Western November 2014 Issue

by Chasidy Rae Sisk

On Tuesday, August 26, attorneyJohn Arthur Eaves and shop ownerBill Fowler, of Bill Fowler’s Body-works in Southaven MS, appeared onthe Drake and Zeke Show, a popularearly morning radio talk show in theMemphis, TN area. The reason fortheir guest appearance was to explainthe MDL lawsuit to consumers andeducate them on their rights duringthe collision repair process in hopesof raising awareness about this im-portant issue impacting collision re-pair facilities across the country.

To begin, the radio hosts summa-rized the lawsuit they planned to dis-cuss. In January 2014, Eaves filed acomplaint against insurers on behalfof 21 collision repair shops. Thoughthe lawsuit began in MS, it has spreadand continues to gain traction so thatit is now a national lawsuit, involvingsix states, which will be tried by a sin-gle judge in FL. Multiple insurershave been implicated in the complaintas the habit of insurer steering is an in-dustry-wide problem.

Fowler pointed out that steeringhas become so pervasive in the indus-

See Memphis Radio, Page 9

by Stacey Phillips, Assistant Editor

Last month we reported on the finalclosing of the purchase of HolmesBody Shop’s seven locations by CooksCollision Centers. The Holmes acqui-sition was initiated in May 2012 andconcluded with the seventh Holmeslocation closing in September of thisyear, after our last issue went to press.With 35 locations in CA, Cooks is thelargest independently owned and op-erated collision repair organization inthe state.

But Holmes is not even the latestmedium-sized MSO to be acquired bylarger consolidators in California. InSeptember, Service King CollisionRepair Centers acquired Marco’s Col-lision Centers, also a medium-sizedMSO having seven locations in

Southern California. Shortly there-after Service King reached an agree-ment to acquire Car West Auto Body,an MSO with seven shops in NorthernCalifornia.

Is there some kind of ‘rule of sev-ens’ at play here? More seriously, wewanted to know what forces weredriving the acquisition of small tomid-size MSOs and why they seemmore attractive than individual shopsfor acquisition.

Nearly 20 years ago DavidRoberts, the co-founder and formerChairman of the Board for CaliberCollision Centers, wrote an articlepredicting the future of consolidationsin the collision repair industry. It wasentitled Shop Consolidation: Is it In-evitable? Undoubtedly, Roberts an-

See MSO Consolidations, Page 4

MSO Consolidations in CA Heat Up IndustryAttorney John Arthur Eaves and Shop Owner Bill FowlerAppear on Memphis Radio to Discuss MDL Suit

by Stacey Phillips,Assistant Editor

Sixty-five collision repair shop ownersrecently traveled to Washington D.C. toeducate Congress about the strugglebody shops face to protect consumerswhen providing a complete and safe re-pair. The majority of them were part of aNationwide Anti-Trust Multi-DistrictLitigation filed earlier this year againstmultiple insurance companies in severalstates. (See also other cover story thispage.) After more than 150 meetingswith representatives and senators over athree-day period, the result was an out-pouring of support for an industry facedwith the challenge of insurance compa-

nies dictating how they run their bodyshops.

Congress Expresses Support of Repair Industry inResponse to Owners’ Trip to Washington D.C.

See Congress Support, Page 60

Matt Parker with House Speaker John Boehner

Pro Spot is Ford’s Rotunda Supplier of the YearCarlsbad’s Pro Spot is very proud to beawarded the supplier of the year awardby the Ford Motor Company RotundaProgram. Pro Spot was approved byFord to supply aluminum repair equip-ment to the Collision Repair Programfor repairs on the new 2015 Ford F-150all-aluminum body truck. The Ford Ro-tunda Dealer Equipment Program is anational program endorsed by Ford

Motor Co. to their dealer base, sellingservice and body shop repair equip-ment. The approved equipment in-cluded: the SP Pulse MIG welders—the most sold Ford-required MIG

welders in North America, the Alu-minum Dent Repair Stations, Fume Ex-tractors, and the SPR Riveter; all ofwhich contributed to the winning of theSupplier of the Year award. “We wouldlike to thank Team Pro Spot for all oftheir hard work and all of our customersthat have supported us in purchasingour aluminum repair products. Thismeans a lot to our team at Pro Spot,”said Ron Olsson, Pro Spot President,“I’m overwhelmed and very honored towin this award from Ford. We havebeen working very hard and appreciatethe trust in our equipment and of course,the overwhelming amount of orders wehave received for the aluminum pro-gram.”

The 2015 F-150 is revolutionizingthe repair industry by mainstreaming alu-minum repair. With the hard work byFord Motor Company in designing a re-pairability-focused, all-aluminum bodyF-150, shops across the country are get-ting prepared to repair the top selling ve-hicle. Pro Spot is proud to be recognizedas a supplier of quality aluminum repairequipment to the Collision Repair Pro-gram and the 2015 Ford F-150 truck. ProSpot looks forward to continuing to de-sign innovative equipment for shops andtechnicians to repair vehicles back to OEstandards.

(l to r) Mike Berardi (Ford Director of Serv-ice Engineering Operations), Ashley Olsson(Pro Spot Director of Communications), RonOlsson (Pro Spot Founder & President) andSteve DeAngelis (Ford Manager of Techni-cal Support Operations). Photo Credit: Ash-ley Olsson

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WesternEdition

VOL. 32 ISSUE 11NOVEMBER 2014

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ContentsREGIONAL

Arizona Body Shop Connects With

Customers and Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

ASA-AZ’s Management Training Road Show . . 38

Attanasio - Fontana, CA, Shop Thinks BIG

on its 26-Year Anniversary . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

CAA Relaunches Website with New

Features, Design, Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Collision Repair Instructor Inspires Students,

Paves Way for SEMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Mike Miller Appointed National Director of

Certified Network Development for

Assured Performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

MSO Consolidations in CA Heat Up Industry . . . 1

Pro Spot is Ford’s Rotunda Supplier of the Year. . 1

COLUMNS

Attanasio - Body Shops are Tapping into

the Persuasive Power of Video . . . . . . . . . . 30

Attanasio - Chicago Body Shop’s Anti-Texting

Campaign Catches Fire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Attanasio - Gas Monkey Garage and Dodge

Recruit Mötley Crüe to Rock Dallas. . . . . . . 34

Franklin - Are You Marketing to Merely Survive

or Are You Trying to Grow?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Luehr - Lean Implementation Strategies . . . . . 24

Sisk - ASA-IL’s 2014 CAN Conference

Attracts More Attendees, Falls Short

of Collision Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Sisk - SafeCars Hosts Meetings Around the

Country to Discuss Insurer Interference

and National Lawsuits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

NATIONAL

2015 Hyundai Genesis Preview Before

SEMA Debut. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Aftermarket Auto Parts Alliance Joins

CC TRU Parts Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

AkzoNobel Hosts Sustainability Media

Briefing in Washington D.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Alcoa Forecasts Record Auto Sheet

Shipments in Q4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Aleris to Add Aluminum Automotive Body

Sheet Capabilities in North America . . . . . . 40

Attorney John Arthur Eaves and Shop Owner

Bill Fowler Appear on Memphis Radio to

Discuss MDL Suit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

AudaExplore’s Annual Total Loss Summit

Held in Boston, MA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Auto Glass Safety Council Updating

Certification Exam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Axalta Program Provides Shop Owners

With More Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Berkshire Hathaway to Acquire Van Tuyl

Group, Largest Privately-Owned Auto

Dealership Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Cadillac to Introduce New Technology

on 2017 Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Car Donation Helps Army Veteran

Get Back on the Road. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Car-O-Liner Participation Enhanced

With Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Chevrolet Brings Back the Corvette Stingray

in Time for SEMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Chevrolet Debuts Pickup Concept Trucks

for SEMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Chrysler Recall of SUVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Congress Expresses Support of Repair

Industry in Response to Owners’ Trip

to Washington D.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Daimler Chairman Dr. Dieter Zetsche to

Deliver Keynote Address at 2015

Consumer Electronics Show. . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Energy Transfer in Today’s Vehicles Makes

Measuring, Multi-Point Pulling More

Important . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Ferrari Recall of 458 Italia and Spider Models. . 46

Ford Recalls 850,000 Cars for Airbag

& Seat Belt Glitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Honda and SolarCity Partnership Will Create

$50 Million Fund for Solar Projects . . . . . . . 44

Hot-Pink Roadster Makes Rental

Reimbursement Red Hot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

I-CAR Launches Two New Refinish Courses . . 56

Iowa Pulls Plug on Tesla Test Drives . . . . . . . . 52

Lamborghini and IMSA Extend Partnership . . . 40

Mercedes Will Train 26,000 in the

Brand’s New Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

New Legislation Introduced to Simplify

SBA Loan Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Nitroheat Launches New Product at SEMA . . . 58

Omix-ADA to Give Away 2014 Jeep Wrangler

at SEMA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

PPG Waterborne Shop Conversions

Exceed 10,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Quest Donates $280,000 in Paint &

Abrasives to CREF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Quotes Pros Website Offers Insurance

Rates Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Roush-Modified 2015 Ford Mustang

To Be Revealed at SEMA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

SEMA: Sales of Auto Parts & Accessories

Reach $33B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Senate Subcommittee Looks Into Effectiveness

of the National Highway Traffic Safety

Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Takata Airbag Recall May Include GM Vehicles . 52

Three Types of Parts Account for 50%

of Sales Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Toyota Moves to Aluminum Hood for

Camry in 2018 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Toyota Produces Urban Utility Concept Vehicle . 51

Universal Technical Institute to Open

Long Beach Campus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

WIN 2015 Membership Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

World Steel Dynamics Predicts Short Gains

for Aluminum Before High-Strength

Steels Take Over. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Yoswick - DRPs 20 years ago, Early CCRE,

ADP Revises Labor Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Publisher & Editor: Jeremy HayhurstGeneral Manager: Barbara DaviesAssistant Editor: Stacey PhillipsOnline Editor: Victoria AntonelliContributing Writers: Tom Franklin, David Brown,John Yoswick, Janet Chaney, Toby Chess,Ed Attanasio, Chasidy Sisk, David LuehrAdvertising Sales: Joe Momber, Sean Hartman,Bill Doyle, Norman Morano (800) 699-8251Sales Assistant: Louise TedescoArt Director: Rodolfo Garcia

Serving California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah. AutobodyNews is a monthly publication for the autobody industry.Permission to reproduce in any form the material pub-lished in Autobody News must be obtained in writingfrom the publisher. ©2014 Adamantine Media LLC.

Autobody NewsP.O. Box 1516, Carlsbad, CA 92018(800) 699-8251 (760) 603-3229 Faxwww.autobodynews.comEmail: [email protected]

Audi Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . . . .54Automotive ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10AutoNation Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram of North Phoenix . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Axalta Coating Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Bill Luke Dealerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23BMW MINI of Escondido . . . . . . . . . . . .42BMW Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . . .53Bob Smith BMW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37Bob Smith MINI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37Capitol Subaru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45Car-Part.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Certified Automotive PartsAssociation (CAPA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62Colortone Automotive Paints . . . . . . . . .14Completes Plus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19Courtesy Chevrolet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9DCH Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram . . . . . .18DCH Kia of Temecula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18Del Grande Dealer Group . . . . . . . . .12-13Dent Magic Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22Downtown Motors of LA(Audi, VW, Porsche) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Drew Hyundai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50Earnhardt Buick-GMC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4East Bay BMW-MINI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24Eco Repair Systems ofNorth America, LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Elk Grove Toyota . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26Enterprise Rent-A-Car . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36Equalizer Industries, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . .28Ford Wholesale Parts DealersAZ, CA, NV & UT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

Galpin Motors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41GlasWeld Systems, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . .20Glenn E. Thomas Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep .31Glenn E. Thomas FIAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31GM Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . . . . .58Honda-Acura Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32-33

Hyundai Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . .54Infratech L.L.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16Innovative Tools & Technology, Inc. . . .64Kearny Mesa Subaru-Hyundai . . . . . . .43Kia Motors Wholesale Parts Dealers . . .61LKQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63Los Gatos Luxury Cars . . . . . . . . . . . . .38Maita Subaru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34Malco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19Mark Kia-Mitsubishi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28Matrix System Automotive Finishes . . .15Mazda Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . .60Mercedes-Benz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21MINI Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . . . .52Mitsubishi Wholesale Parts Dealers . . .48MOPAR Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . .35Mossy BMW of Vista . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47Mossy Volkswagen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44Motor Guard Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Nicolosi Imports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22Nissan/Infiniti Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

PPG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Pro-Spray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11Puente Hills Subaru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40Replica Plastics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14Riverside Metro VW-Honda-Hyundai-Nissan-Mazda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

SATA Spray Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . .27Shingle Springs Nissan-Subaru . . . . . .51Sierra Chevrolet-Honda-Mazda-Subaru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

Sonnen BMW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20South Bay Volkswagen . . . . . . . . . . . . .30Subaru Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . .57TG Products, Inc. - The Rail Saver . . . .26Toyota Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . .56Valspar Automotive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17Volkswagen Wholesale Parts Dealers . .55Volvo Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . . .56

Inde

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www.autobodynews.com | NOVEMBER 2014 AUTOBODY NEWS 3

Autobody News is pleased to introduce Norman Morano who joined ourteam in October as an Advertising Sales Manager. Norm has been a SalesDirector for 13 years handling Hammer & Dolly, New Jersey Automotive,New England Automotive, AASP-News/MN and Wisconsin AutomotiveNews. He has also sold exhibitor space for the past four years at theNortheast Automotive Trade Show. Norm graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982 with

a BS degree in Environmental Studies. After college he travelled extensivelybefore attending Law School at Rutgers University School of Law. He was

admitted to the bar in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and has kept his NJ bar license active. Born andraised in Nutley, NJ, Norm has also lived in Orono, ME, Berkeley, CA, and Sydney, Australia. Beforeconcentrating on automotive advertising he had his own sign company building his sales contactsthroughout NY, NJ, PA, CT and DE. When he isn't working, Norm enjoys biking, yoga, surfing, motor-cycling, movies, pizza and the New York Times. He has been a resident of the Jersey Shore for the past26 years. Contact Norm to discuss your advertising needs at [email protected].

New Talent Joins the Autobody News Sales Staff

Norman Morano is Our Newest Regional Sales Manager

Contact Norm at: [email protected] to discuss your advertising needs.

In terms of dollars spent on automo-tive replacement parts through onlinepurchasing, or e-tailing, three cate-gories represent half of the dollar vol-ume in 2013, according to E-Tailingin the Automotive Aftermarket fromthe Auto Care Association.

The top three product categoriesare braking systems (primarily padsand shoes); ignition and engine (fuelpumps, alternators, ignition coils, etc.);

and glass, mirrors and lamps.The E-Tailing in the Automo-

tive Aftermarket digital study ana-lyzes the online retail market forsales of aftermarket parts, and servesas the foundation for the Auto CareAssociation to provide a unified esti-mate of online sales within the after-market.

For pricing and more informa-tion, visit www.autocare.org/etailing.

Three Types of Parts Account for 50% of Sales Online

swered, “the answer is ‘yes.’ ”Fast forward to the present time

Roberts told Autobody News, “In thelast 24 months nearly $3 billion ofsales volume in the collision repair in-dustry has changed ownership, whichis 10 percent of the entire industry.”

Roberts is currently the ManagingDirector and Automotive ServicesGroup team leader for FOCUS Invest-ment Banking. He said there are severalreasons for this sudden acceleration, in-cluding the availability of acquisitioncapital and the number of MSOs look-ing to sell. “There are more than 44MSOs with $20 million or more in rev-enues with another 110 between $10and $20 million.”

“Consolidators are looking to getbigger and achieve more scale, whichhas rewards for the acquirers as wellas for insurers and consumers,” saidRoberts, whose company has officesin Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Wash-ington D.C.

“Large insurers have increasinglyrewarded the best performing consol-idators and large MSOs with morevolume. Cars are repaired faster, withless hassle, and more predictable costsand quality.”

We asked Lillian Maimone, for-mer CEO and co-founder of Marco’sCollision Centers, for her perspectiveon the industry. She was excitedabout her upcoming retirement, say-ing, “Marco and I have nothing to doand all day to do it, and we like it that

way. It’s a wonder-ful sense of free-dom and peace ofmind.”

“Seeing thetrends in the newcars and the newequipment that wasnecessary to repair

these cars, I saw ourselves having avery difficult time competing againstthe consolidators. We knew it wouldcost my company hundreds of thou-sands of dollars in new equipment andtraining,”

While running Marco’s, whichwas established in 1972, Maimonesaid her primary function was ensur-ing the company was ready andgeared for the future. “My focus wason dealing with possible threats andopportunities,” she said.

In order to stay informed about

trends in the industry, Maimone regu-larly attended conferences, talked toindustry leaders and listened closelyto what others were saying in forumssuch as the Mitchell webinars, for ex-ample.

“I went to Pepperdine’s businessschool [and used those skills in ana-lyzing the industry.] I spent a lot of mytime looking at what is happening inthe industry and how it was affectingmy company,” she said. Eventuallyshe and husband Marco decided they“didn’t want to be in the game any-more.”

When employees asked why theysold, she explained, “We were the pow-erhouse in our area. We were the bigfish in the little pond.” With the changesin the industry and larger MSOs com-ing in, she said they realized how in-creasingly difficult it would be tocompete.

For example, the benefits theygained as a midsize DRP over theyears were no comparison to the gainsmade by the national DRP programs.She invited her employees to considerthe buying opportunities with the na-tional DRP accounts, rather than localones. “I figured whatever percentage


Continued from Cover

MSO Consolidations

Lillian Maimone


Autobody News asked Vincent Romans,the founding partner of The Romans GroupLLC, to comment on the recent MSO con-solidations. Romans has over 30 years ofconsulting and operating experience withdomestic and global enterprises. The Ro-mans Group LLC, established in 1996, pro-vides business, market, financial, andstrategic development advisory services tothe property and casualty auto physicaldamage insurance, automotive services,property restoration, and related supplychain segments.

Why are we seeing an increase inthe number of consolidators acquiringMSOs and do you think this trend willcontinue? We are at the early stage of con-solidation, contraction, convergence andconstructive transformation in the collisionrepair industry. Within this industry con-struct, private equity has stepped up its in-terest in acquiring MSO consolidators. Thisinterest is backed by unprecedented privateequity and strategic buyer cash seeking in-vestment opportunities in the MSO modelwhich today provides strong cash flow,growth through both organic and acquisitiongrowth and shorter term investment cyclesthat ultimately drive higher valuations.

How will it affect the collision repairindustry? We will continue to see large mul-tiple location operators (MLOs) be acquiredby the four MSO consolidators. The still

fragmented industry will continue to con-tract to a more normalized number of re-quired collision repairers throughout theUnited States over the next decade. Today,three collision repair segments, ≥$20M,≥$10-20M and the franchise multiple loca-tion, MLO, operators represent 24% of theUS collision repair market. I expect this mar-ket share for these three segments to growover the next three years. Additionally, weshould shortly see the first MSO with annualrevenue of $1.0B. Through September YTD2014 we have seen $650.0M in annual rev-enue transferred through multiple locationtransaction acquisitions among the fourMSO consolidators.

What are the relevant issues facingthe collision industry today? There are nu-merous trends and prevailing conditions thatoffer both risk and opportunity for repairerstoday. No one trend or prevailing conditionhas the impact that the confluence of theseprevailing trends and conditions have. It iswhen one understands that these individualprevailing conditions are part of a conflu-ence of many individual dynamic prevailingtrends and conditions, that you start to real-ize the order of magnitude and the exponen-tial impact they have and will continue tohave on the new world order of collision re-pair within the broader auto physical dam-age ecosystem. We will continue to seehow one company's transformation is an-

other's disruption, while one company's in-novation is another's disintermediation.Some of the short and long term conditionsinclude, but are not limited to changingmacro-economic influences, globalization,consolidation causing industry structuralchanges, telematics and the movement toan integrated electronic claims processmodel, accident avoidance technology as-sociated with semi-autonomous and even-tually autonomous vehicles (VEHBOTS),private equity and strategic buyers, predic-tive analytics, down turn in accident fre-quency, MSO performance contracts,hybrid claims management models, insur-ers embracing the MSO model, trained tech-nician shortage, parts procurement, repairsegmentation, urbanization and others toonumerous to mention here.

