested nearly $3.5billion in its U.S. plants since June2009.

To some Chrysler employees, theSterling Heights factory has come tosymbolize the company’s comebackstory. Before Chrysler’s 2009 bank-ruptcy, previous owners CerberusCapital Management had decided toclose the Sterling Heights plant, butChrysler CEO Sergio Marchionnechanged course and decided to keep itopen.

“Today marks another milestonein the rags-to-riches story of the Ster-ling Heights Assembly Plant,” ScottGarberding, Chrysler senior vice pres-ident of manufacturing, said in a pre-pared statement.

“A plant that was slated to closenearly two years ago will now be astate-of-the-art facility that will play anintegral role in the success of this com-pany by building the next generation ofall-new vehicles.”

The vehicles will be built on aFiat front-drive platform adapted forthe U.S. market.

The investment includes theconstruction of the new body shop aswell as the installation of equipmentand conveyors that will be some ofthe most advanced in the industry.Tinson said the new body shop wouldreplace the factorys current bodyshop, which will be “repurposed” foranother use. There will be no net gainin terms of jobs, she said. SterlingHeights now employs 2,524 workerson two shifts.

General Holiefield, vice presidentof the UAW/Chrysler Department,praised the news in a statement, sayingthe project “recognizes the commit-ment and dedication of this highlyskilled workforce.”

Donald F. Flynn, Founder and Chairmanof the Board of Directors of LKQ Corp.,passed away on October 10, 2011. “Weare saddened by the loss of a great leaderand friend to so many. Don’s vision andleadership were key to the amazinggrowth LKQ has witnessed since 1998,the year the Company was founded. TheCompany and our shareholders oweDon a debt of gratitude for his dedica-tion to LKQ. Our thoughts and prayersare with his family and friends,” statedJoseph Holsten, Vice Chairman and Co-CEO of LKQ.

Daimler AG has relieved Ernst Lieb ofhis duties as CEO of Mercedes-BenzUSA, effective immediately. Even insid-ers were taken by surprise, and they be-lieve the decision must be somethingpersonal since MBUSA has been grow-ing steadily under Lieb's watch. Thecompany said that “daily business oper-ations of MBUSA will be conducted byHerbert Werner (CFO and Vice Presi-dent Finance, Controlling & IT) untilfurther notice.” Mercedes has strength-ened its sales position in the last twoyears, becoming the No. 2 luxury brandbehind Lexus in 2009 and 2010.

LKQ Founder Donald E.Flynn Passes Away

MBUSA CEO Lieb Ousted

The diminutive Fiat 500 received a toprating from the Insurance Institute forHighway Safety. IIHS said the 2012500 Sport two-door had earned goodmarks for front, side rollover and rearcrash evaluations.

Results reflect performance incrashes that would occur with similar-sized vehicles. The only other mini carto earn similar scores was Ford MotorCos Fiesta. The top score for frontcrash resistance was earned during aretest in August after Fiat/Chryslermodified front seating to make it moresecure, the IIHS said. Chrysler iscounting on the hatchback 500 andother fuel-efficient vehicles to reviveits lineup, which is dominated by pick-ups and other light trucks.

The IIHS assesses a range ofmodels each year. Underwritten by theinsurance industry, the institutes ratingsare closely followed by automakers,consumer groups and safety regulators.

Fiat 500 Top IIHS Safety Pick

by Ed Attanasio

It’s a looming specter in the collisionrepair industry’s immediate future withpotentially serious repercussions.We’re talking about Collision RepairStandards, and they will have more in-fluence over the auto repair and claimsindustry than any single factor in its il-

lustrious history, according to DaleDelmege, an industry spokespersonwith more than three decades of colli-sion experience. Delmege spoke onSeptember 20th to the membership ofthe East Bay Chapter of California Au-tobody Association at Scott’s SeafoodRestaurant in Walnut Creek, Calif.

“We are at a critical crossroadsand some of the most powerful forcesin our industry either don’t know it orare picking the wrong route with colli-sion repair standards,” Delmege said.“One way or another, the standardsissue will affect every player in this in-dustry, either adversely or positively.”

Devising collision repair stan-dards has been a long ongoing con-versation without any results or otheraction for several reasons, Delmegesaid. “It’s a complex situation, be-

cause it involves the body shops, thetechs, the OEMs, the insurers and theend users. It’s a tug-of-war with eco-nomic and psychological factors

thrown in. On any given day, the in-surance companies, OEMs and bodyshops are pulling mightily in differentdirections, but repair standards wouldalleviate a lot of this tension.”

Delmege cited the standards sce-nario that took place two years ago inthe U.K., where all of the parties in-volved provided input to establish theirrepair standards. “The shops, OEMs andinsurance companies in the U.K.worked together in a voluntary industrystudy that led to what’s now calledPAS125. The government said theywere going do it if the industry wouldn’tdo it on their own, so they were moti-vated to act. Now, it’s an easier industryto make a living in, because they createdan unmovable anchor and set some stan-dards. Now the mysteries concerningbody repairs are gone and there’s lessfighting among the parties involved.”

If we don’t do the same in thiscountry, the government will take thereins and no one is likely to be satisfiedwith that idea, Delmege explained. “Ifwe can’t co-exist in this business envi-ronment and do it ourselves, we couldencounter a national regulatory frenzy.We’ve seen it done too many times be-fore in other industries.” There is awindow of time currently available, butif we don’t act quickly, it’s likely we’llsee a ton of class action suits and theuncertainty will further aggravate thealready bumpy relationship betweenthe body shops, OEMs, insurers andpolicyholders.”

‘Collision repair standards are wayoverdue’ was the takeaway messageDelmege left the CAA Chapter audi-ence with. “Other industries have spe-cific standards they use every day, suchas in machining, for example. If you’rea machine shop, each part you make isaccompanied with a step-by-step set ofspecifications, describing the methodsin careful detail, so that the machinistknows how long it should take to makeit and what it will cost. Collision repairdoesn’t have this oversight, and all thatdoes is create confusion.”

“Without defined repair collisionstandards, there are too many ques-tions and not enough answers,”Delmege said. “People buy insuranceto feel safe and responsible and whenthey get in an accident, they logicallyexpect that their vehicles are returnedto pre-accident condition. How manycars drive away from a body shopwith at least one deviation from an al-legedly safe and compliant repair?

There aren’t definitive answers, be-cause we have no standards.”

Reporting as an observer, Delmegehas visited more than 400 body shops inNorth America since 1989. Following acareer which included various roles insales and marketing at Black andDecker, and VP Marketing for Ingersoll-Rand Automotive Tools from 1989 to

1994, Delmege served as Senior VicePresident Sales, Marketing and R&D,and subsequently Executive Vice Presi-dent Operations, at Mitchell Interna-tional, the auto claims repairinformation provider. Prior to its sale hewas also a principal in AutocheX, whichmeasures customer satisfaction follow-ing a collision repair.

In 1994, Dale Delmege foundedthe Chelsea Group to assist auto claimsbusinesses. Since then his company hasserved the collision repair and autoclaims industry in a wide range of ca-pacities. Delmege is also a founder, pastdirector and Chairman of the CollisionIndustry Electronic Commerce Associ-ation (CIECA), and a founder and pastdirector of the National Auto BodyCouncil. He is a Lifetime Member ofthe Society of Collision Repair Spe-cialists, one of two such honors everconferred on a non-shop owner. Mr.Delmege produced and facilitated thewidely acclaimed VeriFacts InvitationalSymposiums in 2009, 2010 and 2011,featuring claims industry CEO’s andAuto Claims VP’s of Allstate, Progres-sive, Esurance, State Farm and USAA.