How does an independent shop fit inthe picture? Independent high perform-ance, brand recognized shops will continueto provide solid alternatives to the largeMSO consolidator model especially with in-surance companies that embrace their owncustomized repair models and prefer tohave non-MSO providers in the market or amix of MSO consolidators and local marketindependents. Additionally, specialty repair-ers who perform any number of niche mar-ket or high value repair alternatives will havea place in the future collision repair industry.


Vincent Romans of MSO Specialists The Romans Group on Consolidation

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Rental reimbursement – an inexpen-sive auto insurance option that coversthe cost of a rental car – is the focus ofa humorous marketing initiative spon-sored by Enterprise Rent-A-Car inCalifornia.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car has cre-ated “Rosie the Rental Reimburse-ment Roadster,” a hot-pink sedan anda replica of the vehicle used in Enter-prise’s My 13 Days video. Last year,the video was produced to illustratesome of the amusing challenges driv-ers sometimes face – such as drivinga teenager’s car for nearly two weeks– when vehicles are being repairedafter an accident.

The video’s title highlights a lit-tle-known fact: Damaged vehicles arein the shop for an average of 13 daysafter an accident, leaving those whodon’t have reimbursement coverage toborrow family cars, hitch rides or payout-of-pocket rental fees of up to $400.

“With more than 1.6 millionviews on YouTube, the ‘My 13 Days’video has proven to be both fun andmemorable,” said Mary Mahoney, VicePresident-Insurance Replacement Di-vision for the Enterprise Rent-A-Carbrand. “As a result, our Sacramentoteam decided to really bring the con-cept to life locally, so that Rosie can at-

tend insurance agents’ classes, collisioncenter openings, fund-raisers and ven-dor fairs, as well as other companyevents.”

Enterprise’s “My 13 Days” videoand microsite not only are helping raiseawareness about rental reimbursementoverall, but also educating policyhold-

ers so that they don’t have to worryabout borrowing family cars, hitchingrides or paying out-of-pocket rentalfees if their vehicle is in the shop. Forexample, many consumers don’t real-ize that one year of rental reimburse-ment coverage can cost less than aone-day car rental.

As U.S. News & World Reportstated in a personal finance article lastyear: “You might also want to considerrental coverage. Auto insurance poli-cies often allow you to add on cover-

age for renting a vehicle while your caris getting fixed after an accident, andif you only have one car, that kind ofcoverage can pay off.” In that same ar-ticle, Richard Arca, senior manager ofpricing at Edmunds.com and a formerinsurance adjuster, estimated it typi-cally adds only about $20 for sixmonths to a policy, noting: “Every cus-tomer who didn’t have rental coveragewished they had it.”

Furthermore, according to theJ.D. Power 2013 U.S. Auto ClaimsSatisfaction Study, providing excep-tional customer service is an importantelement in driving customer loyaltyand advocacy.

“That’s another strategic reasonto support our insurance partners andhelp remind their policyholders aboutthis simple, budget-friendly option,”Mahoney said. “It’s a win-win, be-cause it benefits individual consumers,which in turn enhances satisfactionlevels with the insurance industry forthe long term.”

Hot-Pink Roadster Makes Rental Reimbursement Red Hot

Rosie the Rental Reimbursement Roadster.Photo credit: Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Follow us on Twitter:@autobodynews

Accept no Substitutes!

The California Autobody Association(CAA), the nation’s largest state associ-ation dedicated to the collision repair in-dustry, has launched a new website forits 1,000+ members. The new site can befound online at www.calautobody.com.According to CAA Executive Director,David McClune, “We wanted some-thing simple to navigate through, yetpacked full of information that will beuseful to our members. We created a“Member’s Only” section which givesCAA members access to statewide laborrate information and legal resources. De-velopment was spearheaded by MarkClaypool of Optima Automotive whichalso created a “Member’s Only” legisla-tive group on LinkedIn that will activelykeep our members informed of the mostpertinent things going on in Sacramentoand Washington that affect their busi-nesses.” There is a way for businesses tojoin online, an interactive calendar ofevents, a consumer advocacy section,chapter information, hot links, direct ac-cess to regional managers, and a “Find ACAA Shop” feature for consumers. On-going news is highlighted in the site’sBlog. The site can also be fully trans-lated into Spanish with a simple click onthe Mexican flag at the top right cornerof the page.

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by Stacey Phillips, Assistant Editor

When a Northern Arizona body shopowner heard that the local school dis-trict needed a travel bus restored fortheir students, he said that he didn’thesitate to help out. It took two monthsand 100 hours of work removing dentsand painting the bus, but Jim Bachler,owner of Vince’s Auto Body, said it waswell worth the time.

“In business I believe we shouldgive back to the community. What youget in return is always more than yougive,” said Bachler, who currently hastwo locations for his business, one inSedona and one in Camp Verde, andis planning to open a third within ayear.

One of Bachler’s employees inCamp Verde told him that the directorof support services for the CampVerde School District, Stacey Barker,wanted to convert one of their schoolbuses to a travel bus for athletic trips.The district offers 13 different sportsevery fall, winter and spring.

Barker had a vision for the bus,which included painting it blue, andworked closely with Vince’s AutoBody to plan what the bus would looklike. One of his goals was to ensurethat student athletes had a sense of

pride when they stepped off the bus.He said that he has found that it ele-vates their performance. “I believe incommunity involvement and bringingthe school and community together,”said Barker.

During the past summer sevenemployees at Vince’s Auto Body shop

worked on the project, which involved50 hours of body work and 50 hoursof painting. After the work was com-pleted, Alvey Signs in Cottonwoodtook care of the striping for the bus,spelling out “Camp Verde Cowboys”on the outside, which is the district’smascot.

“I didn’t grasp the magnitude ofthe project until we started,” said Bach-ler, who explained it was the equivalentof painting five small cars.

Bachler started working at Vince’sAuto Body in Sedona as a body andpaint technician in 1986 when the shopfirst opened and became general man-

ager in 1993. When Vince Lansink putthe shop up for sale in 2004, Bachlerand his wife decided to purchase it.

They realized there was also aneed for a body shop in the Camp Verdearea. “The closest one was 20 milesaway and we were already pulling workfrom that area,” said Bachler. “The op-

portunity presented itself in a good wayand we decided to make an invest-ment.” The Camp Verde location wasopened a year ago and focuses on RVcollision repair.

Recently they started buildinganother facility on Highway 260 thatwill concentrate on auto collision re-pair and is expected to be ready withina year.

Bachler has been active in thecommunity for more than 25 years andoften shows his support by sponsoringlocal charities and little league teams.The business donated a minivan to thefamily of David Zenot, a local policeofficer who worked in the area formore than 25 years and died in 2012from brain cancer. Bachler said that heenjoys being able to give back to thecommunity that has supported his busi-ness.

Vince’s Auto Body has been voted“Best Auto Body Shop” by Kudo’sMagazine every year since 1993 as wellas by Red Rock News and Market Sur-veys of America since 2006. “I attrib-ute it to customer care and concern forthe repairs we do for people,” he said.“It takes a lot in a small community tostay on top of the repairs. It’s not aboutthe money, it’s about doing thingsright.”

Arizona Body Shop Connects With Customers and Community

Rod Consalvo, the lead trip driver for the Camp Verde Unified School District, is pictured withthe travel bus

try that insurance companies often at-tempt to take control at the accidentscene, moving the damaged vehicleagainst the consumer’s wishes and try-ing to coerce the vehicle owner to agreeto having the repair completed at oneof their DRP shops. Although the con-sumer has the right to choose wheretheir vehicle is repaired and it couldeasily be argued that the insurers aretaking advantage of their customers, itis easier and cheaper for insurancecompanies when they get their way, asthey often do in these situations.

When questioned about why insur-ers are so adamant about steering de-spite the possibility of being sued, Eavesnoted that insurers profit greatly by thispractice as the benefits to them out-weigh the risk; this is the reason hispending lawsuit and other lawsuits arenecessary. Fowler reminded listenersthat this is a battle the collision repair in-dustry has been fighting for 25 years,but it has come to a point where qualityrepair shops will go out of business ifnothing is done to “rectify this travesty.”

Moving on to the topic of after-

market and OEM parts, Fowler saidthat his opinion has changed. Previ-ously, he believed it should be the cus-tomer’s choice whether or not to useaftermarket parts, but because mostconsumers don’t understand the dif-ferences and implications of usingthese parts, he now feels that it is thecollision repair professional’s respon-sibility to educate the consumer. Hereiterated that “testing proves that af-termarket parts do not always performthe same as genuine OEM parts.”

In response to the radio hosts’ ques-tion about whether “imitation parts”have been implicated as the cause of anyaccidents, Eaves unambiguously statedthat the use of poor quality aftermarketparts has caused a multitude of accidentsacross the country. Unfortunately, fewpeople are aware of this concern becausethese settled cases included confidential-ity agreements to prevent them from be-coming public knowledge. Furthermore,as many parts, including windshields,tires and airbags, directly affect thesafety of the vehicle, investment in partsis more crucial than ever. According toEaves, YouTube features many videoson how aftermarket parts affect vehiclesafety, and documentaries are currentlybeing filmed on this issue as well.

Eaves is not optimistic that thelawsuit will go to trial quickly, but he isprepared to fight this battle for quitesome time if necessary, noting “this isbigger than just a lawsuit; it’s a cam-paign!” Part of this campaign includesasking Congress to support legislationto restore the proper balance of powerbetween the insurance industry and thecollision repair industry. As precedentfor his request, Eaves cited the ConsentDecree, a similar situation in the 1960swhen insurance companies tried to dic-tate which parts could be used and howmuch they would pay for repairs. TheU.S. Department of Justice sued the in-surance industry, and the resulting rul-ing was that insurers cannot forcecollision repair facilities to compromisethe quality of their repairs. Thus, thebalance of power between these two in-dustries was restored if not enforced.Eaves said he hopes that his current ef-forts will yield the same results for themodern collision repair industry.

Directing his attention to whatconsumers can do to aid in this battle,Fowler reminded consumers that theyhave the right to choose the facility thatrepairs their vehicle, and he encouragedthem to act on this right by taking theircar to whichever shop they prefer. He

cautioned that it is a red flag if the in-surer insists on dictating where the ve-hicle is repaired, and this could indicatethat the insurer is engaging in other un-savory practices, such as mandatingwhich parts are used in the repair.

Though vehicle manufacturers pro-vide specific repair information to main-tain a vehicle’s safety, Fowler said he hasexperienced firsthand that some insurerswill demand used parts be installed, eventhough both he and the manufacturerwarned that such a practice could com-promise the vehicle’s safety. Despite in-surers’ tendency to use intimidating intheir interactions with both consumersand repair facilities, Fowler states, “thereare shops that try to do what’s right, butthey are vilified, disparaged and essen-tially squeezed out of business.”

Eaves agrees that it is imperativefor consumers to trust the facility re-pairing their vehicle as their lives arebeing placed in the hands of these pro-fessionals, and a poor quality repairjeopardizes the safety of the consumer,their family and anyone else on thehighway. The importance of finding atrustworthy repairer is so great thatFowler founded www.safecars.us, awebsite that promises to place the con-


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Universal Technical Institute, Inc.(NYSE: UTI) announced plans to opena new campus in Long Beach, Califor-nia, as part of the company’s growthstrategy to provide more students withconvenient and affordable training. Theschooling facility will also be restruc-turing the organization to better alignwith new, streamlined processes, aswell as current student populations atits existing campuses.

“We are very excited about ex-panding in the greater Los Angelesmetropolitan area where there is bothstrong student and employer demand,”said Kimberly McWaters, chief ex-ecutive officer of UTI. “Like our suc-cessful metro-model campus in Dallas,the Long Beach campus will predom-inantly serve a commuter population;allowing students to work while goingto school without the cost of relocat-ing to an existing campus. We believethis new campus will complement ourRancho Cucamonga, CA campus andhelp us fully optimize our current mar-keting investment in this importantmarket.”

UTI has entered into a 15-yearlease agreement for a build-to-suitcampus, located near numerous majorfreeways and Long Beach airport.The Long Beach campus, set to open

in late summer 2015, will house thecompany’s automotive, diesel andcollision repair programs including anumber of manufacturer specific ad-vanced training programs. There areaccomadations for a maximum of 800students.

“Our focus on improving operat-ing efficiencies, controlling costs andrunning a lean organization gives UTIthe flexibility to invest in growth op-portunities like new campuses, fundinitiatives to rebuild student popula-tions in our existing campuses andmake our training more accessibleand affordable for all of our students,”McWaters said.

During the past year, the companyimplemented key process technologysolutions to operate more efficiently intoday’s business environment. Thecompany is also restructuring its or-ganization and reducing staff.

The first phase, completed in thefourth quarter of 2014, impacted 50employees. Severance and outplace-ment charges relating to this reduc-tion will impact the fourth quarterpre-tax earnings by $1.3 million. By2015, these cuts are expected to pro-vide operating expense savings incompensation and related benefits of$5.2 million.

Universal Technical Institute to Open Long Beach CampusChevrolet Brings Back the Corvette Stingray in Time for SEMAThe SEMA Auto Show isn’t just anevent for established aftermarketcompanies to showcase their latest

creations. It’s also a chance for newplayers in the business to introducethemselves to the industry. This year,Revorix falls under the latter cate-gory, and it’s prepared a special pro-gram for the Chevrolet CorvetteStingray. The new aftermarket com-pany has just set up its business inAnaheim, California with the solepurpose of creating aftermarket

products that highlights a car’s“functional beauty." Seeing as it’sstill a relative neophyte in the indus-try, you can’t fault Roverix from en-listing the help of Rowen Japan,considered as one of the best after-market car body specialists in Japan.

Together, the two companies cre-ated the Revorix Corvette Package,which features a comprehensive list ofnew aerodynamic components de-signed to give the Corvette Stingray asportier look and improved dynamics.There are no performance upgradesbut that’s not overly important whenyou’re a new entry to the market look-ing to make a name.

The important thing is to estab-lish yourself first, and one way to doso is to build a body kit that will catchpeoples’ attention, which is exactlywhat it has with the Revorix CorvettePackage. It’s a tough task catchingsome eyes at the SEMA Auto Show,but Revorix, with the help of RowenJapan, might have the kit to pull it off.

The 2015 Stingray

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Recently I read an article that was criti-cal of industry leaders who had not takena stand against DRPs. It brought to minda discussion I once had with (a member)who said there are things associationscan do that make some members happy,but that don’t mean anything. He calledit “feel good stuff.”

For association leaders to de-nounce all DRPs when half or more oftheir membership participate in directrepair programs would be nothing morethan “feel good stuff.” It feels good tothose who are not DRP shops, but whatabout those member shops who choseto go DRP?

It’s very easy to criticize associa-tions that have a neutral position onDRPs, but what would happen if theycame out against them? The best anyassociation can do is to rally againstthe abuses where they exist; to supportlegislation that protects a consumer’sright to choose the repair facility; andto do what it can to advise its mem-

bers on how to determine if DRPs area wise business decision for them.

There are a number of individuals,some of them leaders, who continue toyell about DRPs without offering anyreal solutions. But regardless of whatthey have said, it’s the collision repairprofessionals who have voted by mak-ing the business decision whether toparticipate in these programs.

All the yelling in the world won’teliminate DRPs. Those of you who can’taccept that reality can keep yelling, oryour can roll up your sleeves and go towork on the 65 percent of business thatwill never be DRP. Learn how to better

market your busi-ness and sell colli-sion repairs. Burythe DRP bogeymanand get to work. It’sin your best inter-est.

– From an edi-torial by John Lof-

tus, then the executive director of theSociety of Collision Repair Specialists(SCRS), published in Collision Expert.Loftus retired from SCRS in 2000.

15 years ago in the collision repairindustry (November 1999)Mike Melfi said the Coalition for Col-lision Repair Equality (CCRE) wasfounded about three years ago as an or-ganization to help like-minded shopsowners around the country “take backcontrol” of their businesses and reduceinsurer influence over the industry. Itwas incorporated as a for-profit com-pany so that it would never have to di-vulge a list of its members (which theorganization refers to as “sponsors” or“clients”). About 80 people – includ-ing about a dozen attorneys – attendedthe group’s recent meeting in Phoenix.

“These attorneys are just now re-alizing that there’s money to be madein property damage litigation,” saidAnn Spink, a Louisiana shop owner

and vice president of CCRE. “We be-lieve that legislation and education ispart of the answer but litigation is thebottom line. The reason CCRE existsis to try to put together the documen-tation and the expert witnesses to helpthese attorneys understand how to lit-igate for us. And because they’re classaction attorneys, we don’t have to paythem, just help educate them.”

Shop owner Melfi told CCRE par-ticipants he had predicted the first non-OEM parts lawsuit “victory” wouldtake two years.

“It took three years,” he admitted.“But now I have another prediction. Ifsteering continues, one day on the 6o’clock news, you’re going to see anexecutive of an insurance company inhandcuffs being put in a federal mar-shal’s car being charged with federalracketeering.”

– As reported in Parts & People.The non-OEM parts lawsuit victoryMelfi referred to was the $1.1 billion


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DRPs 20 years ago, Early CCRE, ADP Revises Labor Times

with John YoswickHistorical Snapshot

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

John Loftus


judgment against State Farm in 1999,which the Illinois Supreme Courtoverturned in 2005. A class action law-suit filed in Illinois earlier this year al-leges that seven of the Top 10 insurersviolate federal racketeering laws by il-legally conspiring to use their directrepair programs and other means toenforce “an artificial market value forcollision repairs.”

10 years ago in the collision repairindustry (November 2004)A widespread and significant drop inADP refinish labor times discoveredin recent weeks will be corrected inADP’s November CD update release,which the company says has been sentto ADP customers.

“The operational issues with therefinish times in the October CD are re-vised in the November CD,” ScottJenkins, senior director of “EstimatingSolutions” for ADP said. “The Novem-ber CD is consistent with the SeptemberCD. If the user did not load the OctoberCD, they were not impacted. We are in-structing our customers to load the No-vember CD immediately upon receipt.”

The October CD included manydecreased refinish labor times of 10 per-cent or more. Refinish times for 2000-

2004 Ford Taurus hood, for example,dropped from 3.9 on the SeptemberADP CD to 3.4 on the October CD.Times for a 1999-2004 Pontiac GrandAm fender dropped from 2.4 to 1.9, andthe front door time for a 1999-2004Chevy Cavalier dropped from 3.1 to 2.8.

Although some have looked forsome sort of intent behind the wide-spread reductions, ADP, while avoidingusing the term “mistake,” maintains thatthe problem was an “operational issue,”not an attempt to shave labor times.

“Some of our clients have experi-enced an operational issue regardingrefinish labor on hoods, doors, fenders,roofs, decklid/tailgates and backdoors,” Peggy Adams, operations man-ager for client services for ADP, wrotein an email response to questions aboutthe October CD. “All new estimatescreated with the November CD reflectthe updated refinish labor. We apolo-gize to our clients for any inconven-ience we may have caused.”

The issue has resulted in a flurryof email activity between shops and in-dustry organizations since it came tolight in early November. Part of theconcern was fueled by the fact that var-ious ADP personnel were giving con-flicting - or, at a minimum, ambiguous

- responses to questions about the labortime changes. An ADP tech supportemployee, for example, told one ADPshop customer in the Pacific Northwestthat the revised times were based on“new time studies” ADP had done.

– As reported in Autobody News.Prior to shops accessing the estimatingdatabase information over the Internet,the system providers sent monthly up-dates to the data to shops on compactdiscs. ADP’s Claims Services Group(including its estimating system) wasacquired by Audatex (now AudaEx-plore) in 2006.

5 years ago in the collision repairindustry (November 2009)In the transcript of a small claims ap-peal trial involving two of customers ofG & C Auto Body of Santa Rosa, Calif.,California Superior Court Judge JamesBertoli took State Farm to task for itsrate survey process and arguments re-garding reasonable repair costs.

Shop owner Gene Crozat’s cus-tomers had won after filing small claimscourt cases against State Farm insuredswhen the insurer refused to pay all of G& C’s charges. The insurer appealedboth cases, and the court heard the twoappeals together over two days.

Bertoli said State Farm could usewhatever method it specified in the in-surance contract to determine a reason-able price in first-party claims, even ifthey determined that price, “by readingchicken entrails, and consulting withthe three witches from MacBeth (whichis) just about as accurate as the surveyitself is. I think that survey from a sta-tistical standpoint would get a first-yearcollege student a flunking grade.”