Industry Veteran Alerts ‘Collision Repair Standards on their Way’

Featured speaker Dale Delmege (left) andRon Arth, Manager of George V. Arth & Sonin Oakland visit at the September meetingof the East Bay CAA chapter

Jim Boyle, owner of Regal Collision Repair inVallejo and Peter Locke, collision tech programcoordinator at Contra Costa College catch upat the East Bay CAA chapter meeting inSeptember

At the conclusion of the meeting, MichaelGovette, branch manager for Finish Masterin Concord (at center) distributed the modeltrucks for their 14th Annual Toy TruckCompetition, to Bill Andrews, auto body andpaint technology instructor at College ofAlameda (at left) and Dan Welsh, co-ownerof Crocketts Premier Auto Body in Pinole (atright). The event will be held on November15th at the Blackhawk Auto Museum inDanville, Calif.


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GW&SON Auto Body in OklahomaCity, OK, was established in 1985 byGary Wano and his son Gary Wano,Jr. Gary Senior had 17 years experi-ence managing a local dealership posthis tenure as an automotive painter.With plenty of practical knowledgeGary felt it was time for him to openhis own shop with his son.

Since the shop’s inception theyhave grown to 6 times the size of theiroriginal facility, with a 27,000 square-foot production floor. The shop nowhas 26 employees, including two of

Gary Jr’s siblings, and a nephew. GaryWano Jr, has also been afforded theopportunity to become nationally in-volved. He is currently holding andhas held industry leadership positionssuch as a past chair of SCRS the na-tion’s largest association solely fo-cused on collision repairer needs, theCEICA Repair Advisory Panel, I-Car

ISAC, Co-Chaired CIC’s Anti-fraudCommittee and is currently a voice forthe repairer in CIC’s Insurer/RepairerRelations Committee and the RepairStandards Committee. Oddly enough,

it was through this national involve-ment that spawned the business modelthat by choice limits GW&SON’s

DRP relationship’s with only one in-surer. The industry is constantlychanging, repairers of today need theaccess to industry trends and all over

data, says Gary Jr, GW&SON’s VPand operation manager. Gary Seniorstill works within the production of

the shop, offering valuable insight tothe production floor manager; with abusiness model centered on commu-


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GW & SON Auto Body—Blending Yesterday’s Service with Today’s Technology

See GW&SON, Page 60

with Ed Attanasio

Shop and Product Showcase

with Ed Attanasio

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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

Seated (l to r): Leona Wano and Gary Wano Sr. Kneeling (l to r): Chad Mason, Tammy Tomberlin,Weldon Gerdner, Kristi Wano, Ashley Ewing, (Buddy the dog), Terry Quinalty. Standing (l to r):Johnny Ellenburg, Andrea Jerman, James Coker, Inna Hadgisava, Clinton Carter, Derrick Cubie,Josh Johnson, Gary Wano Jr, Joseph Devine, David Rinehart, Weston Gardner, Tony Scarlett,Les VanVoast, Larry Van Voast


nity involvement and technical train-ing more than relying on a lot of DRPrelationships to bring in customers.

“Our OEM Certifications havebecome a great niche for us,” saidWano Jr. GW&SON is the only Jaguar,Volvo, Mercedes-Benz and CorvetteZO6 certified repair facility in the state.

“We’re equipped and trained torepair specific high end cars,” saidWano Jr. He also feels that this highlevel of certification reassures theircustomers driving domestic modelstheir cars will be repaired accuratelyas well.

GW&SON places a lot of em-

phasis on having everything neededtechnically—from access to repairdata to the proper equipment—to ac-curately repair all vehicles.

On the shop floor GW&SON has5 Car-O-Liner Mark VI frame ma-chines, a CarTronics Electric Measur-ing system, three (3) CeletteFixture-Style Frame Benches—re-quired for the shop’s Mercedes-Benz,Jaguar, Volvo, and Corvette Z06 cer-tified status and several different auto

make specific vera-spotwelding units.GW&SON believes that in-

vesting the training in theirstaff is worth the return on in-vestment in the confidence ofthe production team followingset SOP’s (Standard Operat-ing Procedures) which drivesconsistency and quality.“It {training} can get costly,

but in the essence of devel-oping production staff carrier pathsthe investment is nominal,” said WanoJr.

Wano Jr. said the OEM trainingcan cost the shop anywhere from$2,000 to $3,000 per day, with pay-roll, travel expense, course fee’s and


GW&SON

GLK 350 Mercedes-Benz, loaded on one of the Celetteframe benches

See GW&SON, Next Page

The Women’s Industry Network(WIN) awarded the group’s annualscholarship to attend NACE to thetwo top-placing female winners atSkillsUSA.

This year’s recipients areAlexandra Domer, who placedeighth in the automotive refinishingtechnology category, and ElizabethMoore, who placed 10th in the colli-sion repair technology category.

The WIN scholarship includesairfare, lodging and associated ex-penses, as well as a full access NACEExpo Pass provided by the Automo-tive Management Institute (AMI) andAutomotive Service Association(ASA).

Additionally, Domer and Moorewere honored at the ASA sponsoredindustry awards ceremony on Oct. 6,and also will receive a 2012 WINmembership.

After high school, Domer at-tended the Waubonsee CommunityCollege, where she earned two Asso-ciate Degrees in Applied Science, onein Automotive Body Repair and Au-tomotive Technology. She graduatedin the spring of 2011 and hopes tohave her own collision repair facilityone day.

Moore graduated from FreedomHigh School in the spring of 2011,and is currently attending UTI inHouston.

“The WIN NACE scholarshipgoes to the heart of WIN’s mission tosupport and encourage women whoare entering the industry, particularlythose in the technical ranks. Sur-rounded by our amazing WIN mem-bers, this scholarship has consistentlybeen a wonderful way to introduceyoung women to the collision indus-try,” said Teresa Bolton, Director,Collision Repair Test Development,ASE who also serves as WIN’sScholarship Co-Chair and Treasurer.

For more information go towww.womensindustrynetwork.com.

Women’s Industry Network Awards Two Scholarships to NACEAAIA will feature its new Shop of To-morrow showcase at AAPEX in booth#3066 to highlight vehicle service usingconnected technology. Included will be:Diagnostic, service information andtelematics services by ALLDATA; Aplug-in telematics device and cloud-based services powered by Carma Sys-tems; Back shop alignment and servicesolutions by Hunter Engineering com-municating seamlessly with the shopmanagement systems; Internet parts lo-cation and ordering services engineeredby WHI Solutions.

The AAPEX Learning Forum will fea-ture 30 education sessions with specificclasses recommended for general after-market audiences, warehouse distribu-tors, manufacturers, retailers, autorepair shops and parts stores. 28 of the30 sessions are offered at no cost. Thetwo additional Lunch & Learn sessionsare $25 each. Sessions will take placeNov. 1 to Nov. 3, at the Sands ExpoCenter. Sessions will be held at the Ve-netian Hotel, Marco Polo Rooms 701-706. The Lunch & Learn sessions willbe held in Marco Polo Rooms 801/802.

AAIA ‘Shop of Tomorrow’Vehicle Service at AAPEX

AAPEX Learning Forum toProvide 30 A/M Programs

For the third consecutive year, the num-ber of deer-vehicle collisions in theU.S. has dropped, according to a studydone by State Farm Insurance. And thedownturn is accelerating. The percent-age decline over the last year is nearlythree times as large as during the previ-ous two years combined. Using itsclaims data, State Farm® estimates 1.09million collisions between deer and ve-hicles occurred in the U.S. betweenJuly 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011. That’s9 percent less than three years ago and7 percent fewer than one year ago.Among those states in which at least2,000 deer-vehicle collisions occur per

year, Vermont (24 percent), Michigan(23 percent), West Virginia (22 percent)and Connecticut (22 percent) experi-enced the largest one-year percentagedeclines. There were 23,000 fewerdeer-vehicle altercations in Michiganalone. Michigan is second on the list ofstates with the highest total number ofthese collisions (78,304), well behindPennsylvania (101,299).