But in a third-party case, the judgesaid, a reasonable charge “implies arange of charges” and “no particularcharge can be said to be the only rea-sonable charge.”

He said State Farm did not try toestablish that G & C’s rate was unrea-sonable, and it appears to fall within areasonable range of prices.

“Quite frankly with regard to thethird-party claims, this Court does notbelieve they should have been liti-gated,” Bertoli said in finding forCrozat’s customers. “I think the an-swer is clear, and I quite frankly see itas an effort on behalf of the insurer totry and suppress the price charged bysomeone outside of their range.”

– As reported in CRASH Net-work (www.CrashNetwork.com), No-vember 16, 2009.


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Stan Bard is the owner of Fleet Refin-ishing and Collision Center inFontana, CA, a company that repairsand paints almost everything exceptfor passenger cars. Celebrating its26th anniversary, this shop has

changed its focus and moved its loca-tion several times since 1998, but ingeneral the company’s emphasis is onbig vehicles. The bigger the better is

part of the business model at Fleet Re-finishing & Collision Center andtoday they’re well-known nationwidefor painting and repairing RVs, com-mercial buses, heavy duty construc-tion vehicles, delivery vans, big rigs,

television trucks, food trucks,boats, sea containers and getthis—amusement park rides.

Thinking big and workingsmart has helped the businessto grow and evolve, Bard ex-plained, but at the beginninghe and his partner were learn-ing on the fly. “When we firststarted, we found a nichepainting school buses for ahandful of school districts inthe area. We were in LaPuente, CA back then withtwo employees and we

thought we’d get rich painting busesyellow all day long. But, we realizedthat it’s seasonal work, because theschool districts stop painting their

buses when school starts again everySeptember.”

Many companies that survive andsucceed over the long term usuallyhave to re-invent their business plansat some point and Fleet Refinishingand Collision Center was noexception. “We were too de-pendent on those buses, so westarted looking around for an-other market that wouldn’t beso seasonal,” Bard said. “So,we began painting movingand storage trucks for compa-nies like North American VanLines, Mayflower and Allied.Then, we found out that at theend of the year when theweather in southern Califor-nia gets rainy, that marketalso disappeared. But whenthe moving companies started slowingdown, we found out that painting con-struction vehicles was another goodniche for us, because their work lose

momentum when it rained and wecould get those jobs in October, No-vember and December. So betweenthe buses, the moving vans and theconstruction equipment, we were busyyear round.”

Thinking big can make youmoney, but being realistic is also im-portant. To keep his quality high, Bardwill only take on projects that are a


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with Ed AttanasioShop Showcase

Ed Attanasio is an automotive journalist based inSan Francisco, California. He can be reached [email protected].

Fontana, CA, Shop Thinks BIG on its 26-Year Anniversary

Fleet Refinishing and Collision Center in Fontana, CA andits sister company SoCal Wraps has been thinking bigsince 1998

The shop paints and repairs RVs, buses, heavy dutyconstruction vehicles, delivery vans, big rigs, televisiontrucks, food trucks, boats, sea containers and amusementpark rides

good match for him and he won’t everlet one client become too much of histotal revenues.

“We were looking for severalmarkets so that we would never be toodependent on one. We agreed that onecustomer could never make up morethan 10% of our total production. Ifit’s a big job and it will eat up 90% ofour production, for example, we won’tpursue it.”

Well, things sure have changedfrom those early years, because todayFleet Refinishing and Collision Cen-ter operates in a 21,000 square-foot fa-cility on a 4-acre lot, employs 30people and has 50-60 vehicles in itsshop all the time.

With 10 drive-by bays that canhold two big rigs each and a hugeparking lot filled with more awaitingpaint and repairs, the shop also does ahandful of vehicle restorations everyyear. The shop’s sister company,SoCal Wraps, has also grown quickly,due to its exceptional work and ravereviews for its vinyl digital designsand amazing artwork.

Unusual items painted and re-paired at the shop include medicalMRI units, amusement park rides andtour buses for musical groups, accord-

ing to Bard.“We started doing the amuse-

ment rides about five years ago andit’s a nice source of business. These

are children’s rides and fun housesand they’re all on 50-ft. trailers thatcompletely unfold with staircasesand railings, walls and pathways—it’s mostly tubular steel. We’re alsostarting to do the graphics for theserides. In the past, it was all handpainted but now they’re going to thedigital vinyl graphics, for a betterlook.”

SoCal Wraps has become a bigpart of the big picture at Fleet Refin-ishing and Collision Center, Bard said.

“We do a lot of graphics for moviestudios, advertising agencies and a lotof major companies’ delivery trucksand other vehicles, including Arrow-

head Water and Nestle, forexample.” In addition topainting new vehicles andequipment, the shop does afair amount of repairs as well,with two body techs who arekept busy all the time.

“Most of what we get inhere is new, but many of it isdamaged to some degree.

It fluctuates, based on theeconomy. During tough times,we need to make more repairs,but when things are going bet-ter, we get more new vehicles

here in the shop. Right now, companiesare building more new equipment, soour repair side will see less action forawhile.”

The wear and tear on rock musictour buses depends on the length of

the tour and the band using it, Bardexplained. “We’ve done tour buses forJanet Jackson, Vince Vaughn (whohad a comedy tour) and the JonasBrothers. The bus for the Jonas Broth-ers came back here after their tour andit needed a lot of help. We created awrap for them that their fans couldsign, but they also ended up signingparts of the bus that weren’t coveredby the wrap. So, that was quite a re-pair job on that one.”

What has been the biggestchange for Fleet Refinishing and Col-lision Center since it opened its doorsmore than a quarter century ago? “Weused to hand paint a lot of our graph-ics at the beginning, but now the tech-nology has allowed us to create someinsane designs. The 5-6 color designsthat we’re doing now on vehicles andequipment was unimaginable 26 yearsago, so that would definitely have tobe the biggest change in our busi-ness.”


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Some industry ob-servers estimatethat only about 20percent of vehiclesin collision repairshops are actuallybeing measured aspart of the repairprocess. Richard

Perry, who oversees training for ChiefAutomotive, believes that changes invehicle materials and structure mean

that at least four times that percentageshould be measured.

“If that vehicle is impacted, itshould be measured,” Perry said. “Weusually know what’s going to happenwith the damage; we just don’t knowthe extent of it, where all it’s gone,how far did it travel through the vehi-cle. You’ve got to be able to find it tofix it. So before the repair we need toanalyze what’s wrong to develop a re-pair plan. During repair, we need to

measure multiple points, and monitorthose during repair because as youstart to make repairs, more than onepoint is going to move at a time. Weneed to monitor all those points.”

Perry said in the past, techniciansmight gauge the extent of the damageby checking to see if the vehicle’sdoors open and close; if they did, theyfelt it was safe to presume the damagehad not extended beyond the passen-


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Industry Insightwith John Yoswick

John Yoswick is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon who has been writingabout the collision industry since 1988. He is the editor of the weekly CRASH Net-work (for a free 4-week trial subscription, visit www.CrashNetwork.com). Contacthim by email at [email protected].

Energy Transfer in Today’s Vehicles Makes Measuring, Multi-Point Pulling More Important

If you still think of Chief Automotive as pri-marily a pulling equipment company, thinkagain. Mike Cranfill, vice president ofglobal collision and new business develop-ment for the Vehicle Services Group (whichincludes Chief Automotive) said changes inthe company’s revenue sources reflectchanges in the industry itself.

“I like to think we’re an informationcompany, because if you take the training,the measuring equipment and the data we

provide, almost half of our business isthere,” Cranfill said.

Vehicle Services Group (VSG) is itselfa segment of Dover Corporation, a globalproducer of equipment, systems and serv-ices in a variety of businesses. In additionto Chief, VSG brands include Rotary Liftand Elektron welders. It has about 1,200employees in the U.S., Germany and China.

Its measuring, pulling and weldingequipment sales each account for about

21 percent of its overall revenue, but itssingle biggest revenue source is the vehi-cle measuring data it sells directly to col-lision repairers and also to the estimatingsystem providers.

Does Chief collect data on the vehi-cles that shops are measuring with itsequipment?

“We do not collect it,” Bob Holland,VSG collision director for North America,said. “With our licensing agreement, we

have the right to collect it, but we do not.”Cranfill some companies, such as

those that offer vehicle history informa-tion, may seek that information, but Chiefdoesn’t share it because the informationtells only part of the story.

“The risk is: What does it mean?”Cranfill said. “Even if the data shows the carmeasurers to factory specs, can you guar-antee the repair was proper? Maybe youused heat when you’re not supposed to.”

Chief Automotive Sees Itself as Source of Information As Much As Equipment

See Energy transfer, Page 22

Richard Perry of Chief Automotive discussesthe value of multiple-point pulling during arecent demonstration in the shop at Chief’sheadquarters in Madison, Ind.

Richard Perry


ger compartment. But vehicle manu-facturers have strengthened both thelower and upper structures of vehicles,further reducing the impact of visibledamage to the passenger compart-ment.

“I’ve seen some vehicles that hadstraight-on impacts at 50 mph, yet youcan open and close the doors like fac-tory,” Perry said. “The passengercompartment does not react they way

it used to. But that energy is still goingsomewhere; something further back inthe vehicle has to give to absorb that

energy. So that old way of thinking, ofnot measuring everything, results inoverlooking something. That’s whywe need to measure the entire vehicleeach time.”

Perry believes eight measuringpoints is the minimum that should beused to ensure all the damage is lo-cated, though the total number will de-pend on the severity of the impact.Start with four on the center structureof the vehicle, he suggests, then oneon each of the front and rear cornersof the vehicle.

When it comes to pulling, multi-ple towers allow more precise move-ment, he said, given that damage canbe in three directions: lateral, verticaland length-wise.

“The more hook-ups you can put

on at your initial pull, the more thatdamage is going to come out the wayit went in,” Perry said. “But you needto be monitoring it as you pull so youknow you’re going in the right direc-tion.”

Multiple pulling also reduces theamount of force used at any singlepoint.

“If you put more combined forceon a vehicle but less at each locationby doing multiple simultaneouspulling with equalized pressure, youcan repair a lot of things that youcouldn’t before because you’re notgoing to rip and tear it,” he said.“You’re not going to damage and dis-tort it because you’re not putting asmuch pressure at each location.”

Perry shared his measuring andpulling concepts while working on anactual damaged vehicle during a re-cent demonstration in the shop atChief’s headquarters in Madison, IN.Among the features of the company’s“LaserLock” measuring system hepointed out was the dual monitors thatallow a technician to have both meas-uring information and OEM repair in-formation readily accessible.

“The OEMs used to sit on thesidelines because who knew better

about repairs than anybody else? Thetechnician,” Perry said. “After all,he’d been doing it for 20 years, andthings hadn’t changed that much. Butwith the many changes to vehicles

today, who knows most about a vehi-cle now? The OEMs. They designedit. They engineered it.”

That said, Perry believes anotheradvantage of using Chief measuring


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Continued from Page 20

Energy transfer

Lee Daugherty, global data product managerfor Chief Automotive, points out the type ofmeasuring data available through the com-pany’s LaserLock system

Jerry Ralston explains the final assemblyprocesses that Chief frame equipment undergoesat the company’s Madison, Ind., headquarters

Bryan Brown demonstrated the newestElektron welder during a recent media tour ofChief Automotive’s headquarters. Elektron andChief are among the brands owned by VehicleServices Group, based in Madison, Ind.

See Energy transfer, Page 40


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One of the biggest complaints I hearfrom shops is that it is so hard to getpeople to change their habits and con-form to a new way of doing things.Unfortunately, failing to implement apermanent change initiative has be-come the norm at most collision repairshops these days. Some of this resist-

ance we bring on ourselves by what Ilike to call the “Flavor of the Month.”I am sure most of you can relate to thisscenario when the boss returns fromNACE or some great seminar and allof a sudden he wants to fix everythingovernight! These changes rarely takepermanent hold in the organizationand the more changes managementtries to implement, the bigger the joke

it becomes to the staff. Sad, but sotrue!

There are many reasons that peo-ple are resistant to change, but I amsurprised at how often it is the owneror manager himself that is the realproblem! The art of communicatingand understanding what make your

people tick are of utmost importancethese days. The old “iron-fisted” man-agement style of yester-year rarelyworks these days.

How are you going to get yourstaff to buy-into change initiatives andconsistently perform the vital steps re-quired with new processes such asBlueprinting, and other lean concepts?Many great books have been written

on the subject of change, and I recom-mend you read them and learn asmuch as you can to better understandthe behaviors and intrinsic values ofyou and your team. In addition to youdoing some studies of your own, Ihope you will find these 3 tips helpfulto your change efforts.

ConvenienceOne of the biggest reasonspeople don’t follow the stepsis because the steps are toohard to perform. Call themlazy, call them whatever youwant, but the reality of it isthat if you give someone atask that is critical to successand the task is too difficult, itis human nature that it likelywon’t get done consistently ifat all. Let me give you an ex-ample. Let’s say that at yourbody shop, you have discov-ered that checking the re-

placement parts for correctness (mir-ror matching) is CRITICAL to yoursuccess. So if you remove the oldparts from the car and throw them intoa big messy pile in the corner, do youreally think the parts guy is going todig through that heap to find the partshe needs to mirror match vs. the newreplacements? Probably not going tohappen, right? You must make critical


with David LuehrLean Operations

David Luehr is the owner of Elite Body Shop Solutions, LLC, a collision business consultingfirm based in Nashville, Tennessee. He is a 30 year veteran of the collision repair industry.David is an expert in Body Shop Operations and specializes in Lean, and Theory ofConstraints methods. Email him at [email protected]

Lean Implementation Strategies

Would you expect your parts person to dig through thismess to perform a mirror match?

“One of the biggest reasons people don’tfollow the steps is because the steps are

too hard to perform”

to success tasks as easy as you possi-bly can if you want them to get done.Convenience also means keeping

tools, information, and anything elsethat would be needed to perform acritical task close and easily accessi-ble. Things not getting done are oftennot a work ethic problem as much as itis a spatial or procedural problem.

SpaceIf you were trying to shed a few

pounds and decided that you need toquit eating donuts, do you think itwould be better to have the box of

donuts that your rental car providerjust gifted sitting on your desk, orwould it be better to place the deli-cious box of devilish delight as faraway as possible? My point is to setup your shop space to help drive thevital behaviors to succeed. A classicexample of this is when it comes toBlueprinting. One of the vital behav-

iors of Blueprinting, in my opinion, isto have your estimating computer outwith you at the damaged car. Can thishappen at your shop, or are your esti-mators still writing everything downon a piece of paper and then walkingthis back to their office to enter aquestionably accurate supplement intothe estimating system? If this isn’t badenough, I still see many shops that letthe technician write the supplement ona piece of paper and then put it on theestimator’s desk to key in. What kindof behavior does this spatial arrange-ment encourage? Think about it!

Make it UnavoidableMake it difficult for people to do thewrong thing. Can you think of anytasks critical or otherwise that arebeing successfully performed at yourshop consistently? What is differentabout those tasks that you can learnfrom and apply to your new initiativesand critical tasks? The act of moving avehicle into the technician’s stallmakes it pretty unavoidable that it willget seen and worked on by the techni-cian. Making a task unavoidable isquite often a visual thing, and some-thing that has to get done before it cango to the next step. Consider the use

of visual quality control in betweendepartments to eliminate defects, andmake it hard to screw up!

Outcomes• Recommended readingo Leading Change – Kottero Influencer – Patterson, Grenny,Maxfield, McMillan, Switzer• Make critical tasks conveniento Tasks that specifically lead toyour company’s success like Blueprintsteps, parts mirror matching, customercommunication, etc. must be made tobe EASY!• Setup office and shop spaces to in-fluence vital behaviorso Is communication a problem?Consider how your office is set up.o How far do people have to walkto get parts, information, etc?• Make critical tasks unavoidableo Think visualo Make it hard for people to screwup!


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Admittedly, the owner of a well-known 80-year-old body shop inChicago was guilty of texting in hisown vehicle himself for several yearsuntil he saw more than a few damagedcars in his shop caused by his cus-tomers’ lapses in attention while tex-ting. Rather than ignore what is nowan national epidemic that causes 1.6million accidents annually, Bob Got-tfred, the owner of Erie-LaSalle BodyShop, decided to start his own anti-texting campaign.

Erie-LaSalle Body Shop wasfounded in 1934 and over the years ithas become a neighborhood institu-tion in downtown Chicago. “We’re thelongest continuously owned auto bodyof its kind in Chicago and Illinois,”Gottfred explained. “We now have ahandful of third-generation customerscoming in here and it’s great to heartheir stories about when their grandfa-ther or even great grandfather broughthis car here decades before. Addition-

ally, we have expanded our servicearea by acquiring a 30-year body shopon the southwest side of Chicago.”

Gottfred, 64, had what he de-scribed as a “marginal interest” in carsas a kid, so his path to owning a bodyshop wasn’t part of his life plan, hesaid. “I grew up working here in theshop as a teenager and to be honest, Iwasn’t crazy about it. I had no inten-tion of taking over the shop, but whenI came home around Christmas time in1975, my stepfather told me he could-n’t do it anymore. His health wasn’tvery good so he said, ‘If you’re inter-ested -- hop in” or he was going to sellit. So, in January 1976 I started runningthe business full-time and then eventu-ally bought out my stepfather in 1995.”

Today, both of Gottfred’s sonswork with him at the shop and eventu-ally the business will belong to them –but not tomorrow, Gottfred said. “Jim(36) and Jay (34) could take over rightnow and do a great job, because they’velearned the business and they’re ready.They’re right at the hand-off point nowand I know it would be a seamless tran-

sition, but I’m not quite ready to retire.I currently work on customer acquisi-tion and foster the great relationshipswe have with the insurance companiesand agents, so it works well right now.Opening the new shop in a very differ-ent market has also been a challenge. Ilike to be the rainmaker around hereand take a lot of the administrative stuffoff my sons’ radar, so that they can con-centrate on the most important things,such as quality and customer service.”

New proposed anti-texting lawshave gained more momentum in thiscountry, most recently led by a docu-mentary called “From One Second tothe Next,” a cautionary tale about thedangers of texting while driving. Thefilm was funded by mobile providersAT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizonand has received major awards and ac-colades.

The genesis of Gottfred’s anti-tex-ting campaign began when he decided


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Chicago Body Shop’s Anti-Texting Campaign Catches Fire

See Anti-Texting Campaign, Page 43

Erie-LaSalle started getting involved in an anti-texting campaign after creating this fire hydrantto raise money for 51 Club, an organization thatraises money for families of firemen killed in theline of duty


During the weekend of September 26-28, ASA-IL held their annual ChicagoAutomotive Network (CAN) Confer-ence at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare inRosemont, IL. With over 200 partici-pants, including 150 who attendedtraining sessions, ASA-IL’s ExecutiveDirector Donna Kelly and Co-Execu-tive Director Deb Bullwinkel deemedthe event a success. Kelly notes, “itwent really well and was very excit-ing. It was great to see so many newfaces enjoying our jam-packed sched-ule, and we received a lot of positivefeedback on the training we offeredand the new venue – many people saidthey’d definitely be back next year.”

Although there was a slight set-back on the first day of the conferencedue to Chicago air traffic being shutdown for eight hours, causing a hand-ful of presenters and exhibitors to ar-rive late, Dan Risley, ExecutiveDirector ASA National, was fortu-nately available to fill in and save the

day. Risley began the conference byproviding an update on the nationalassociation. Bullwinkel believes “itwas good for our veteran attendees tosee Dan again and get to know him alittle better, and it was also nice fornew attendees to meet him and learnmore about the national association.”

This year’s CAN Conference fea-tured an expanded program, and atten-dees seemed to embrace the changes,with the only complaint being thatthere were so many programs sched-uled at the same times that it was dif-ficult to choose which one to attend.Kelly feels this is one of the major at-tractions that helps the CAN Confer-ence stand apart from similar events –“we offer a variety of high-quality, ad-vanced-level training in one place overone weekend, plus we are fortunateenough to have a lot of top-notch train-ers right here in the area.”

Providing quality training isASA-IL’s most important goal while

planning CAN each year as this is themain purpose of the event. The sec-ondary reason for the association tohost CAN is to provide an opportunityfor members to network with industryvendors and their automotive industrypeers. Bullwinkel states, “return at-tendees get excited to see each other.It’s like a big reunion with friendsmade in past years.”

ASA-IL also counts on their an-nual CAN Conference to generate op-erating funds for the association.“Even though we provide a great dealon training and don’t really makemoney on registration fees, the pro-ceeds raised from our vendors help tosustain our association,” Kelly says.

Both Kelly and Bullwinkel agreethat association-sponsored events areimportant to their members and the in-dustry at-large because it allowseveryone to gather together to learnand network, creating a more positivefeeling about the industry itself. “We

have people come from all over – at-tendees fly in from MA, NY, OH andCanada every year. There’s really asense of camaraderie amongst theshop owners,” Kelly notes. “Thisgroup wants to share ideas and raisethe level for everyone in the industry,rather than looking at each other as thecompetition.” Bullwinkel adds,“there’s no sense of competition; theywant to help each other and keep theindependent shop sector alive by talk-ing shop and having valuable conver-sations both inside and outside thetraining sessions.”

ASA-IL’s biggest goal this yearwas to increase attendance over lastyear’s conference since the associa-tion underwent a variety of organiza-tional changes that caused them tostart planning the event later thanusual, and they were pleased at the in-crease in attendance by about 50 peo-ple. Kelly and Bullwinkel also agreethat the 2014 CAN Conference was a


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ASA-IL’s 2014 CAN Conference Attracts More Attendees, Falls Short of Collision Goals

with Chasidy Rae SiskMidwest Associations

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 ofNASCAR fans. She can be contacted at [email protected].

sumer’s safety above all else and plansto feature member shops who havecommitted to this goal.

Although Fowler believes thatsome insurance agents would like todo the right thing for their customers,the rules are passed down from the in-surance companies’ corporate offices,leaving the agents powerless to makechanges. Unfortunately, the insurersare the only ones to benefit, and thesepractices are actually performed to thedetriment of the collision repair facil-ities, the consumers and even lendinginstitutions as an improperly repairedvehicle is apt to create a situation ofdiminished value.

When radio hosts questionedwhy some insurance companies havedepartments that deal in diminishedvalues, Fowler notes, “they pay whenthey’re forced to pay, but they arenever going to voluntarily do the rightthing because it’s not profitable, andeverything they do is profit-driven.”In fact, he warns that diminishedvalue can occur to such an extent thatthe vehicle should have been declared

a total loss because it is no longer safeto be driven on the road! Luckily, di-minished value is an issue that con-sumers are becoming increasinglyaware of, and Fowler encourages any-one with doubts about the safety or in-tegrity of a repair to get a post-repairinspection. His shop will gladly in-spect repairs and provide objective as-sessments, as will many shops acrossthe nation. As the show ended, Fowlerencouraged consumers to stand up fortheir rights. Though he would like tobelieve that the insurers look out fortheir customers’ best interests, his ob-servations indicate that they are onlyconcerned with profits. “This war hasbeen going on for a long time, mostlybehind the consumers’ backs, but it af-fects everyone because if a car is un-safely repaired and out of control, it isdangerous to everyone on the high-way. The U.S. public needs to be con-cerned with this issue… You neverknow what battles you can win untilyou fight them. Doing nothing onlyensures you will lose.”

To access to the radio broadcast, goto http://www.iaba.info/Documents/Newsletters/Issues/2014/10%20October/Full%20Stories/Article%207.html (link is at the bottom of the page).

lot of fun, and the team effort fromASA-IL’s Board of Directors led to astress-free and enjoyable time for all.

The one area where this year’sCAN Conference failed to meet ex-pectations was in their desire to attracta lot of collision repair shops sinceASA-IL recently reintroduced the col-lision side of the business back intotheir affiliated association. Kelly andBullwinkel blame this on their ap-proach of marketing to both collisionand mechanical shops simultaneously,and they believe they will have moresuccess next year if they approachcollision repair facilities on an indi-vidual basis throughout the year andtarget some of their CAN marketingspecifically to collision shops for2015. They also hope to elect at leastone collision member to their Boardof Directors next year in order to gainsome insight into the collision repairindustry.

With six I-CAR courses, severalmanagement-focused seminars andplenty of additional training, it’s nosurprise that the 2014 CAN Confer-ence was such a success. Additionally,the trade show provided a forum fortalking to vendors, and the socializingaspects of the event gave attendees

time to network with their industrypeers. During the Conference, ASA-IL also held a presentation to bestowthe Frank Brizek Memorial Awardupon Moe Kondich to honor his ded-ication to the association.

ASA-IL has already begun plan-ning for the 2015 CAN Conferencewhich they plan to hold at the samevenue on September 18-20, 2015.They are considering devoting a sin-gle day to management courses forshop owners to eliminate the time thattechnicians spend away from theshop, though these plans have not yetbeen finalized. Kelly and Bullwinkelare very excited to have already re-ceived new volunteers to help plan fornext year’s event which is sure to beanother success.

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Memphis Radio

In a world where we are constantlybombarded by texts, tweets, status up-dates, and emails, it’s no surprise thatmany people read fewer books andseem to have some form of ADD. Ayoung person recently told me withpride that he hasn’t read a book sincehigh school.

“I like pictures,” he said.So, on a planet where almost

everyone has a short attention span,how do we communicate effectivelywith the masses? The answer for someis through video—short, sweet and tothe point. Several body shops have ex-perienced great success by workingwith the same video production/mar-keting company and the videos they’reproducing are creating a buzz through-out the collision industry nationwide.

Absolute Perfection Media (APMedia) in Sykesville, MD, is the com-pany producing these attention-gettingvideos for body shops. They’re thehottest new video production companyserving the collision industry and shopsare clamoring to work with them. Pres-ident Lee Emmons is now workingwith more and more shops owners whohave seen his past productions forMark’s Body Shop in Baltimore City,MD, and K & M Collision in Hickory,NC. The appeal stems from their direct,no-nonsense approach. Emmons haslearned the collision industry along theway, he said, and now he’s known asthe “body shop video guy.”

“The power of video and YouTubehas become apparent and now collisionshops want to tell their stories using thisformat,” Emmons said. “These shopsare willing to take on the insurance com-panies and this is the way they’re doingit. We’re also producing videos to edu-cate their customers about things likecertifications and the use of OE parts.These shops have learned that thesevideos are highly effective and very af-fordable and we can turn them out ratherquickly. Once a shop does a few of thesevideos and sees the response, they wantto do more. I’m traveling to K & M nextweek to produce a series of videos abouttheir manufacturers’ OE certifications.Some of the videos I’ve produced forbody shops have gone viral and gaineda lot of national attention, so we’re get-ting new collision clients all the time.”

The Vice President of Operationsat K & M Collision, Michael Brad-shaw, has produced a series of videoswith AP Media and posts them all onhis YouTube Channel.

“We have approximately 10 onthere right now and maybe five morein production. We take an educational

approach to many of the consumer-re-lated issues in this industry, includingtitles such as, Has Your Car Been Re-paired Safely (Watch this case and staysafe after an accident)?; Do You Qual-ify for Diminished Value? (The Insur-ance Company May Owe you Money);An Epidemic of Unsafe Collision Re-pairs; Post Repair Inspections; What isSteering?; Who Guarantees Repairs?;and An Open Letter to the North Car-olina Attorney General.

Short videos with a succinct mes-sage have proven to be highly effec-tive, Bradshaw explained, although insome situations longer, in-depth videosalso work well.

“We were doing longer videos atfirst, mostly 4–6 minutes in length, butnow we’re trimming them down to twominutes and our most recent ones arecoming in at 90 seconds. When we’redealing with certain subjects, the longervideos work just fine, but we also pro-duce shorter ones to convey the mes-sage quickly and present the topic in away that the viewer can absorb easily.”

If you’re getting your car fixedby K & M Collision, you’ve probablyseen one or more of the shop’s videos.

“We loop all of them together andshow them on a monitor in our receptionarea at the shop and we’ve gotten some

great feedback about them from our cus-tomers,” Bradshaw said. “Insurance ad-justors also tend to see them too!”

Mark Schaech, Jr., is the sec-ond-generation owner of Mark’s BodyShop in Baltimore City, MD. Hestarted working with Emmons at APMedia several years ago.

“We have now produced at leastfive videos with AP Media and they’rebeing seen by shops all over the coun-try,” Schaech explained. “We let shopsuse them, as long as they give us anoutbound link. These other owners arerealizing that these short videos are ef-fective, because they can easily conveythe information that we want to com-municate, because this is a very com-plex industry and the average persondoesn’t really know what’s going on.”

Schaech, 41, took over the busi-ness from his father in 2000 and backthen they had six DRPS. But, todaythey have none and some of theirvideos document why.

“The first one we did with APMedia was about a post repair inspec-tion video and it had immediate im-pact,” Schaech said. “A Mazda hadbeen repaired by another shop under aninsurance company’s DRP and it wascompletely hacked and butchered. It


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with Ed Attanasio

Social Media for Shops


Body Shops are Tapping into the Persuasive Power of Video

Lee Emmons of AP Media shooting a video for K & M Collision in Hickory, NC, featuring theirreceptionist, Caitlin Adams See Power of Video, Page 37


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Richard Rawlings loves fast cars,pretty women and having a good timeall the time, so it was a no-brainerwhen the Fast N’ Loud star opened hisown bar about a year ago, followed bythe purchase of a concert venue in Oc-tober.

The Gas Monkey Garage brand isspreading throughout the country andnow, Rawlings has headquarters wherehe can combine food, music, libationsand cars.

In conjunction with Rawlingsand Dodge, Charger, Challenger andViper owners are about to get theshow of a lifetime in Dallas on Nov.1. The dealers will convene at GasMonkey Live to attend a concert fea-turing Mötley Crüe, while dining onGas Monkey Burgers, Bock BatteredChick Fried Steak, 3-Cheese TruffledMac and Red Chile Grits. It’s a one-of-a-kind highly exclusive event opento Dodge owners looking to have anamazing time while showing off theirvehicles to fellow gear-heads.

Head of Dodge Marketing &Communications, Mark Malmstead,is excited about the upcoming concertand the chance to partner with Rawl-ings and Mötley Crüe for this un-precedented event.

“We’re big fans of Fast N’ Loudand we met with Richard Rawlingsand The Discovery Channel at theSEMA show last year and started dis-cussing the idea of working together.We talked about an in-show place-ment, which has yet to air and Richardhas done some dealer commercials forus. The relationship has just continuedto evolve from there. We love the wayRichard Rawlings operates, becausehis show is a little different than

what’s out there and he has an edge.As we sat down with him and got toknow him better, we decided to domore with Richard. So, he appearedfor us at the Woodward Dream Cruisein metro Detroit recently and every-one went crazy.”

Rawlings and his show couldn’tbe any hotter. Discovery Channel cur-rently airs Fast N’ Loud in 80 coun-tries worldwide. The reality TV starhas also opened another Gas MonkeyBar N’ Grill in the international termi-nal of Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. If theGas Monkey restaurants continue todo well, Rawlings says he wants toopen “15 or 20 more.” He and histeam are currently scouting for loca-tion No. 3, which will likely be out of

the area, but still in Texas.How did the band, the man and

the brand all come together for thisone-of-a-kind event?

“Dodge is currently sponsoringMötley Crüe’s Farewell Tour,” Malm-stead said. “Last month, Richard pur-chased Gas Monkey Live, a musicvenue that was formerly owned bycountry star Toby Keith. So, Richardasked us, ‘Can you get Mötley Crüe toplay at my new place?’ He was pretty

insistent, so Tim Kuniskis (Dodgeand SRT brand CEO) made it happen,basically to get Rawlings to stop ask-ing.”

Dodge was pleasantly surprisedwhen it all came together, Malmsteadsaid. “If we can get Mötley Crüe toplay at a bar, which they normallydon’t do and celebrate our 100th an-niversary with a big owner party at GasMonkey Live, we thought wow. Itstarted out as a crazy idea and now it’shappening. The band was a little reluc-tant at first and they had to move a fewdates around, but then they finally saidyes.”

Cars, cars, cars will be an integralpart of the evening and many of themwill get as much attention as MötleyCrüe, according to Malmstead. “We’rehoping for 2,000 people and 1,000 cars,both vintage and late model DodgeChallengers, Chargers and Vipers. Peo-ple can get thrill rides in a Dodge Viperdrift car and a Dodge Challenger SRT

Hellcat that night as well. We’re goingto provide show parking that night, be-cause the event is foremost a car show.You must own one of these vehicles toattend and you have to send in a photoof it, but the event is free for owners.”

Mötley Crüe has been rockingthe world for 33 years, and is stillgoing strong. Rock stars Vince Neal,Tommy Lee, Nikki Sixx and MickMars are all car crazy rockers. Earlierthis year the video for Mötley Crüe’sclassic “Kickstart My Heart” was re-released with new Dodge scenesadded. The video for country musicstar’s Justin Moore’s version of theballad “Home Sweet Home” (from theNashville Outlaws: A Tribute to Möt-ley Crüe album) also showcases a2015 Dodge Challenger Scat Packparked outside the club. For DodgeChallenger, Charger and Viper ownerswho want more information about theevent, visit:www.dodgerocksgasmonkey.com.


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with Ed Attanasio

Media and Publicity for Shops


Gas Monkey Garage and Dodge Recruit Mötley Crüe to Rock Dallas

Mötley Crüe will be performing at a Dodgeowner-only event which is part concert andpart car show on Gas Monkey Live on Nov. 1in Dallas

The Gas Garage Bar & Grill will be THE place to be for Dodge Challenger, Charger and Viper ownerswho can get themselves and their vehicles to Dallas for the concert and car show, which alsocelebrates Dodge’s 100th anniversary


Though Halloween is just around thecorner, witches, ghosts and vampiresaren’t the scariest things on the mindsof collision repair professionals acrossthe nation this October; what these ex-perts find terrifying is the amount ofundue influence the insurance indus-try, a third-party entity, exerts on theirrepair practices and their businesses asa whole. Given the number of lawsuitsthat have been filed against insurers in2014 alone, this isn’t anything new,but the collaboration of a group of in-dustry professionals in order to com-bat this issue has led to the creation ofSafeCars, an organization dedicated tothe premise that “every vehicle ownerdeserves a safe and complete repair.”

As such, SafeCars has organizeda series of meetings across the countryto engage other collision repair profes-sionals in the discussion to determinethe best way to combat insurer inter-ference in their industry. Ron Perretta,owner of Professionals Auto Body inAltoona, PA and one of SafeCars’ or-ganizers, took time to explain theirgoals and what they have next on theagenda. “The purpose of these meet-ings is to discuss the issue of insurer in-terference in general, but it is alsoabout bringing shops together to an-swer any questions they have on thecurrent litigation.”

SafeCars hopes to explain the dif-ferences between several national law-suits that are currently pending. Thefirst is a class action lawsuit. The sec-ond, the complaint Attorney JohnEaves Jr filed against multiple insurerson behalf of 21 shops in January 2014,is the pending MDL litigation whichPerretta hopes shops will be inspired toparticipate in. Perretta and other mem-bers of SafeCars believe that the colli-sion repair industry has been badlysuppressed over the years. Some of theissues they hope to address are staticlabor rates, the improper use of proce-dure pages in estimating systems, theprevalence of insurer steering, and theoverall influence of the insurance in-dustry in collision repair businessesacross the country.

On September 20, SafeCars hosteda meeting at the Holiday Inn in FortWashington, PA, and Perretta says, “themeeting went extremely well. At this

point, PA has more people involvedwith this litigation than any other state.”

SafeCArs also held a meeting inSan Diego, CA on October 11, andthey have scheduled a meeting for Oc-tober 18 at the DoubleTree Hotel inLinthicum Heights, MD to run fromnoon until 4PM. Speakers for the MDmeeting include Perretta, AttorneyJohn Eaves Jr and Tony Passwater ofthe Indiana Auto Body Association.These are only a few of the meetingsthat SafeCars intends to hold aroundthe U.S. as they travel “up the EastCoast and down the West Coast to in-form industry professionals of theseissues and collaborate to find a solu-tion,” Perretta states, adding “these ef-forts are way past due.”

These free meetings are open tocollision repairers and OEM industryvendors. Pre-registration is required,and attendees must provide a businesscard and photo ID to verify their iden-tify as SafeCars has prohibited insur-ers from attending these meetings inorder to encourage honest dialogueamongst collision repairers and to pre-vent retaliation against attendees.

Explaining why this level of se-curity is necessary, Perretta shares, “Ireceived a phone call from a womanwho runs a shop and wants to attendour MD meeting, but she asked if anyinsurance people will be there becauseshe’s worried they’ll find out she wasthere getting information. It’s sadwhen collision repair professionals areso scared that you can’t go where youwant to go, be with the people youwant to be with, and talk about thethings you want to talk about… Thelast time people acted like this was be-fore Lincoln freed the slaves. This isAmerica, not the Mafia, yet it’s almostlike the insurance industry is theMafia offering their protection toshops but only if we do what they say.We all rely on insurers for business,but if we continue to be scared, ourbusinesses will just get worse. It’sridiculous for our industry to be at thispoint, but it’s exactly where the insur-ers want us.”

Ironically enough, Perretta sug-gests it was “actually a good thingwhen State Farm tried to jam Part-sTrader down people’s throats. It was

the straw that nearly broke the camel’sback, and it got a lot of shops up inarms, so State Farm kind of did us afavor by introducing PartsTrader.”

SafeCars has also released avideo on YouTube, featuring Perretta,to address the “pressing industry is-sues dramatically affecting you, yourtechnicians, your business, and thesafety of your customers.” He ex-plains how both the class action andMDL lawsuits will have a positive ef-fect on the industry and how businessis done in the near future. Claimingthat collision repair professionalsacross the country are faced with thesame issues, Perretta lists these con-cerns as follows: suppression of laborrates, steering, manipulation of data-bases, not using procedure pages asdesigned, refusals to pay for requiredprocedures, refusals to follow manu-facturer guidelines, pressure from in-surers to cut corners and use inferiorparts that could jeopardize consumers’

safety, intervention into collision re-pair businesses, interference withagreements shops have with their cus-tomers and their vendors, and insur-ers’ efforts to use intimidation to forceshops to comply with their demandslest they be blackballed and targeted.

In the imminent future, SafeCarsplans to host webinars and teleconfer-ences to explain the benefits to a wideraudience of collision repairers, but inthe meantime, Perretta encouragesanyone who is interested to contacthim so he can explain how you canhelp in more detail. In closing, Per-retta pleads, “Please don’t sit on thesidelines and do nothing! Help us takeback our industry so we’re able to fixvehicles properly and safely for ourcustomers.”

Perretta can be reached on his cellphone at 814-931-7669 or via email [email protected]. For more infor-mation on SafeCars, visit:www.safecars.us.


with Chasidy Rae SiskNortheast Associations

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 ofNASCAR fans. She can be contacted at [email protected].

SafeCars Hosts Meetings Around the Country to Discuss Insurer Interference and National Lawsuits

was a death trap and it eventually gottotaled and the driver got paid off. Ourvideo told the story and showed theevidence clearly, and that was why itworked so well. Since coming out, theMaryland Attorney General and theInsurance Commissioner has seen thevideo and body shops show it to theircustomers all the time. We get greatfeedback about it and it’s also helpingus to get higher rankings on Google.”

Currently, AP Media is produc-ing a series of four automotive certifi-cation videos for Mark’s Body Shop.

“K & M has done a few OE certi-fication videos and they’re powerful, tosay the least, so we’re doing the same,”Schaech said. “They did a Porsche cer-tification video and now they’re on topof all the search rankings as a result.We use video to inform and educateour customers, but enhanced SEO isalso a big part of it. Years ago, we spenta lot of money on cable advertising andthe response was weak, but thesevideos cost us less and they get us moreresponse. We’ll be making more all thetime, because we can new see they payfor themselves in the end.”


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Power of VideoThe focus – improving the customerexperience.

Other takeaways focused on how thecustomer experience is impacted by:● Digital empowerment● Salvage trends● New valuation and identificationsolutions● Proposed regulations● Data and analytics

That was the main takeawayfrom insurance executives at Auda-Explore’s annual Total Loss Summiton September 24 in Boston, MA. Thatfocus is now enhanced by rapidly de-veloping technology, a prime topic ofdiscussion at the conference pre-sented by the US business unit of Sol-era Holdings Inc. (NYSE:SLH), aleading data-driven solution providerto insurance carriers, repairers, deal-erships, fleet owners and suppliers.