For the fifth year in a row, West Vir-ginia tops the list of states where an indi-vidual driver is most likely to run in to adeer. Iowa remains second on the list.Deer-vehicle collisions are least likely inHawaii.

U.S. Deer-Vehicle Collisions Fall 7 Percent



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lost production to send their techni-cians, but that it is definitely worth itin the end.

GW&SON cross-trains several

staff members in different OEM repairtechnologies, but Wano Jr. said thatthey usually invest this training intoemployees that have some historywithin the operation; it’s “too costly totrain technicians for our competition.”If an employee exhibits commitmentto GW&SON they will definitely getthe opportunity to attend some OEMtraining.

The shop also relies on PPG En-virobase paint combined with propertraining and two Col-Met spraybooths to ensure perfect paint matcheson all repairs.

GW&SON has also built lastingrelationships with a lot of their cus-tomers over the 26 years of servicingthe Oklahoma City/Edmond marketsthanks to their integrity and old-fash-ioned style serviceability.

“Our repeat client base has growntoo include the grandchildren of pastcustomers now coming in to get theircars repaired,” said Wano Jr.

GW&SON’s personal servicewith each of their customers is what

keeps repeat customers coming inagain and again, according to Wano Jr.

“Our motto—balancing yester-day’s service with today’s technol-ogy—that’s really what we do,” saidWano Jr.

Wano Jr. said that our operationdevelops personal relationships withtheir customers and that helps them be-come a part of normal contact for the

customer when it comes tocollision repair.

GW&SON also participatesin the local community to helpdeepen their relationships withtheir customers. According toWano Jr. the shop donates tolocal athletic clubs and is ac-tive in their local Chamber ofCommerce and local Ameri-can Indian Chamber of Com-

merce. Wano Jr. and his family are alsovery active in their church.

“Blast emails and discountedservices will never take the place of acustomer base that knows and trustsyou,” said Wano Jr.

For more information please visitwww.gwandson.com.

GW&SON Auto Body Inc.13417 N. Santa FeOklahoma City, OK 73113(405) 751-1446

Car rental firm Hertz Global Hold-ings still wants to buy Dollar ThriftyAutomotive Group, despite missinga deadline to make a final offer, andis chasing antitrust approval for atakeover of its smaller rival, accord-ing to Reuters.

On October 11, Dollar Thriftysaid it failed by end-October 10 toflush out any final takeover bids thatmet antitrust concerns, and planned togo ahead as a stand-alone company.

However, Dollar Thrifty, whichhas been at the center of an 18-monthtug-of-war between Hertz and rivalAvis Budget, said it would considerany changes to Hertz’s offer or anyother offer that might be made.

“We remain interested in acquir-ing Dollar Thrifty. We remain focusedon receiving an FTC consent decree,”Hertz spokesman Richard Broometold Reuters, referring to the Federal

Trade Commission. “That’s the firststep in the process.”

Dollar Thrifty is seen as the lastbig prize in an industry that has con-solidated in recent years, but itstakeover has been uncertain as thiswould leave three players dominatingmore than 90 percent of a U.S. carrental market worth close to $21 bil-lion in 2010. The market leader is pri-vately-held Enterprise.

One of Dollar Thrifty’s biggestshareholders said it was highly likelyHertz would win antitrust approval andwould push to get a deal through early.The shareholder asked not to be identi-fied due to the sensitivity of the issue.

He noted that Avis, whichdropped out of the bidding last monthciting volatile debt markets and its re-cent $1 billion acquisition of its Eu-ropean arm, has the potential to returnto the bidding fray in a few months

when it has paid down its debt.Dollar Thrifty had come up with

October 10’s deadline as it sought tospeed up the bidding race betweenHertz and Avis, but the ultimatum lostits edge once Avis withdrew, he said.