For example, AudaExplore un-veiled its Driver Experience Platformsolution focused on changing the wayconsumers are digitally empoweredthroughout the total loss process. Thenew total loss offering makes it eas-ier for insurance carriers to share crit-ical claim updates and details onvehicle inspections and market valua-tions.

“Technology is bringing tremen-dous change to the total loss space.Trends like big data, connected cars anddigitally-empowered consumers repre-sent both a threat and an opportunity forinsurers,” said Tanya Elkins, VicePresident of Valuation & IdentificationSolutions at AudaExplore. “Attendeesagreed that data and technology toolsare key to driving loyalty by providingtransparent, actionable and timely com-munications. With more than 25% oftotal loss claims ending in the loss of thecustomer to another carrier, these dif-ferentiators ultimately earn the cus-tomer’s business in real time.”

Other topics discussed includedsalvage trends, new valuation and iden-tification solutions, proposed regula-tions, data and analytics, and howtogether they are all impacting the cus-tomer experience. From there, attendeesdiscussed how insurance companies canmaintain customer loyalty in this newenvironment. Sessions included SalvageTrends, Technology and Economics,Ways to Disrupt with Customer Experi-ence, and Current State of Total Loss.

AudaExplore also unveiled “TheState of the Total Loss Customer Ex-perience” study, which found that cus-tomers are searching for simple andconvenient ways to understand and

manage the total loss claims process.Demonstrating the importance of

communication and transparency, thesurvey reported that two elements ofthe insurance claims process that con-sumers were not satisfied with includeprocesses taking too long and deci-sions that were not properly explained.In fact, there was a strong correlationbetween the satisfaction with the ex-planation of the valuation and claimsprocess and overall satisfaction andthe frequency of switching carriers.Forty-one percent of the people whoswitched carriers after reporting a badtotal loss experience said they werenot given an explanation of how thenumber was calculated.

“While technology may change,one thing remains the same: the impor-tance of the customer experience,” ex-plained Adam Vasquez, Senior VicePresident, Marketing, AudaExplore.“Customers who had access to opencommunication and a transparent valu-ation system reported being more sat-isfied throughout the total loss process.In order to thrive in this changing land-scape, carriers must continually im-prove their processes by investing innew technologies that leverage mobileand big data to meet the evolving needsof their customers.”

AudaExplore’s Annual Total Loss Summit Held in Boston, MA

by Chasidy Rae Sisk

In a recent effort to revive some of theirrural chapters, the State Board of the Au-tomotive Service Association of Arizona(ASA-AZ) planned a series of meetingsentitled “Management Training RoadShow,” to be rotated within Prescott,Yuma, Mohave County and Verde Val-ley. The series debuted in Prescott onSaturday, September 20. Luz Rubio, Ex-ecutive Director of ASA-AZ, explains,“the rural chapters around the state donot meet regularly. The board believesthat every member needs to have accessto information and the opportunity to in-teract with their peers. The event issponsored by the State Board, and itgives us the opportunity to bring in non-members to learn about ASA and par-ticipate in an event where they canexchange ideas and learn from theirpeers. The board realizes that the valuein being a member is more than a tangi-ble benefit, but the ability to interactwith other like-minded members.” Withthe intention of providing rural areas ofthe state with information on businesstopics to help them improve their busi-nesses, ASA-AZ’s program for the

meeting was “Successful Marketing forthe Right Customer,” helping shopowners identify the right marketing fortheir shop and their audience. Becausemarketing continues to be a perplexingissue for many small business owners,guest speakers Daniel Romero of Hibuand Julee Baxley, co-owner of IntegrityAutomotive in Tucson, provided atten-dees with multiple marketing sugges-tions, ranging from mailing postcards tosocial media to TV and radio advertis-ing. According to Rubio, the meeting“went better than expected. Our 20 at-tendees really enjoyed the roundtableformat and the ability to interact withvendors, and [they] all interacted verywell. The open discussion session wasvery energetic, and both owners andvendors had so much information toshare that we had to cut the interactionbecause we were past our scheduled endtime.” ASA-AZ held their second Man-agement Training Road Show in Yumaon Saturday, October 4, and the thirdevent is scheduled for November 8 inBullhead City.ASA-AZPO Box 81517, Phoenix, AZ 85069602-544-2600 - www.asaaz.org


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ASA-AZ’s Management Training Road Show Quest Donates $280,000 in Paint & Abrasives to CREFQuest Automotive Products (QAP) do-nated $280,000 in paint and abrasivesto high school and post-secondary col-lision school programs across thecountry through the Collision RepairEducation Foundation.

The products donated by QAPwill allow students the opportunity topractice their collision repair and re-finishing skills. QAP is committed tobringing awareness of the shortage oftechnicians within the collision in-dustry and acknowledge that manycollision school programs have budg-ets that are shrinking each year.

“QAP strongly believes in sup-porting the future professionals withinour industry and ensuring they obtainthe education that they deserve inorder to be successful in the automo-tive profession,” said David Brunori,President of Quest Automotive Prod-ucts.

“QAP has recently been in-volved with supporting the Colli-sion Repair Education Foundationthrough donating product and rais-ing money with its first Artists 4Education auction, held in the Ma-trix Automotive Finishes booth dur-ing SEMA last year, which raised$25,000 for the Education Founda-tion. We are proud to be working to-

gether with them again in 2014 withthe second annual auction at SEMAthis year (booth 10669).”

Collision Repair EducationFoundation Director of Develop-ment Brandon Eckenrode noted,“This product donation from QAPwill have a significant impact on thecollision school programs by pro-viding instructors with the neededmaterial in order to provide a qual-ity technical education for students.We look forward to working to-gether with QAP to raise additionalfunds through the second annualArtists 4 Education auction at SEMAthis year. I would also invite colli-sion industry businesses to followQAP’s lead in providing both prod-uct and monetary donations to theEducation Foundation so that we canwork towards ensuring that the grad-uating collision students are readyfor entry-level employment withinthe industry.”

Industry members interested inhelping high school and/or collegecollision school programs through theCollision Repair Education Founda-tion should contact Brandon Ecken-rode at:[email protected] or 847-463-5244.



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Lamborghini and IMSA Extend PartnershipAutomobili Lamborghini and the In-ternational Motor Sports Association(IMSA) have extended their partner-ship for the next four years, with theLamborghini Blancpain Super Tro-feo North America championshipbeing contested under IMSA sanc-tion through the 2018 season.

As part of the extended partner-ship, the 2015 Lamborghini BlancpainSuper Trofeo North America eventcalendar was unveiled. The schedulefeatures 10 rounds at five venues atsome of the most iconic, exciting cir-cuits in the United States. Races willtake place in conjunction with IMSA’stop sports car series, the most presti-gious in the U.S.

Lamborghini Blancpain SuperTrofeo North America competitors alsowill race in the World Final, which fea-tures top drivers and teams from thethree global Blancpain Super TrofeoSeries –Europe, Asia and North Amer-ica. The location of the 2015 WorldFinal will be announced in November.

Each Lamborghini BlancpainSuper Trofeo North America eventwill feature two rounds. The seasonwill open May 1–3 at Mazda Race-way Laguna Seca in Monterey, Cali-fornia. The next round will take placeJune 26–28 at Watkins Glen Interna-

tional in Watkins Glen, New York,followed by Aug. 21–23 at VirginiaInternational Raceway in Danville,Virginia.

The season will continue Sept.17–19 with the series’ first visit toCircuit of the Americas in Austin,Texas, with the next event Oct. 1–3during Petit Le Mans week at RoadAtlanta in Braselton, Georgia.

The Lamborghini BlancpainSuper Trofeo North America cham-pionship debuted in 2013, with driv-ers competing in the LamborghiniGallardo LP 570-4 Super Trofeo car,powered by a 570-horsepower V10engine and featuring permanent four-wheel drive.

The series ran in conjunction withIMSA events starting with its secondseason in 2014 and enjoyed tremen-dous growth, with grid sizes increasing50 percent through the season.

Lamborghini also plans to ex-pand its racing program in NorthAmerica by participating in GT Day-tona (GTD) class sports car compe-tition with the Huracán GT3 startingin 2016.

Aleris announced on Sept. 24 that itwill invest $350 million to upgradecapabilities at its aluminum rollingmill in Lewisport, Kentucky. The in-vestment positions Aleris to meet an-ticipated significant growth in NorthAmerican automotive demand as theindustry pursues broader aluminumuse for the production of lighter, morefuel-efficient vehicles.

Aleris is currently a leading sup-plier to the European premium autoindustry, which has led the transitionto aluminum driven by tighter emis-sions standards.

“We have partnered with cus-tomers in the premium automotivesegment from our Duffel, Belgium fa-cility for years to develop and producesome of the most technically advancedlightweight aluminum solutions avail-able today,” Steve Demetriou, AlerisChairman and CEO said. “We are ex-cited to bring these capabilities to ourLewisport, KY facility to serve auto-motive customers in North America asthey shift toward significantly greateraluminum use.”

The company expects to beginconstruction on the project this fall,with a goal of shipping automotivebody sheet material to customers byearly 2017. When fully operational,

the new facility will allow for the pro-duction of 480 million pounds of alu-minum auto body sheet annually.

The company’s investment willinclude the addition of heat treatmentand finishing capabilities, including anew wide cold mill, two continuousannealing lines and an automotive in-novation center.

“The key to our success in Europehas been our strong partnership withcustomers on research and develop-ment,” Demetriou said. “We will takea similar approach with our customersin North America, ensuring they havethe aluminum innovation that meetstheir specific needs.”

A recent study of North Ameri-can light vehicle aluminum contentreleased by Ducker Worldwide, statedthat the use of aluminum sheet for ve-hicle bodies is expected to increase to4 billion pounds by 2025, from 200million pounds in 2012.

The properties of aluminum,which include its formability, recy-clability, and high strength-to-weightratio, make it an excellent solution forautomotive manufacturers as theywork to produce lighter vehicles thatwill meet more stringent fuel emis-sions in the United States.

Aleris has served the automotive

industry from its facility in Duffel formany years. Including Lewisport, thecompany has 11 rolled aluminum prod-ucts facilities in North America, themajority of which serve building andconstruction, truck-trailer, and metaldistribution customers. Upon comple-tion of the facility’s upgrade, Lewisportwill be the company’s first site in NorthAmerica that is equipped with alu-minum auto body sheet finishing capa-bilities.

Aleris is a privately held, globalleader in aluminum rolled productsand extrusions, aluminum recyclingand specification alloy production.The company serves a number of di-verse industries including aerospace,automotive, defense, building andconstruction, industrial, and commer-cial transportation. Headquartered inCleveland, Ohio, Aleris operates morethan 40 production facilities in NorthAmerica, Europe and Asia. For moreinformation, visit www.aleris.com.

Aleris to Add Aluminum Automotive Body Sheet Capabilities in North America



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data is that the company doesn’t justuse OEM build data but actuallymeasures vehicles off the tires and inclamps just as is done in shops. Thatensures the system offers more accu-rate, real-world measuring data, hesaid, because such a set-up takes intoaccount the slight sagging the frontand rear of a vehicle does when it isup in clamps.

Perry said another key messageto technicians in his training is thatmeasuring is almost always the solu-tion to challenging repairs.

“If you can’t figure out what theproblem is, take more measurements,”Perry suggests. “You’ll find it eventu-ally. You’re just not measuring farenough. You’re not taking enoughpoints to identify all the damage.”


Energy transfer

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of claims would drop as a result ofthat is enough to make me know thatwe will be in trouble,” she said.

“My employees are better off thisway,” said Maimone. “Several havebeen given a promotion and better op-portunities. I couldn’t give them that.”

Shortly after acquiring Marco’s,Service King reached an agreementto acquire Car West Auto Body, anMSO with seven shops in NorthernCalifornia. With these additions aswell as the 62 Sterling Collision Cen-ters the company acquired earlier thisyear in April, Service King now has191 shops in 20 states, including 18in CA.

Service King, based in Dallasand founded nearly 40 years ago, toldAutobody News that, due to companypolicy, they weren’t able to commentfurther until their acquisition of Car-west was finalized.

However, Service King releasedthe following statement: “Our recentSterling Autobody acquisition andMarco’s Collision Centers acquisitionserve as a platform for our growth in

the California market,” Chris Abra-ham, the CEO of Service King, said inthe press release. “The addition of CarWest and their 360 teammates will give

us an even greaterfootprint in theheart of SiliconValley. We are ex-cited to have theteam on board andlook forward to de-livering the Serv-ice King standardof exceptional cus-

tomer service and high quality repairsin these communities.”

“People are selling because of manydifferent reasons,” said Farzam Af-shar, CEO of VeriFacts Automotive, awell-respected training company thatdescribes itself as the industry’s only“independent onsite quality verifica-tion service and in-shop technician as-sessment provider.”

One reason, Afshar said, “is thatthey able to get a very high rate of re-turn on their investment. In addition,business owners increasingly need tocompete with consolidators in theirbackyard while vehicles are becomingmore complex.


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MSO Consolidations

Some of these models might include vari-ous types of repair segmentation; e.g. alu-minum or other new material/technology,fleet, small hit expedited repair, paintlessdent repair, cosmollision, ethnic market, andcar auction repair. As MSO consolidatorsgain in the breadth and depth of their reachand coverage in markets around the coun-try, insurers will look to balance their localmarket networks with strong performingand recognized branded independent opera-tors. The balance of power will be normal-ized as long as the independent’s metricsand service offering are comparable to theMSO consolidator. Insurers also want tohave local market independents and MSOscompeting with the MSO consolidator sothat the best peer performance is alwaysbeing established in a market among all cur-rent and prospective repairers.

What is the benefit/challenge ofbeing an MSO vs. a single-location shopwhen forming a relationship with insur-ance companies? MSO consolidators andmany non-consolidator MSOs have the per-sonnel, sales/marketing structure andbudget to frequently call on insurance com-pany corporate decision makers as well asmulti-level contacts regionally. They partici-pate on insurance company advisory or re-

view boards which brings them to the tablefor input, old business and new conceptdiscussions, and collaboration on currentand future business process and perform-ance models. They develop multi-level per-sonal relationships that help when issuesneed to be resolved quickly. However, ifservice deteriorates somewhere in thecountry for a larger MSO it could have neg-ative ramifications across their nationalfootprint or some other regional market oftheirs. The MSO consolidator offer insurersbroader multiple market coverage thansmaller MSOs and independents. However,local market MSOs and independents canand do market that they provide that laserfocus local market performance that insur-ers want. Many independents and localmarket MSOs position and market them-selves as high performers relative to theMSO consolidator in their geographicniche. A strong recognized brand with topperformance metrics relative to a MSOconsolidator can give the independent andlocal market MSO a competitive edge whenvying for insurer DRP business. MSO con-solidators are also offering self-managedand co-managed capabilities for cus-tomized and new DRP models, quality as-surance and self-audit process andprocedures, call centers, and single point ofcontact, all of which helps reduce costs forthe insurer while positioning the MSO con-solidator for business that the independentoperator may find more difficult to secure.


Vincent Romans


Farzam Afsharfile photo

to participate in the Great Chicago FireHydrants Project, a public art exhibitionthat celebrates the heroism of Chicago’sfirefighters. This citywide public art in-stallation features oversized replicas ofChicago’s iconic standard fire hydrants,designed, painted, decorated and/ordressed by local artists, architects, andeven fashion and interior designers.These colorful sculptures are placedthroughout the city in tribute to thework and heroism of Chicago’s belovedfirefighters. At the conclusion of eachyear’s exhibition, the hydrants are gath-ered for a final exhibition before being

auctioned, with net proceeds benefitingcharities that support the families of firevictims and other fire safety programs

in the Windy City.As part of his company’s ongoing

philanthropy, Gottfred decided to par-ticipate in the project. “We purchaseda five-foot fire hydrant made out offiberglass for the project to decorate,”Gottfred explained. “We painted thewords ‘Texting & Driving, It Can Wait’on the fire hydrant and then decided totake the whole thing one step further.We had purchased a little Smart Car awhile back and we have our logo on theside of it. We use it to shuttle customersaround or pick up parts and we love it.We thought maybe we can use theSmart Car and the hydrant together toget our anti-texting message out there.We disassembled the front end of theSmart Car and parked it out front of our

shop and made it appear asthough the Smart Car had justbashed into the fire hydrant.We get 40,000 people drivingby our shop every day and sopretty quickly everyone wastalking about it.”

Then last October, Gottfreddecided to use Halloween asan opportunity to take his anti-

texting message to another level, hesaid. “We put a dummy in the frontseat of the Smart Car and deployed an

old airbag we had sitting around andstrapped it to the steering wheel. Later,I went out there and the local policeand fire department were out in frontof the shop. Someone had reported a

car accident with serious injuries, andafter we explained what was going on,we all laughed about it and they took afew photos. We left it there until theend of November and then the hydrantgot auctioned off, raising $500 for the51 Club. We bought it originally for

$1,500 and that money went to Club51 too, so we donated $2,000 total,which was nice.”

Once Gottfred got involved in hisanti-texting campaign, he stopped tex-ting altogether. “When people use theircell phones while driving, the bottomline is that they’re distracted,” he said.“I was doing it too, because you get atext message and your first reaction isto respond to it. But in the end it can re-ally wait. We get damaged cars in hereall the time and the customers willnever admit that they were texting whenit occurred, but I know many of theseaccidents are the result of texting.”

Gottfred teaches CE (ContinuingEducation) classes to insurance agentsand now he has created a class deal-ing with the topic of texting. “We dis-cuss how to insure teenage drivers andwhat can happen when they text,” hesaid. “I show some gruesome videosto get their attention and to raise theirconsciousness about texting.”


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Anti-Texting Campaign

Bob Gottfred (center) has been running Erie-LaSalle Body Shop since 1975 and soon hissons Jim (left) and Jay (right) will be takingover the reins

Erie-LaSalle Body Shop was founded in 1934 and over theyears its iconic neon sign has become a Chicago landmark


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By now most shop owners and man-agers have realized that when it comesto marketing, one size does not fit all.Franchises and multiple shop opera-tions that account for about 15 percentof the shops in the U.S. are in a posi-tion to approach marketing from an en-tirely different perspective from theindependent shop owner. But 72 per-cent of the shops are still independent,single-location shops and many ofthese shops market just to keep surviv-ing. The question then becomes, whatdo you mean by “grow?” Growth bycloning or opening other locations ismore of an operational strategy than amarketing proposition. Real growth foran independent shop is simply aboutgetting more vehicles in the door andenjoying more profit on every job.

Franchises and MSOs can affordto advertise just to build name recog-nition to try to drive business to anyshop in the group. But few independ-ents can afford to spend marketingdollars solely on building name recog-nition. A marketing plan has to differ-

entiate a shop from the competitionand provide a strong reason to selectthat shop over all the others. A recentarticle in Inc. Magazine might suggestone way to do that. A software com-pany originally called “37 Signals”changed it’s operating philosophy andchanged its name to “Basecamp,” thename of a project management prod-uct that represented 87 percent of theirsales and 90% of their recent growth.

This reminded me of a strategicmove made by Colonel Harlan Sanderswhen he was operating a small chain offast food operations with about 100items on the menu. He was having se-rious trouble trying to grow so he hireda consultant named David Thomas.The first thing Thomas did was cut themenu down to a handful of items andrenamed the franchise operation, “Ken-tucky Fried Chicken.” From there on,the growth was phenomenal. Now ob-viously most shops can’t eliminate anyof the steps needed to restore a vehicleback to pre-accident condition, but theycan always choose what they want to

emphasize in their marketing. And thismay be the key to convincing the buy-ing public that this shop is the right onefor them.

If you decide to try this approachto marketing, the next question is “whatto emphasize?” Paint specialty shopslike Maaco have already begun to cap-ture some of the body work that inde-pendent shops rely on, but they keeppaint as their central focal point. Whileany shop is free to make refinishingquality their main marketing emphasis,there may be reasons to choose a differ-ent emphasis. One big advantage an in-dependent shop has over franchises andMSOs is the very fact of their unique-ness. While these other shops may havea cookie-cutter sameness look, the inde-pendent shop owner can individuate anyway he or she chooses. I’ve seen a num-ber of shops that emphasize the familyaspect of their business. Photos of sev-eral generations of owners adorn thewalls, the website and any ads. The em-

phasis, of course, is “we care more be-cause for us it’s personal.”

Another key factor in marketingemphasis choice is shop location. Ashop in Silicon Valley or other high-tech region may thrive best with an em-phasis on the technical aspects ofcollision repair. A contemporary focuson hybrids and exotic metal repair spe-cialties could communicate well in anarea like this. In an entirely different di-rection, I ran across a shop in horsecountry that emphasized a specialty inworking on horse trailers and largertransport vehicles. In an age like ourswhere big box stores have become thenorm, a lot of people choose to look forvendors who understand their particu-lar niche in life. Choosing which ofthese to focus on brings us back to thequestion, do you want to market to justsurvive, or do you want to really grow?

Whatever you decide to empha-size in your marketing, to make it a


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2015 Hyundai Genesis Preview Before SEMA DebutARK Performance is providing asneak preview of their upgrade pack-age for the 2015 Hyundai GenesisSedan which will be revealed in fullat SEMA.

Exterior advancements to the2015 Hyundai Genesis include anaerodynamic kit developed by InfiniteAuto Design, encompassing widerbumpers made from carbon fiber,beefier front & rear fenders, carbonfiber side skirts, rear trunk decklid,different headlights and exterior wel-come lighting.

Katzkin diamond door panelsand stitched seats make up the interiorchanges.

ARK installed a front strut rein-forcement bar and front/rear stiffened

sway bars along with anAirREX air suspension.Other changes includebeefier Brembo front &rear brakes, ARK knucklesand control arms as well ascustom lightweight forgedwheels wrapped around inNitto Tire NT05 summertires.

The most significantupgrades can be foundunder the hood where theV8 5.0-liter engine has re-ceived a Rotrex super-charger, high-flow cattedtest pipe and downpipes.

In addition, ARK installed a perform-ance intake system, race-spec drive-shaft, GRiP exhaust and a carbon fiberengine cover. All these changes havebumped output from the series 420bhp (313 kW) to 550 bhp (410 kW).

The 2015 Hyundai GenesisSedan by ARK Performance will berevealed on November 4 at SEMA.

2015 Hyundai Genesis. Photo Credit: automobilemag.com

Are You Marketing to Merely Survive or Are You Trying to Grow

On Creative Marketingwith Thomas Franklin

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

See Marketing to Survive, Page 57



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Collison repair industry editors gath-ered for an exclusive media briefinghosted by AkzoNobel Automotive &Aerospace Coatings (A&AC) NorthAmerica. The event was held in con-junction with the company’s 2014summer Acoat Selected® North Amer-ican Performance Group meeting, Sep-tember 17-19, at the Ritz-Carlton HotelPentagon City.

The primary theme of the briefingcentered on the need for the collisionrepair industry to no longer view sus-tainability as an option, but as a criticalimperative to “future proofing” the in-dustry’s long-term growth. Several keyinsights were presented for how the in-dustry can achieve sustainabilitythrough a “triple bottom line” approachthat results in greater efficiency, lowernegative environmental impact, andcooperative social engagement in thework place.

Guest speakers at the briefing in-cluded:· Dr. Manish Mehta, Director ofStrategic Projects & Sustainability atThe National Center for Manufactur-ing Science, who offered a 360° viewof what he calls “co-opetition.” Dr.Mehta provided meaningful recom-mendations for how the collision re-pair industry can leverage what other

industries are doing to achieve sus-tainability.· Mr. Rocco Neglia, Vice Presi-dent of Claims at Economical Insur-ance Group, shared his company’sjourney to building sustainability intotheir corporate strategy, and how theimplementation of effective, func-tion-specific processes into the workenvironment has improved the per-formance, professionalism and “teamvision” of their body shop network inCanada.

A featured highlight of the brief-ing was the debut of AkzoNobel’snew online sustainability assessmenttool specifically developed for help-ing body shop owners determine theirlevel of sustainability, benchmarkcurrent performance against othercollision repairers, and provide a pathfor boosting their competiveness inthe marketplace. A&AC’s Commer-cial Services Leader, Barry Rine-hart, demonstrated various featuresof the assessment tool and creativeways for how industry stakeholderscan utilize this innovative resource.

“The online sustainability as-sessment tool is the result of a uniquecollaborative effort with EconomicalInsurance Group of Canada, and is agreat example of how powerful col-

lective thinking and actions can be inbringing tangible solutions to colli-sion repair,” said Rinehart. “We arevery excited at the initial test feed-back we’ve received about the onlineassessment tool and look forward toseeing how it can be leveraged acrossthe industry in the U.S.”

The briefing concluded with arallying call by event facilitator, Ak-zoNobel North America Communica-tions Manager, Bill Orr, for collisionrepair professionals to pro-activelyjoin forces in advancing sustainableprinciples and practices that both en-sure a thriving industry long-term,and provide real-time solutions to theindustry’s most critical issues today.

In closing comments, Orr stated,“We were extremely pleased with thedepth of content presented by ourguest speakers and the enthusiasticparticipation of industry media. Afterleading the sustainability ‘charge’ formore than a decade through numer-ous sustainability-focused programs,AkzoNobel is clear on the fact that itwill take a coalition of commited in-dustry leaders to secure the future ofcollision repair.”

AkzoNobel Hosts Sustainability Media Briefing in Washington D.C. Ferrari Recall of 458 Italiaand Spider ModelsFerrari is recalling 3,000 458 Italiaand Spider models for trunk safetyissues. The new models' trunks willbe able to be opened from the in-side to decrease the possibility ofinjury. The previous cars lackedthis feature, and were found in vio-lation of federal safety mandates.Ferrari owners will be notified bythe company and will need to re-turn their car to the local dealer formodifications.

Chrysler Recall of SUVsChrysler Group is recalling an esti-mated 184,215 SUVs because a pos-sible short circuit in a part coulddisable airbags and seat belt preten-sioners. The same part was responsi-ble for a Sept. recall of more than850,000 Ford vehicles. Chrysler saidan electrical short circuit may occurin the occupant restraint control mod-ule in certain 2014 Dodge Durangoand Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs. Theautomaker said it is unaware of in-juries or accidents related to the issue.The recall covers 126,772 vehicles inthe U.S., 8,106 in Canada, 3,722 inMexico and 45,615 elsewhere.




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Inspirational teachers can be hard tocome by, but their impact lasts a lifetime.

Dan Snook, Department Coordi-nator of Collision Repair Tech at Cy-press College in CA, fulfilled that rolein the lives of former students Cuu-long and Jim Le.

“After graduation, our teacher/stu-dent relationship with Dan turned into afriendship, and eventually we becamelike family,” said Cuulong.

The three met on Snook’s first dayof teaching, which happened to be theLe brothers’ first day at Cypress.

“They were typical college kidswho weren’t sure what they wanted todo, but shared a love for cars,” said

Snook. “It took some prodding to findthat their interests were in the customend of the industry. After completing thenormal curriculum, the brothers wouldstay after and mix all these wild colorsand come up with unique paint designs.That is where they excelled.”

Cuulong and Jim opened BuddhaConcepts Design in 2008, but had beenreceiving attention since they startedworking out of their garage in 2005.Their unique custom fabrication paintingskills have landed their finished products

in Super Streetbike, Hotbikes,Baggers, Import Tuner, SuperStreet, Face Off, PerformanceBike Japan, and Street FighterUK magazines, a T-Mobilecommercial, Hawaii 5.0, andin three music videos withartists Chris Brown, CalvinHarris and Nero.

Seventy-percent of theshop’s profit has come frommotorcycle projects, but arecent partnership with aluxury wheel company has

brought their focus back to cars.“It’s nice to get noticed, but it’s not

about the money, it’s about doing whatwe love,” said Cuulong. “As long as weare making enough to support ourselvesand our families, we’re happy.”

Even with international notoriety,the Le brothers remain humble, credit-ing success to their former instructor,as well as Frederick B., renowned air-brush artist in Orange County.

“Dan is the reason we do what wedo; he taught us how to paint,” said Cu-ulong. “He has been a major contribu-

tor to our success, and without him ourdream wouldn’t be possible.”

That is why the Le brothers wereeager to give back when Smith’s girl-friend, Michelle, came to them with anidea for his 50th birthday.

Snook thought his Harley wasbeing detailed, when in reality, it wasat Buddha Concepts Design, receivingan over 50-hour-long makeover.

“The story kept changing, and theprocess was taking longer than usual,but I honestly didn’t think twice about

it at the time,” said Snook.Upon entering the birthday party,

Jim introduced Snook to his now burnt-orange Harley, varnished with paintingsof their beloved teacher, while Cuulongstood back to watch the reaction.

“He had tears in his eyes,” saidMichelle.

“I was floored and deeply touched,”said Snook. “It’s not a feeling you canput into words.”

Snook and the Le Brothers will beheading to Las Vegas for the 2014SEMA Show. This is Buddha ConceptsDesign’s fifth year of attendance. Theirfeatures for this November include afull-custom Lexus GS 350 for AirRexSuspension, a Lexus LS 460 for the airrunner’s booth, a Lexus LS 430 for R1Concepts and a Nissan 240sx for theVIP Modular Wheels.

“We are expecting a last minute ad-dition before the show, but we’d preferto not have a repeat of our first SEMAexperience,” said Cuulong. “We worked20 hour days, redesigning three cars insix weeks. I lost 35 pounds.”

Snook said he is proud of his for-mer students and all their hard work. Hestresses the importance of “success thatcan’t be weighed by a paycheck,” andthe need for more stories, like this one,that highlight industry achievements.

Collision Repair Instructor Inspires Students, Paves Way for SEMA

Dan Snook poses with his newly designed Harley.Photo Credit: Dan Snook & Cuulong Le

Close-up of the intricate designs by Cuulong andJim Le. Photo Credit: Dan Snook & Cuulong Le


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SEMA: Sales of Auto Parts & Accessories Reach $33BSales of automotive specialty-equipmentproducts continue to climb, reaching $33billion in 2013. The number represents a6.7 percent increase over the previousyear and marks the fourth consecutiveyear of growth, according to the SEMAAnnual Market Study that is available atwww.sema.org/2014samr.

“The Specialty Equipment Marketproduced the highest growth since therecent recession,” said Chris Kersting,SEMA president and CEO. “There are anumber of factors that figure into thisupward trend.”

The special-equipment market in-cludes products that enhance a vehicle’sperformance, styling, comfort, conven-ience and safety. Among the factors driv-ing the industry’s growth are:● Street performance products ac-counted for 26% of sales. The renewedfocus on performance models by theOEMs has helped drive interest in thissegment. New models such as the ScionFR-S, redesigns like the 2015 Mustang,and high-performance packages such asthe Hellcat Challenger have inspired theindustry and consumer alike to aim forincreased performance.● There was a healthy upward tick forthe truck market. Sales of specialtyequipment for light trucks grew 8% in2013 to post the market’s best sales year

since 2007. New truck sales continue toclimb amid anticipation for major re-designs to several flagship pickups. Asthe SUV/CUV sector continues to grownine of the top 30 sellers in the US),crossover products present an opportu-nity to diversify and expand light-truckproduct offerings.● The 2014 SEMA Show is shaping upto be the biggest yet as industry opti-mism continues to build. New this yearis SEMA Ignited, a special consumerand media attraction on Friday nightafter the Show. SEMA Ignited mesheswith other consumer-facing associationprojects, all part of a long-term plan toenhance awareness of specialty prod-ucts.● The US economy continues to showpositive signs for industry growth, withgross domestic product rising and un-employment rates dropping. Forecastersare generally predicting sustained mod-erate growth for the US economy overthe next few years. Meanwhile, car buy-ers have shown renewed enthusiasm,pushing new-vehicle sales upward to-ward pre-recession levels.

The SEMA Annual Market Reportis conducted yearly to help SEMA-member companies understand the in-dustry and make informed businessdecisions.

PPG Waterborne Shop Conversions Exceed 10,000PPG Industries’ (NYSE:PPG) automo-tive refinish business has now convertedmore than 10,000 collision centers in theUnited States and Canada to its water-borne systems, with the majority of theseconversions taking place in National Ruleareas rather than in low-VOC (volatileorganic compound) compliant regions.

According to Tim Jones,PPG wa-terborne segment manager, more than10,000 collision centers in North Amer-ica are now using PPG waterborne prod-ucts, with more than 50 percent of theseshops in National Rule markets. Thismeans most PPG customers choose touse waterborne products and systemseven though they are not required to doso to meet low-VOC regulations. Theydo so voluntarily because they want toimprove their productivity, he said.

“Waterborne is not just a compliancesolution anymore,” Jones said. “More than10,000 PPG customers in the U.S. andCanada see the value in superior colormatching, excellent throughput and per-formance, consistent color mixes and otherkey qualities that our waterborne productsprovide. PPG has a long-standing com-mitment to the collision repair industry todeliver high-quality and time-saving prod-ucts. ENVIROBASE® High Performanceand AQUABASE® Plus products are eas-ier to blend and apply; our customers ap-

preciate this and see a real difference intheir shops’ productivity.”

Jones attributed the success ofPPG’s waterborne products to factorssuch as a highly-effective and easy CON-VERT WITH CONFIDENCE® transi-tion process and the service and supportcustomers receive from PPG and its best-in-class distributor partners. “Collisioncenters are converting to PPG’s water-borne with great results,” he said. “Shopsare finding the actual conversion to wa-terborne is simple. They’re also findingthat we support them and view their pro-ductivity as a measure of our mutual suc-cess.”

Envirobase High Performance andAquabase Plus products are now in theirthird generation. PPG introduced its wa-terborne technology to the internationalOEM (original equipment manufac-turer) market in 1986 and brought theworld's first commercialized refinishwaterborne basecoat to market in 1992.Since then, PPG has added new primersand clearcoats to the two brands andwill, according to Jones, continue to ex-pand the product lines’ offerings.

For more information about PPGand Envirobase High Performance andAquabase Plus waterborne products,call 800-647-6050 or visit www.ppgre-finish.com.

Omix-ADA to Give Away 2014 Jeep Wrangler at SEMAOmix-ADA, a manufacturer of Jeep,truck and off-road accessories, an-nounced on October 7 that it will useits Off Road Success Center (Booth#34000) at SEMA to give away afully-loaded Jeep.

Forty semifinalists will be se-lected over the course of November4-6, and the winner will drive awayin a brand-new, fully-equipped AnvilBlue 2014 Jeep Wrangler UnlimitedRubicon on the last day.

The winning Jeep will be outfit-ted with Rugged Ridge’s new Sum-mit restyling package, whichincludes the company’s XHD Modu-lar Bumper, grille inserts, and an up-

graded rear tire carrier, making it notonly look good but also ready totackle any off-road excursion, ac-cording to reports by Scott Rousseauof off-road.com.

Off Road Success Center Omix-ADA will also host several civil-ian Jeeps, including pre-WWIIprototypes to the modern day JKWrangler.

The Off Road Success Cen-ter will also exhibit a custom2015 four-door Jeep Wranglerbuilt for SEMA Cares; a com-mittee dedicated to supportingthe education of students pur-suing careers in the automotiveaftermarket. The SEMA CaresJeep is designed to raise aware-ness about the committee’scharitable efforts as it tours theUnited States. It will be outfit-

ted with one of Omix-ADA’s exclu-sive Rugged Ridge restylingpackages and later auctioned as partof SEMA Cares’ fundraising effortsin 2015, according to Rousseau.

Anvil Blue 2014 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubi-con. Photo Credit: www.offroad.com

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Daimler Chairman Dr. Dieter Zetsche to Deliver KeynoteAddress at 2015 Consumer Electronics ShowThe Consumer Electronics Association(CEA)® announced on Oct. 6 that Dr.Dieter Zetsche, chairman of the boardof management of Daimler AG andHead of Mercedes-Benz Cars, will de-liver a 2015 International CES® keynoteaddress focused on the latest advances inautonomous vehicle technology. Ownedand produced by CEA, the 2015 CES,the global gathering place for all whothrive on the business of consumer tech-nologies, will run January 6-9, 2015 inLas Vegas, Nevada.

Dr. Zetsche will discuss au-tonomous vehicle technology and itsimpact on society, mobility and the en-vironment, as well as raise ideas andquestions for the future. In addition tohis insights on the future of Daimler In-telligence Drive, Dr. Zetsche’s 2015CES keynote will feature the world-debut of a new car concept. His addressis slated for Monday, January 5 at 8 pmat the Chelsea Theater in the Cosmo-politan.

“With a passion for technology in-novation, Dr. Zetsche has led Mer-cedes-Benz to a top perch in theautomobile industry, constantly re-in-venting technology offerings and per-fecting the driver experience,” saidGary Shapiro, president and CEO of

CEA. “Cars are becoming the ultimatemobile devices, and Mercedes-Benz’spresence at 2015 CES will definitelycreate synergy with other platforms andmobile technologies on the show floor.We welcome Dr. Zetsche to the 2015CES keynote stage and look forward tohearing his views on the future of au-tonomous driving.”

The automotive market remains adriving force behind the strength of theglobal consumer technology industry.The growth of new vehicle sales in2014 will propel factory-installed sys-tems to reach $11 billion in revenue, anincrease of 20 percent over the pastyear.

Dr. Zetsche served as a member ofthe Board of Management of DaimlerAG since December 1998 and as Chair-man of the Board of Management ofDaimler AG since January 2006. He isalso Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars Di-vision. Since joining the research de-partment of then Daimler-Benz AG in1976, Dr. Zetsche has served the com-pany for more than three decades.

The 2015 CES will feature morethan 3,500 exhibitors unveiling the lat-est consumer technology products andservices. For more information on the2015 CES, visit CESweb.org.

World Steel Dynamics Predicts Short Gains for AluminumBefore High-Strength Steels Take OverWorld Steel Dynamics’ (WSD) reportAutoBody Warfare: Aluminum Attack,based on its independent consultationwith steel, aluminum and automotiveexperts, concluded that steel can easilydeliver the weight savings required tomeet federally-mandated fuel economytargets for most vehicles. The reportwas presented to steel executives Oct. 6at the worldsteel Annual Conference inMoscow.

“This timely analysis demon-strates the value of advanced high-strength steel designs in meeting theneeds of automakers while exposing thecost penalties of switching to alu-minum,” said Lawrence W. Ka-vanagh, President of the Steel MarketDevelopment Institute (SMDI), a busi-ness unit of the American Iron and SteelInstitute (AISI). “We are enthusiasticabout the findings, which confirm ourextensive research showing automakerscan meet their weight reduction goalswith advanced high-strength steels. Thereport’s conclusions, and forecast forsteel, are good news for customers andconsumers as they demonstrate that au-tomakers can and will continue to de-pend on the performance of steel andthe safety, fuel efficiency and sustain-ability it provides.”

Other key findings of the WSDstudy include:

● Advanced high-strength steels willoffer more than sufficient lightweight-ing opportunities to automotive compa-nies in the next decade, and from2021-2025, automotive designers willbe implementing an array of higher-strength steels;● Once engineers decide to redesignsteel-intensive vehicles from the groundup, they will implement sizable and rel-atively low-cost weight savings withadvanced high-strength steels, enablingcontinued supply of steel closures;● Advanced high-strength steels, evenif priced substantially higher than otherauto sheet, are quite attractive giventheir weight savings relative to alu-minum, and will rise to 23.7 milliontonnes in 2025, a 330 percent gain dis-placing mild steel and alternative mate-rials; and,● Automakers will not widely adoptaluminum or other alternative materialsduring their next round of design, andthe growth in aluminum sheet in cars,SUVs and light trucks will peak about2018.

A summary of the report can befound at www.autosteel.org.


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Mike Miller Appointed National Director of CertifiedNetwork Development for Assured PerformanceAssured Performance announced theappointment of Mike Miller as Na-tional Director of Certified NetworkDevelopment. Mike will be develop-ing and managing Assured Perfor-mance’s national network of on-sitebusiness analysts, business coaches,and body shop Inspector-auditors.