In August, Dollar Thrifty CEOScott Thompson said the long-pend-ing deal had kept the company frommoving forward on growth initiativesand, last month, he wrote to both Avisand Hertz asking for their final writ-ten proposals by October 10.

Dollar Thrifty decided that contin-uing the sale process—with uncertaintystill over regulatory approval—wouldbe costly and time-consuming, said aperson close to the situation, who wasnot authorized to speak to the media.

Hertz has a tender offer open toDollar Thrifty shareholders that val-ues the company at around $1.92 bil-lion.

Thompson said his counterpart atHertz called him on October 7 to reaf-firm the company’s commitment topursuing a deal. “... the fact remainsthat they have not made a proposalthat addresses our board’s require-ments,” Thompson said.

Hertz was always seen as morelikely to win regulatory clearance as itserves the high-end market, and is al-ready in the process of selling its low-cost Advantage brand.

But Hertz will have to raise its$66.21 per share offer to somewherein the region of $75 a share, the Dol-lar Thrifty shareholder said.

Tulsa, Oklahoma-based DollarThrifty reiterated its third-quarter out-look, and said it would soon start a$400 million share buyback program,buying back around $100 millionworth of shares per quarter over thenext four quarters.

Dollar Thrifty Halts Sale Process, Hertz Still Interested in Acquisition


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What could a customer expect from anauto body shop that is open sevendays a week? For some customers it’senough to know such a shop exists!

Baugh Auto Body in Richmond,VA, is the only shop in the area that’sopen seven days a week from 8am to6pm Monday through Friday, with theadded convenience of being open on

Saturdays and Sundays from 8am to4pm. The shop also offers on-site carrentals on weekends. Customers donot need to schedule an estimate, butBaugh Auto Body will schedule spe-cific times to provide an estimate ifthe customer prefers. Baugh AutoBody’s mission is to treat every cus-tomer like a member of their ownfamily, and they guarantee their work,including paint, for as long as the cus-tomer owns the vehicle. According toAshley Baugh, Customer Service andMarketing Coordinator, “Baugh AutoBody is a leader in the industry andhas been ranked in the top GEICO na-tional and regional shops for customerservice and cycle time.”

As part of his quality guarantee,owner Gerry Baugh overseesdaily operations and is availableto speak to clients personally.When he is not available, hisdaughter and Ashley Baugh, en-sures that customers are treatedwith respect and the assurancethat their vehicle will be takencare of. Gerry Baugh estab-lished the shop in 1982 when the cur-rent space became available, but hefirst became involved in the collisionrepair industry when he was only six-teen years old.

Though Baugh Auto Body hasbeen in business for nearly thirtyyears, they decided to spread the wordabout their quality and convenience tocustomers in the Richmond area in amore proactive way back in 2009. To

do this, they hired Lythos Studios, anadvertising company, to assist in mak-ing their website more appealing topotential customers and to help pro-mote their business. Lythos Studioswas hired in the summer of 2009 to re-vamp the shop’s logo and their web-site, but ultimately provided muchmore. Lythos Studios helped with

branding the business and push-ing brand recognition, thus help-ing to position Baugh Auto Bodyas one of the top shops in theircommunity. Though the changesproposed were not very difficultto implement, Lythos Studios’marketing plan has greatly af-

fected Baugh Auto Body’s business,and it took only a month or so for theshop to see returns from the market-ing strategy.

Ashley Baugh says emphati-cally, “Hiring Lythos is one of the bestdecisions we ever made as a com-pany. We have come to really valuetheir relationship and expertise... Wehave had much success with their planand are pleased with the results.”