Mike Miller has 27 years expe-rience serving the insurance and col-lision repair industries. His careerbegan in the insurance arena includ-ing helping to start up and manage adirect repair program. Mike thenmoved to the shop world becominga shop manager. Later, he became anI-CAR instructor and eventually Re-gional Manager and Zone Manager.For the past several years, Miller hasbeen I-CAR’s National Field SupportManager developing and managingthe I-CAR instructor network. Mikehas been instrumental in course de-velopment, network management,and effectively training more than450 part-time instructors and over2,000 volunteers. Mike was also inthe United States Army where he at-tained the rank of Captain.

Scott Biggs, CEO of AssuredPerformance said, “We are very proudto have Mike’s proven management

capabilities added to our team. He isexactly the kind of leader and techni-cal expert we need to refine and im-prove our business development andonsite inspection capabilities strength-ening our national Certified Repairnetwork of dealer and independently-owned body shops. He also providesa natural liaison with I-CAR, an or-ganization with which we workclosely.”

He said Miller’s proven abili-ties in managing large-scale net-works and providing instructortraining will be instrumental in help-ing deliver a series of business de-velopment and shop certificationservices to dealer and independ-ently-owned collision repair busi-nesses. The business developmentservices are essential for the shopsthat have or want to become part ofthe national shop network, officiallycertified and recognized by a grow-ing list of top automakers includingFord, Chrysler, Nissan, and GeneralMotors. The business analysts andon-site inspectors are key to helpingthe network shops perform at thehighest level of profitability and ef-ficiency while delivering an unpar-alleled level of customer service.

Toyota Produces Urban Utility Concept VehicleToyota revealed the Urban Utility con-cept vehicle—or U2—on September 10at a private panel discussion hosted byMake: magazine in San Francisco, CA.The car design reflects the growing needfor innovation in urban areas, which wasdiscovered through interviews withMaker Faire participants and internalToyota market research.

The Toyota U2 concept, developedby Toyota’s Calty Design Research inNewport Beach, CA, features a new,open architecture and purposeful materi-als. This vehicle sports a roof that can berolled back, a foldable tailgate that trans-forms into a ramp, and a customized in-terior.

The concept car made its first pub-lic appearance at World Maker Faire inNew York on Sept. 20 and 21.

“Toyota saw an opportunity for anew approach to an urban vehicle basedon increasing re-urbanization of ourcities and urban drivers’ desire for flex-ibility, fun and maneuverability,” saidKevin Hunter president of Calty, Toy-ota’s North American design studio.“Calty keeps a number of projects con-cealed while exploring ideas and prod-ucts. Revealing a project like the U2gives people a window into the constantinnovation that happens inside Toyotaand our Calty studios and one possible

future for urban mobility.”Bringing the concept to a Maker

community event allowed Toyota togain feedback from a key audience. “Asmore products are developed expresslyto appeal to Makers and their deep ap-preciation of design esthetic combinedwith open architecture and practical util-ity, we expect to see more trusted brandslike Toyota take an unconventional ap-proach to not only product developmentbut their marketing and launch strate-gies,” said Sherry Huss, VP and co-founder of Maker Faire. “Leveraging thegrowing Maker movement and Makers’broad sphere of influence can impact thesuccess of consumer brands and futureproducts.”

The Toyota U2 concept is a flexi-ble, functional gadget that owners cancustomize according to individual, on-the-go needs. The retractable utility barcan serve unique uses, such as holding adesk or grocery bag hooks. Side win-dows flip up for easy access from road-side.

It has a durable underbody andtool-like exterior with a customizableside panel. The box-like design at therear emphasizes the storage capabilities.Other highlights include roof panels thatretract, rear glass that can slide into thetailgate and a tailgate that folds down.


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Tesla Motors Inc. cut short a test-drive event in Iowa earlier this monthafter state regulators said the electric-vehicle maker was improperly actingas a dealer.

According to the Des MoinesRegister, Tesla began offering testdrives in its Model S on Sept. 9 at ahotel in West Des Moines. The com-pany canceled the third and final dayof its program at the request of theIowa Department of Transportation.

Paul Steier, director of the de-partment’s Bureau of Investigationand Identity Protection, told the DesMoines newspaper that state law re-quires auto dealers to be licensed.By offering test drives, Tesla wasacting as a dealer, Steier said. Steierdid not immediately return a callfrom Automotive News.

A Tesla spokeswoman told theRegister that the company did notbelieve the statute applied because itwas not selling cars, only providingtest drives. No other test-drive eventsare planned in Iowa, the paper re-ported. Tesla does not have a store inIowa.

Bruce Anderson, president ofthe Iowa Automobile Dealers Asso-ciation, said he notified state regula-tors about the test drives after he saw

Tesla promoting the event online.Test drives are a regulated activ-

ity in Iowa, Anderson said, accordingto a 1970 statute that requires anyoneengaged in the business of auto re-tailing to be licensed. The state wantsto make sure a retailer is insured andbonded, he said. “It’s really a cus-tomer protection issue,” Andersonsaid.

Of Tesla, “I’ll take them at theirword that they didn’t know” a licensewas needed to offer test drives,” An-derson said.

Tesla has tussled with dealersin a growing number of states overwhether its factory-owned stores vi-olate state laws on direct sales. Insome states recently, includingPennsylvania and New York, com-promises were reached, allowingTesla to operate factory stores butwith a cap on the number of loca-tions allowed.

Anderson said Iowa’s statuteprevents direct sales by a manufac-turer with narrow exceptions foruses such as minority dealer devel-opment.

Iowa Pulls Plug on Tesla Test DrivesU.S. Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.),chairman of the House Small BusinessCommittee, introduced a bill to sim-plify the loan application process withthe Small Business Administration(SBA). Under the bill, the SBA wouldbe required to accept e-signatures andelectronic records for the certificationof all documents associated with themanagement of its financing programs.

Referencing this legislation,Graves said, “A lengthy and compli-cated loan application process is oftena great impediment for many smallbusinesses to secure the capital theyneed to get their products or servicesto market. The majority of the timespent during the SBA loan applica-tion process consists of lenders col-lecting required documentation andhaving to seek out the ink signaturesof borrowers. The Small BusinessLoan Simplification Act of 2014 willemploy widely used and proven e-signature and records technology toreform the SBA loan process. Thiswill likely cut the application processby an average of two to three days.”

See the full text of this bill at:http://smallbusiness.house.gov/uploadedfiles/small_business_loan_simplification_act_of_2014.pdf

New Legislation Introduced toSimplify Loan Applications

The regional recall of millions ofU.S. vehicles with potentially de-fective airbags made by Japan’sTakata Corp. may expand to in-clude General Motors models, ac-cording to documents filed in Sept.with U.S. regulators.

More than 4.3 million carsproduced by automakers, in-cluding Honda Motor Co., Fiat’sChrysler Group and ToyotaMotor Corp., are affected by theregional recalls. They began inJune in certain high-humidityareas of the United States afterthe National Highway TrafficSafety Administration started in-vestigating reports of airbag ex-plosions in Florida and PuertoRico.

The regional recalls initiallyaffected nine automakers, but doc-uments filed by Takata for a Sept.meeting with NHTSA and the af-fected companies listed GM forthe first time as being potentiallyaffected. The Takata documents,posted online by NHTSA, said thenumber of vehicles produced bythe largest U.S. automaker was un-determined.

GM declined to comment.

Takata Airbag Recall MayInclude GM Vehicles

Toyota Motor Corp. is set to becomethe next global automaker to beginmaking the expensive shift fromsteel to aluminum for a high-volumevehicle, according to reports in Au-tomotive News.

The U.S.-built Camry, thecountry’s best-selling car, is slatedto get an aluminum hood in 2018,according to a source familiar withthe plans.

Toyota’s first foray into alu-minum closures in North Americawill come next year when the 2016Lexus RX 350 crossover, which ismade in Cambridge, Ontario, getsan aluminum hood and liftgate, thesource said.

The aluminum sheet for theCamry hood likely will comefrom a joint venture between Toy-ota Tsusho Corp., a trading com-pany affiliated with Toyota MotorCorp., and Kobe Steel to producemore aluminum sheet metal in theU.S.

Toyota will be among theventure’s first customers, severalsources confirmed. Production isexpected to begin in 2017 andramp up to full output at the be-ginning of 2018.

Toyota Moves to AluminumHood for Camry in 2018

Mercedes-Benz USA and its dealersare spending about $30 millionover the next four years to train26,000 employees and immersethem in the brand’s culture.

Later this year, the first waveof employees will go through atwo-day program called the BrandImmersion Experience at the Mer-cedes-Benz factory in Vance, Ala-bama, near Tuscaloosa.

The investment includes a $6million revamp of the visitor cen-ter at the factory for classroomtraining, including digital interac-tive displays.

“We have been driving hardfor the last few years on the cus-tomer experience,” said GarethJoyce, vice president of customerservices at Mercedes-Benz USA.“It is not just about the product; it isall about the package and how youlook after the customers as well.

“This is just one of the build-ing blocks in our portfolio to drivethat program forward through ourdealer network.”

Mercedes Will Train 26,000in the Brand’s New Culture



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Order Audi Genuine Parts from these select Dealers

Nothing else measures up.

Audi of Downtown LALOS ANGELES213-747-7248213-222-1261 FaxAsk for Carlos or Fausto

Circle AudiLONG BEACH800-675-2472562-597-2854 FaxAsk for Eddie or Nate

So. California

QUALITY IS ALL WE THINK ABOUT. THAT

AND QUALITY.

See these Hyundai dealers below for all your collision parts needs!

SO. CALIFORNIA

Kearny Mesa HyundaiSAN DIEGO

800-469-9731858-300-3331 Fax

Mon-Fri 7am - 6pm; Sat 8am - [email protected]

www.kearnymesahyundai.com

Drew HyundaiSAN DIEGO

888-839-0777619-668-7782 Direct619-460-4082 [email protected]

Cadillac will begin offering advanced “in-telligent and connected” vehicle technolo-gies on certain 2017 vehicles, GeneralMotorsCEO Mary Barra said on Sept. 7during her address at the Intelligent Trans-port System (ITS) World Congress in De-troit. In about two years, a new 2017Cadillac vehicle will offer customers anadvanced driver assist technology calledSuper Cruise and the 2017 Cadillac CTSwill be enabled with vehicle-to-vehicle(V2V) communication technology.

Super Cruise, the working namefor GM’s automated driving technol-ogy, will offer customers a driving ex-perience that includes hands-off lanefollowing, braking and speed controlin certain highway driving conditions.The system is designed to increase thecomfort of an attentive driver on free-ways, both in bumper-to-bumper traf-fic and on long road trips.

Barra said the technology couldmitigate many collisions and improvetraffic congestion by sending and re-ceiving basic safety information such aslocation, speed and direction of travelbetween vehicles approaching eachother. It will warn drivers and can sup-plement active safety features, such asforward collision warning, already avail-able on many production cars.

Cadillac to Introduce NewTechnology on 2017 Models

For the last few years, Chevrolet hasused the annual State Fair of Texasin Dallas to preview its plans forSEMA, according to an article writ-ten by Mark Williams on pickup-trucks.com. This year, the focus ofthe state fair and SEMA is pickupconcept truck parts.

The Silverado “Toughnology”reminds customers that aluminum,the latest material-fad of the autowork, cannot compete with the high-strength of steel, which is locatedthroughout this pickup truck’s frame,cab, body and interior, which, GMhas always noted, is “much less costintensive than more exotic materi-als.”

This concept also showcasesGM accessories like unique grilleinserts, sidesteps, a hard tonneaucover, a carpeted bedliner, fender-flare accents and tinted headlights.A graphic package, including 20-inch wheels and tires, OnStar 4GLTE with Wi-Fi hotspot capability,a wireless charging mat and SiriEyes Free, is also included.Read the entire article:http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2014/09/chevrolet-debuts-a-pair-of-pickup-concept-trucks-for-sema.html

Chevrolet Debuts PickupConcept Trucks for SEMA

Roush-Modified 2015 Ford Mustang To Be Revealed at SEMAby Jason Udy

The Roush-tuned 2015 Ford Mus-tang, featuring body, interior, han-dling, and powertrain upgrades, willbe making its first appearance at the2014 SEMA show.

Roush 2015 Ford Mustangmodels feature a more prominentgrille and front fascia with splitterand grille, accompanied by new hood

vents and an available hood scoop,moving the fog lights to the center airintake. The doors now feature side,and the rear sports a deck lip spoilerand a redesigned fascia. This latestversion features quad exhaust tipspeeking out of the new rear diffuser.

Aerodynamics will improve thenew body pieces. A set of upgradedBrembo brakes peek out from behindthe new Roush 20-inch wheels withCooper RS3 tires. Two types of ad-justable coilover shocks are said tobe available, according to reports byJason Udy, motortrend.com.

Previous iterations of the RoushMustang came in Stage 1 (cosmetic)and Stage 2 (handling) kits for V-6 and

GT models, and Stage 3(performance) kits for theGT model only. With thenew 2015 Ford Mustang,Roush will offer RS forthe V-6 model, RS1 forthe Mustang EcoBoostmodel, RS2 for the GT,and an RS3 version thatadds a supercharger to theGT’s 5.0-liter V-8. Super-charged versions couldoffer more than one powerlevel with as much as 674hp possible, according to

reports by Jason Udy, motortrend.com.Roush is also expected to offer

many of the parts al a carte for own-ers who want to modify their vehiclesafter purchase. More details will berevealed at the SEMA show in No-vember.

Roush-modified 2015 Ford Mustang. Photo Credit:www.horsepowerkings.com


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We have the Real Volkswagen Collision Parts thatmake your job easier and your customers happier.With your skills and our parts, every collisionrepair will be a bang-up job. And that willadd up to more repeat business for bothof us. Call your order in today.

These dealers are Genuine VW Parts Wholesale Specialists.

So. California

No. California

Galpin VolkswagenNORTH HILLS

818-778-2005FAX: 818-778-2090

www.galpin.com

South BayVolkswagen

NATIONAL CITY

619-336-4030FAX: 619-477-6750

[email protected]

Mossy VolkswagenESCONDIDO

760-745-8012FAX: 760-745-7805

[email protected]

Volkswagen ofMurrieta

RIVERSIDE COUNTY

951-894-4721FAX: 951-894-6278

[email protected]

Volkswagen ofDowntown LA

LOS ANGELES

213-747-7246FAX: 213-222-1272

Ask for Carlos or Erasmo

Dirito Bros. WalnutCreek Volkswagen

WALNUT CREEK

925-934-8459FAX: 925-934-0786

[email protected]

The Women’s Industry Network(WIN) is kicking-off their 2015Membership Drive. WIN member-ship is annual and based on a calen-dar year. Their goal is to reach 400members by 2015.

WIN is focused on engagingwomen in the collision repair indus-try through education, networkingand sharing of resources. This year’sdrive will include several outreachopportunities. A membership drivedrawing for new members, renewingmembers and referrals, and an addedgrand prize of one free 2015 WINEducation Conference RegistrationFee will all be part of the festivities.● NEW MEMBERS Drawing - forall new members who join beforeDecember 31st;● RENEWING MEMBERS Draw-ing - for all current & past memberswho renew before December 31st;● REFERRALS - for all new, cur-rent and past members who refer anew member who joins before De-cember 31st.All entries will be combined into asingle drawing for the grand prize,which does not include travel ex-penses. For more information, visit:http://thewomensindustrynetwork.ning.com/page/join-win-1.

WIN 2015 Membership Drive

Caliber Collision teamed up withTravelers to help a U.S. Army vet-eran get back on the road by provid-ing him with a newly refurbishedvehicle in September as part of its na-tionwide Recycled Rides program.

Conley joined the Army in1965 when he was 17 and served hissix-year enlistment as an intelligenceand security specialist. After leavingthe Army, he worked as a pilot forcorporations including General Mo-tors, federal contractors and state andlocal police SWAT units. His respon-sibilities ranged from flying VIPs injets to dealing with hostage and crisisnegotiation. About 10 years ago, hebegan to suffer from a series of med-ical conditions, including cancer andliver disease, which took a toll onhim both physically and financially.

“We hope this Recycled Ridesgift will help Richard out of his‘catch-22’ situation in which he is un-able to afford to purchase a car butwithout transportation, he is unableto find employment,” said RustyBarsanti, Caliber Collision’s VP ofOperations.

The company plans on giftingmore than 20 vehicles during 2014 tomilitary and first responders.

Car Donation Helps ArmyVeteran Get Back on the Road

Senate Subcommittee Looks Into Effectiveness of theNational Highway Traffic Safety AdministrationThe U.S Senate Committee on Com-merce, Science and Transportation’sSubcommittee on Consumer Protec-tion, Product Safety and Insurancerecently held a hearing titled, “Over-sight of and Policy Considerationsfor the National Highway TrafficSafety Administration.”

The purpose of this hearing wasto evaluate the efficiency of the Na-tional Highway Traffic Safety Admin-istration’s (NHTSA) highway andvehicle safety programs. The hearingwas the latest in a series of congres-sional reviews that stemmed fromNHTSA’s handling of General Motor’signition switch failures.

Deputy Administrator DavidFriedman served as NHTSA’s wit-ness. Other witnesses includedJoseph Comé from the U.S. Depart-ment of Transportation, JacquelineS. Gillan of the Advocates for High-way and Auto Safety, Kendell Pooleof the Governors Highway Safety As-sociation, and Robert Strassburgerof the Alliance of Automobile Manu-facturers.

During the hearing, subcom-mittee members from both politi-cal parties had sharp criticism forNHTSA. Sen. Claire McCaskill

(D-Mo.), subcommittee chairman,said: “Nobody on this subcommit-tee believes that there aren’t peo-ple [at the agency] trying to do theright thing … but it’s hard to sithere and listen to you …You wantto obfuscate responsibility ratherthan take responsibility.”

The remarks echoed the tone ofthe House Committee on Energy andCommerce Committee’s report re-leased earlier that same day, detailingNHTSA’s perceived shortcomings inregard to the GM ignition switch re-call.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.),committee chairman, said: “It istragic that the evidence was staringNHTSA in the face and the agencydidn’t identify the warnings.NHTSA exists not just to processwhat the company finds, but to digdeeper. They failed. We’ll keeplooking for answers, and keep work-ing toward solutions – whether itmeans changing our laws or press-ing for change at the companies thatfollow them and the agencies thatenforce them – but we know for surethat NHTSA was part of the problemand is going to have to be part of thesolution.”


Your Source for Wholesale Volvo Parts

Right Part. Right Price.Right Now.

Trust your order to the collision parts specialists at these fine Dealers

volvo Genuine parts

Galpin VolvovAN NuyS

818-778-2005818-778-2090 Fax

www.galpin.com

So.California

THESE DEALERS are GENUINE WHOLESALE PARTS SPECIALISTS.

CALIFORNIA

Elk Grove ToyotaELk GROvE

916-405-4700800-952-5307916-405-8045 Fax

Mon. - fri. 7am - 7pm;Sat. 8am - 5pm

www.elkgrovetoyota.com

Car-O-Liner has entered the social mediarealm, and is now offering a variety ofnews ways for consumers to connectwith the company. These channels in-clude Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+,Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Pinter-est. Car-O-Liner President Jeff Kern, saidhe is excited about the new social mediacommunications and anticipates theseactivities will benefit business relationsthrough technical knowledge sharing.“Our social media connection allows usto not only share our activities, but alsojoin the conversation through communi-cation with both our customers and theindustry,” he said. “It is important to lis-ten and be heard as we extend our reachthrough these interactive tools.”Follow Car-O-Liner at:

Facebook: facebook.com/carolinercompany

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/car-o-liner?trk=top_ nav_home

Google+: https://plus.google.com/102972787963006534481/posts

Twitter: @car_o_linerInstagram: @car_o_linerYoutube: https://www.youtube

.com/channel/UCFZEhZcZS4Xo4CwannUGcEQ

Pintrest: http://www.pintrest.com/carolinerauto/

Car-O-Liner ParticipationEnhanced With Social Media

I-CAR announced that two newcourses are now available to Refin-ish Technicians: Refinish Materialsand Application Blending (REF08e)and Color Theory, Mixing Toners,and Tinting (REF09). These courseshave replaced Color Theory, Appli-cation, Tinting, and Blending(REF03).

Josh McFarlin, I-CAR Direc-tor of Curriculum & Product Devel-opment stated, “Nearly all repairsrequire some level of refinishing andtypically, refinish work gets noticedfirst by the customer. Refinish Tech-nicians who take these courses willlearn how to correctly prepare andrefinish a vehicle to ensure properoverall appearance, which can helpimprove customer satisfaction andincrease productivity through bettercycle times and reduced rework.”