Lythos Studios provides serv-ices include web and content devel-opment, SEO, brand development,and image creation. They helpclients earn a return by developingbranding and advertising strategies.Their website explains their philoso-phy and approach: “Lythos is in-

vested in the success of our clients.Through strategy and design, wework to develop unique brands andmessaging with forward-thinkingstrategy and state of the art design...We advocate using strong web stan-dards that focus on usability, for-ward-thinking solutions, and cuttingedge tools and applications in orderto develop the right website thatmeets your needs.”

When they were hired by Baugh,Lythos Studios created a new logo de-sign to use on printed materials aswell as for use on the updated websiteand Facebook page they created.Lythos also developed radio and tele-vision advertisements which they in-tegrated with the website. They alsocoordinated events at local colleges todirect students to the website and thusto Baugh Auto Body. Lythos monitorstheir advertising campaign monthly toensure that they are hitting their goalsand operating within budget.

One of Lythos’ primary goals isto engage women who constitute alarge portion of auto body customersbut are frequently overlooked in autobody ads targeted toward men. To dothis, they created Baugh Auto Body’sUtopia advertisement in both print andcommercial format. This ad features

an idyllic beach scene with a womanlanguidly pictured in her hammock. InUtopia, the air is clean and warm,everyone is beautiful, and auto body

shops are open Sundays “for yourconvenience.” My guess is that this isa reassuring message to those worry-


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Richmond, Virginia’s Baugh Auto Body—An Exceptional Shop MadeMore So by Lythos Studios’ Advertising Expertise

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

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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].

See Baugh, Next Page

Ashley and her father, Gerry Baugh

Gerry Baugh (c) and the techs at Baugh Auto Bodyare featured on the website

On April 4th, 2011, the Society ofCollision Repair Specialists (SCRS)and 26 of its Affiliate Associations is-sued a letter to the ten EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA, Agency) re-gional offices, requesting clarificationon their interpretation and intendedenforcement of exemptions listed inthe EPA rule Subpart HHHHHH- Na-tional Emissions Standards for Haz-ardous Air Pollutants: Paint Strippingand Miscellaneous Surface CoatingOperations at Area Sources (Rule 6H.)

In addition to expressed concernthat the rule as written “invalidatespollution controls based solely on thesize of tool being used rather than theamount of pollution being generated,”the letter specifically requested a re-sponse from the EPA on three items:

1. A documented response re-garding the exemption for coatingsapplied with a paint cup equal to orless than 3 fluid oz., and clarificationthat the rule applies to the type ofwork being performed.

2. A documented response thata 3 fluid oz. cup cannot be used and

repeatedly filled to circumvent therule.

3.Clarification that while a busi-ness applying coatings may be exemptfrom Rule 6H by meeting certainstated requirements, the exemptiondoes not negate other additional regu-latory requirements (such as OSHA,local zoning codes or fire ordinances)that may prohibit spraying flammablesolvent or coatings with HazardousAir Pollutants (HAPs) outside of acontained environment.

In a response letter received bySCRS and issued by the EPA AirBranch, Monitoring, Assistance andMedia Programs Division, it was clar-ified that the 3oz cup was indeed de-fined by the Agency as a way todistinguish conventional collision andvehicle repair from “operations thatperform vehicle repairs of small stonechips and scratches.” The letter con-tinues to point out that both “mobileoperations and conventional collisionrepair shops are subject to the rule re-quirements for training, spray equip-ment, and the use of a spray booth or

other ventilated and filtered enclo-sures,” and that while “the 6H ruledoes not extend to spray-applied coat-ings applied from a hand-held devicewith a paint cup capacity that is equalto or less than 3.0 fluid ounces, theAgency may find that persons who re-peatedly refill and use a three ouncecup, as a means of avoiding rule ap-plicability, are attempting to circum-vent the 6H rule...and reserves theright to bring enforcement actionsagainst any person whose actionequates to rule circumvention.”

“We are pleased that the EPA hasresponded with a clear and concisemessage that collision repairers andmobile operators alike will be held tothe same regulatory requirements as itrelates to the 6H Rule,” said SCRSChairman Aaron Clark.

“In their response, the EPA Of-fice has made it clear that much of therule enforcement is based on intent. Insome cases the use of the 3.0 ouncecup may be a necessity of the jobbeing performed, but it is clear to usthat the EPA offices will not accept in-

tentional circumvention of the rule byhabitually “fragmenting paint jobsinto smaller tasks” or “refilling 3.0ounce cups in an effort to avoid regu-lation.” This is the basic clarificationwe were looking for, and anticipatethat this will provide solid informationfor shops.”

One additional point of clarifica-tion offered by the EPA letter con-firmed that “the 6H rule does notnegate other regulatory requirements(such as federal or local occupationalhealth and safety requirements, localzoning codes, or fire ordinances) thatmay prohibit or restrict spraying flam-mable solvents or coatings containingHAPs within or outside of a containedenvironment.”

To view the full letter provided tothe ten EPA regional offices and theEPA official response follow the linksposted with this story at www.autobo-dynews.com

Additional information is availableat the SCRS Web site: www.scrs.com.You can e-mail SCRS at the followingaddress: [email protected].

EPA Federal Office Response to SCRS Letter on 6H Rule


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ing about their vehicles, whether theysee themselves blissfully relaxing onthe beach or not.

Baugh Auto Body’s website fea-tures quotes by satisfied customerssprinkled throughout the site, em-phasizing the shop’s exceptionalservice as seen by various customers,including the former President andChancellor of the University of Rich-mond.

To reinforce the family-themeat the shop, photographs of Gerryand Ashley, as well as some of theworkers, providing a friendly, com-fortable atmosphere visible tobrowsers on the website. The web-site lists the shop’s goals to obtaincustomer service as well as howthey achieve it: their goal is to pro-vide the safest and highest qualityrepairs to their customers, and theyachieve this by offering a combina-tion of highly-trained techniciansand state-of-the-art equipment.

Their quality process, again, de-tailed on their website to assist cus-tomers in understanding the repairprocess, includes evaluating the cus-

tomer’s needs, documenting the plan,disassembly and inspection, obtainingparts, completing body repairs, prepa-ration for painting, painting, vehiclereassembly, customer notification andreview and delivery.

Baugh’s monthly revenue variesfrom between $100,000 to $700,000which shows at least a twenty percentincrease since entrusting Lythos Stu-dios with their advertising. This rev-enue is derived solely from auto bodywork as the shop does not provide ad-ditional services. Baugh Auto Bodyemploys around thirty auto body spe-cialists. All of their employees re-ceive I-Car training on a regularbasis. Baugh Auto Body is I-CarGold certified, as well as I-Car certi-fied for their welding capabilities.Technicians are also required to meetstandard operating procedure guide-lines as set forth by DuPont Perform-ance Alliance. The shop processesinsurance claims for their customers,and they participate in five direct re-pair programs with Hanover, Safeco,State Farm, Geico Express andFarmer’s Insurance.

The shop encompasses 14,000square feet. In addition to standardequipment such as lifts and mig-welders, Baugh Auto Body also uti-

lizes two frame machines, two down-draft paint booths, an alignment ma-chine and computerized welding. Theshop uses DuPont brand waterbornepaints. Baugh Auto Body also sup-ports local college sports, sponsoringthe athletic departments at Universityof Virginia as well as University ofRichmond. Additionally, the shoppartners with local organizations suchas Children Inc. by donating funds toassist such programs.

One final benefit: thanks in partto the advertising provided by LythosStudios, Baugh Auto Body is cur-rently preparing to open a secondshop in Charlottesville, VA.

Baugh Auto Body6018 W Broad St.Richmond, VAPhone: (804) 285-8045Fax:(804) 285-8068www.baughautobody.com

to contact Lythos Studios:

Clay Hamner101 East Cary StreetRichmond VA 23219EMAIL : [email protected]: (804) 225-7780www.lythos.com


Baugh

autobody news november 2011 northeast edition

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