Refinish Materials and Applica-tion Blending (REF08e) is an inter-active online course, worth 2 credithours. It is complete with demon-strations on conventional blendingand reverse blending, as well as dis-cussions on using a blending additiveand a blending bed.

I-CAR Launches Two NewRefinish Courses

Alcoa Inc, the largest US aluminumproducer, forecast profit from auto andaerospace components will increase inthe Q4 as it sells a record amount of themetal to carmakers.

Alcoa, which is shifting its focusto manufacturing components and al-loys, said it would deliver a recordamount of aluminum sheet to au-tomakers this quarter as car and truckmanufacturers use more of the light-weight metal. Earnings in the com-pany’s rolled products segment, asupplier of aluminum sheets to car, air-plane and packaging manufacturers,will more than double from a year ear-lier.

Alcoa is benefiting from highercommercial-jet orders and a shift toaluminum components instead of steelamong automakers such asFord MotorCompany, which plans to make its F-150 pickup truck with aluminum bodypanels.

Mr Lloyd O’Carroll, a Rich-mond, Virginia based Analyst at North-coast Research Holdings LLC said that“Auto body sheet has a much highermargin than anything except aircraft. Ithink 2015 is going to get a pretty biglift of usage on the F-150 and of courseall of the margin benefit of that.”

Alcoa Forecasts Record AutoSheet Shipments in Q4

The Quotes Pros website has a ca-pability that allows users to researchfor collision insurance rates with itsopen tool at:http://quotespros.com/auto-insur-ance.html.

When comparing agencies inorder to find the top policies and low-est pricin, entry can be gained to theQuotesPros.com database by usingzip codes.

An instant quote is available toprepare once a provider is selectedwhile using the formatted databasefor collision providers in the U.S.

The rates details that the publichas access to using the open portalare tied to more than standard colli-sion type policies from agencies.

Collector, full coverage, high riskand state minimum protection plans canall be searched for in the location sys-tem once a provider has been selected.

The Quotes Pros company haspositioned its open tools on its home-page to make it faster for a person tointeract with an insurer without hav-ing to call companies by phone.

Quotes Pros Website OffersInsurance Rates Information



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growth proposition calls for an all outeffort. For example, a shop located inan area where campers and largeSUVs are commonplace might chooseto emphasize oversize frame machinesand larger spray booths able to ac-commodate them. To make this agrowth move, the shop would have todisplay these capabilities more promi-nently with colorful photos and stories

of exceptional jobs on the website andliterature. But they would have to gobeyond this to go out and be involvedin trade shows, vehicle shows, clubpresentations and more. Choosing anemphasis that encompasses a lot ofpeople opens up an entire horizon ofopportunities to get out and connectwith prospective customers. Not everyshop owner is comfortable with thiskind of glad-handing, but if the realgrowth is out there to be gotten, it’sworth while hiring someone with theskill to go out and get it.

“Fixing cars is become more andmore challenging than ever before,”said Afshar. “The vehicles are so dif-ferent now and they may look thesame outside but what’s inside is notthe same.” With the standards set bythe Insurance Institute for HighwaySafety (IIHS) and the Corporate Av-erage Fuel Economy, cars need to belighter but still pass safety require-

ments.Afshar said another challenge

for those in collision repair is em-ploying proper technicians with theright mind set. Afshar, who sold hisMSO Sterling Automotive Group in1998, said technology is moving sorapidly that detailed knowledge,training and equipment is becomingeven more necessary for shops to besuccessful and he encourages techni-cians to be open-minded and learnnew techniques that they’ve neverused before.


Galpin SubaruSanta Clarita

(818) 778-2005(818) 778-2090 Fax

www.galpin.com

Kearny Mesa SubaruSan Diego

(800) 548-9124(858) 300-3331 Fax

Mon.-Fri. [email protected]

www.kearnymesasubaru.com/parts

Marin SubaruSan Rafael

(415) 257-4690(415) 257-4684 FaxMon.-Fri. 7:30-5:30; Sat. 8-4

[email protected]

Puente Hills SubaruCity of Industry(626) 322-2555

(626) 322-2600 FaxMon.-Fri. 7-6; Sat. 8-3

[email protected]@puentehillssubaru.com

Subaru of GlendaleGlendale

(818) 550-1500(818) 549-3850 Fax

Mon.-Fri. 7-6; Sat. [email protected]

Sierra Subaru ofMonroviaMonrovia

(626) 359-8291(626) 932-5660 Fax


Maita SubaruSacramento

(877) 484-4870(916) 484-4876

(916) 484-4878 FaxMon.-Fri. 7:30-5:30

www.maitasubaru.com

Shingle Springs SubaruShingle Springs(530) 676-0444

(530) 677-6528 Faxwww.shinglespringssubaru.com

Subaru of Santa CruzSanta Cruz

(800) 549-8490(831) 420-1402

(831) 420-1923 FaxMon.-Fri. 7:30-6; Sat. 8-5

[email protected]

Camelback SubaruPhoenix

(866) 641-9880(602) 776-6407 Fax


AutoNation SubaruScottsdaleScottsdale

(480) 425-2950(480) 425-2948 Fax

Mon.-Fri. 7-6; Sat. 7-4

Subaru Superstoreof Chandler

Chandler(877) 443-3239(480) 268-2402

(480) 621-3805 FaxMon.-Fri. 7-6; Sat. 7-5

[email protected]

SO. CALIFORNIA

NO. CALIFORNIA

ARIZONA

NEVADA

TEXAS

OKLAHOMA

LOUISIANA

NEW MEXICO

ARKANSAS

COLORADO

MISSISSIPPI

KANSAS

UTAH

SO. CALIFORNIA

NO. CALIFORNIA

ARIZONA

NEVADA

TEXAS

OKLAHOMA

LOUISIANA

NEW MEXICO

ARKANSAS

COLORADO

MISSISSIPPI

KANSAS

UTAH

The following dealerships are eager to serveyour needs. Call your local Subaru collision

parts specialist today!

SO. CALIFORNIA

NO. CALIFORNIA

ARIZONA

NEVADA

TEXAS

OKLAHOMA

LOUISIANA

NEW MEXICO

ARKANSAS

COLORADO

MISSISSIPPI

KANSAS

UTAH

SO. CALIFORNIA

NO. CALIFORNIA

ARIZONA

NEVADA

TEXAS

OKLAHOMA

LOUISIANA

NEW MEXICO

ARKANSAS

COLORADO

MISSISSIPPI

KANSAS

UTAH

SO. CALIFORNIA

NO. CALIFORNIA

ARIZONA

NEVADA

TEXAS

OKLAHOMA

LOUISIANA

NEW MEXICO

ARKANSAS

COLORADO

MISSISSIPPI

KANSAS

UTAH


MSO ConsolidationsContinued from Page 44

Marketing to Survive


ORIGINAL GM PARTS FOR AORIGINAL GM PARTS FOR APROFESSIONAL

RTS FOR A FINISH

Call Any of These Wholesale Parts Dealers.y

So. California

Rydell Automotive GroupSAN FERNANDO VALLEY

818-832-1660386-236-4754 Fax

M-F 6 am - 7 pmSat 8 am - 5 pm

[email protected]

No. California

Dublin Chevrolet CadillacBuick GMC

DUBLIN

925-828-8251925-829-2941 Fax

M-F 7 am - 6 pmSat 8 am - 4:30 pm

Arizona

Courtesy ChevroletPHOENIX

602-248-7710800-528-6021M-F 7:30 am - 6 pmSat 7 am - 4 pm

[email protected]

Earnhardt Buick GMCMESA

480-353-2105M-F 7 am - 6 pmSat 8 am - 6 pm

www.earnhardt.com

Axalta Coatings Systems announced onOct. 3 that its ProfitNet™ CollisionShop Management System is now in-terfaced with Dealertrack Technolo-gies Dealer Management System(DMS).

ProfitNet is a software programdesigned to measure and manage allaspects of the collision repair business.The program provides collision shopowners with access to information thatthey may need to help make decisionsregarding the productivity and prof-itability of their business.

The new interface, approved viaDealertrack’s Opentrack CertificationProgram, is an electronic bridge be-tween ProfitNet and the DMS to helpcar dealerships to streamline and cre-ate greater efficiencies in managingparts, labor, and production processeswithin their collision repair centers.

“Dealertrack is proud to partnerwith Axalta Coating Systems to createan interface with their ProfitNet offer-ing that is certified by our OpentrackCertification Program,” says SharonKitzman, Vice President and GeneralManager, DMS, Dealertrack.

The interface is designed to savehours of double-entry of data that isused by both systems.

Axalta Program ProvidesShop Owners With More Data

The Auto Glass Safety Council™’s(AGSC) Education Committee metOctober 7 during Auto Glass Week inBaltimore, MD to review its plan toupdate the exam technicians must taketo become AGSC accredited. JeffOlive, chair of the education commit-tee, opened the meeting with a discus-sion about whether the associationshould publish the questions.

Bob Beranek of Auto GlassConsultants, who chairs the AGSCAGRSS Standards Committee and is amember of the board of directors, pro-posed waiting until the AGSC has de-veloped 500 questions. The groupagreed. The exam will feature 70 ques-tions.

Members also discussed waystechnicians can challenge questionsthey might have an issue with. MitchBecker of Abra Auto Body & Glass,recommended adding a “challenge”option as a selection for each question.Once a technician completes the timedexam, he would have the opportunityto explain why he challenged a certainquestion. The test results would be onhold until the AGSC Education Com-mittee has a chance to address the chal-lenge. The committee membersvoted in support of this proposal.

Auto Glass Safety CouncilUpdating Certification Exam

Ford Motor Co. is recalling850,050 2013 and 2014 vehiclesfor an electrical flaw that couldcause airbags and seat belt preten-sioners to malfunction in the eventof a crash, according to reports inAutomotive News.

The affected vehicles includethe 2013-14 Ford C-Max, Fusion,Escape and Lincoln MKZ. Fordsaid in a statement on Sept. 26 therestraints-control module in the ve-hicles could short circuit, causingthe airbag warning indicator to il-luminate.

This is the 12th recall of the2013 Escape, although a spokes-woman said in August that no sin-gle Escape has been involved in allthe recalls.

Flaws that other recalls on theEscape have addressed includefluid leaks that could cause an en-gine fire, doors that can open whilethe vehicle is moving and rolloverairbags that may not deploy quicklyenough.

Ford Recalls 850,000 Carsfor Airbag & Seat Belt Glitch



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NITROHEAT announced on Octo-ber 20 that it will be launching a newproduct range of high performancecompressed air filters, dryers andheaters at SEMA. This new productrange incorporates NITROHEAT’Snew patent pending tablet and smartphone controlled heaters, the first ofits kind in the industry. This tech-nology allows users to remotelycontrol and monitor temperatures ofthe compressed air and nitrogenheaters used in the spray paintingprocess.

Clean dry air has always beena fundamental requirement for spraypainting as well as pneumatic toolusage. This technology from NI-TROHEAT will supply the cleanest,driest air possible for optimal bene-fits to compressed air requirementsand maximum return on investment.

Nitroheat’s proven technologyin the process of “Nitrogen on De-mand” has been widely used sinceinception. This additional technol-ogy opens up a broader market inthe painting and compressed air sec-tor.

The product can be seen at theSEMA expo in Las Vegas from Nov.4-7 at booth 11421.

NITROHEAT Launches NewProduct at SEMA


Shift into Genuine Nissan and Infiniti OEM Parts

Genuine Nissan and Infiniti OEM Wholesale Parts are superbly crafted to strict quality standards.

The following dealers stock genuine parts for your Nissan or Infiniti repairs. GENUINE SERVICE & PARTS

S. CALIFORNIA N. CALIFORNIA

DOWNEY NISSANDOWNEY

888-444-1355(562) 334-1195 FaxBilly Smith-Parts Manager

M-F 7-6, Sat. 7-5www.downeynissan.com

METRO NISSANINFINITI OF MONTCLAIR

MONTCLAIR800-243-5575(909) 625-4087 FaxAsk for Rita or Steve

Large inventory available

NISSAN OFBAKERSFIELDBAKERSFIELD

888-402-6915(661) 835-0389 FaxM-F 7-6, Sat. 8-5

www.nissanofbakersfield.com

SHINGLE SPRINGSNISSAN

SHINGLE SPRINGS530-676-0444(530) 677-6528 Fax

www.shinglespringsnissan.com

MOSSY NISSANNATIONAL CITY

800-300-7251(619) 474-4347 Fax

Largest Inventory in San Diegowww.mossyparts.com

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and VanTuyl Group announced on October 2that they have entered into a defini-tive agreement in which BerkshireHathaway will acquire the Van TuylGroup, the nation’s largest privately-owned auto dealership group, rankingfifth among all U.S. auto dealershipgroups.

After becoming a part of the Berk-shire Hathaway family of businesses,the company will be known as Berk-shire Hathaway Automotive. The com-pany will continue to be led by LarryVan Tuyl, who will become Chairman,and Jeff Rachor, who will assume therole of CEO, as well as its experiencedsenior management team. Berkshire

Hathaway Automotive will be head-quartered in Dallas, Texas and continueto pursue its strategy of operational ex-cellence and disciplined acquisitiongrowth, which is the business modelthe company has pursued for the last 62years.

“The Van Tuyl Group fits per-fectly into Berkshire Hathaway fromboth a financial and cultural view-point. Larry Van Tuyl along with hisfather, Cecil, spent decades buildingoutstanding dealerships operated bylocal partners. In recent years, he hasshared management with Jeff Rachor,a seasoned auto retailer who will re-tain a financial interest in all dealer-ships. The Van Tuyl Group enjoys

excellent relations with the major automanufacturers and delivers unusuallyhigh volumes at its 78 locations. Thisis just the beginning for BerkshireHathaway Automotive,” said Berk-shire Hathaway’s Chairman and CEO,Warren Buffett.

“We are proud of all that has beenaccomplished with the support of ourdealer partners, our employees and themanufacturers that we represent. Weare very pleased to have one of theworld’s most respected companies,Berkshire Hathaway, assume owner-ship of our company with the commit-ment to preserving our unique culture,business model and philosophy,” saidVan Tuyl. “I cannot think of a better

steward to continue the legacy of whatmy father and I have built over the last62 years, and I am confident this trans-action will position the company on acourse of continued success.”

The transaction is expected to becompleted in the first quarter of 2015and is subject to obtaining approvalsfrom the major auto manufacturers aswell as certain customary closing con-ditions, including various regulatoryapprovals.

Stephens Inc. is serving as finan-cial advisor to Van Tuyl Group. DLAPiper is providing legal advice to VanTuyl Group, and Munger, Tolles &Olson LLP is providing legal advice toBerkshire Hathaway.

Berkshire Hathaway to Acquire Van Tuyl Group, Largest Privately-Owned Auto Dealership Group

CCC Information Services Inc. an-nounced the addition of the Aftermar-ket Auto Parts Alliance (Alliance) as asupplier to the CCC TRUE™ PartsNetwork on October 16.

The Alliance, which goes to mar-ket under a variety of store brands in-cluding Auto Value and Bumper toBumper, becomes a significant contrib-utor of mechanical parts and repair sup-plies to CCC TRUE Parts Network.

“Providing our customers with ac-

cess to the Alliance’s extensive offeringof repair parts and related supplies viatheir robust MyPlaceForParts™ net-work extends our footprint and providesour repair and insurance customers witheven greater choice and flexibility intheir parts options,” said David Boden,VP, CCC’s Parts Services Group.

“We look forward to workingwith the Alliance and integrating itsparts inventory with CCC TRUE PartsNetwork.”

“Collision repair shops have atremendous need for easy access to me-chanical repair parts and supplies,” saidJon Owens, Vice President of salesand market development for the Al-liance. “Streamlining that access wasthe purpose of our participating in theCCC TRUE Parts Network and wecould not be more delighted with theopportunity to bring our extensive in-ventory to CCC’s customers.”

CCC ONE® Workflow users will

now have access to the Alliance’s net-work of over 2,200 locations that stocknearly 2,000,000 repair parts and suppliesfor both import and domestic vehicles.

Aftermarket Auto Parts Alliance Joins CC TRU Parts Network

Search:Autobody Newson Facebook

“We wanted to make the legislatorsaware of what the insurance companiesare doing to the consumer,” said MattParker, owner of Parker Auto Body inLouisiana who is part of the lawsuit.“The insurance industry should not tellus how to repair cars. We’re the profes-sionals here, not them. We have all theliability, they don’t,” he said.

Tony Passwater, Executive Direc-tor of the Indiana Autobody Associationand President of AEII Consulting Serv-ices, said that what started as multi-dis-trict litigation in April with just fivestates, including Mississippi, Florida,Tennessee, Indiana and Utah, and laterby Louisiana, is now part of a much big-ger action to regain control that hetermed “The Movement.”

“Shop owners representing a dozenstates went to Capital Hill “… to discussthe growing concerns for consumersafety, the mandating by insurers to re-quire repair shops to use untested andunsafe parts on vehicles, and the intimi-dation tactics the insurers use when a re-pairer refuses to do so,” Passwater said.

“Most [members of Congress] havehad their car repaired and were very em-pathetic and were already concernedabout the issue, so we were very encour-aged by the response,” said the lead at-torney John Arthur Eaves, Jr. of EavesLaw Firm in Jackson, MS. Eaves saidmany were still not aware of the RobertKennedy-era 1963 Consent Decreewhich is the official public policy of theUnited States government. He said thebody shops plan to visit WashingtonD.C. again in November when congresscomes back into session and the hope isthat a bill will be introduced at that time.“The law will really be a codification ofthe policy of the United States that wasset in 1963.”

It was that year that the U.S. De-partment of Justice, under the directionof Attorney General Robert Kennedy, in-vestigated the concerns of the collisionrepair industry and found 265 insurancecompanies, and the three major trade as-sociations that represented insurers, werein violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.An Antitrust Consent Order was signedby these companies on October 23,1963, requiring that insurers must refrainfrom “fixing, establishing, maintainingor otherwise controlling the prices to bepaid for the appraisal of damage, or to becharged by independent or dealer fran-chised automotive repair shops for therepair of damage to automotive vehicles

or for replacement parts or labor in con-nection therewith, whether by coercion,boycott or intimidation or by the use offlat rate or parts manuals or otherwise.”

“If you look at the Consent Decreeand read it, it would look like somebodyfrom today wrote it because all the thingsthey’ve been doing since the 40s they arecontinuing to do,” said Parker. “To behonest with you, everything they’redoing is against the law.”

Parker said the Consent Decreemandates that insurance companies aresupposed to be in the business of insur-ance, “not telling us how to repair cars,not writing estimates, not telling peoplewhere to get glass put in their car. We’rethe only business in the world that has totry to figure out how to make a profitwhen we can’t even set our own rates.”

Eaves originally filed the lawsuit inApril on behalf of more than two dozenbody shops that claimed 16 insurancecompanies manipulated labor rates andother charges and weren’t compensatedfor their work. Eaves said the lawsuit islargely based on antitrust issues that sur-face when insurance companies get in-volved with body shops by telling themwhat labor rate they can charge, whatpercentages they’re not going to pay for,and what parts they have to put on a car.In the 1970’s, the labor rate was $16 andthe mechanical rate was $15. Currently,Eaves said the body shop rate across thenation is usually half of the mechanicalrate with no justification. He said this isdue to insurance companies that have ar-tificially suppressed the rate and is aclear violation of the Consent Decree.

Another main component of thelawsuit is against steering. “Most statesin the country say it is illegal for insur-ance companies to purposely interfere inthe business relationship of the customerand the body shop,” said Eaves. How-ever, insurance companies do it regu-larly, telling customers they have to goto their DRP body shops or select serviceshops. “That’s a big part of our lawsuitand one of the things we think is pure vi-olation of the proper balance between thetwo industries,” said Eaves. “By havingthe same practices exposed by all bodyshops in one litigation, the judge canmore clearly see that this is a pattern ofpractice,” said Eaves. Eaves said that inaddition to these challenges faced byshop owners, the industry also has toadapt to new technology. “Only theshops that actually get paid for what theydo will have the resources necessary toinvest in all of this technology,” saidEaves. “That’s basically what the lawsuitcomponent is all about… making sure

that people who do the work and do itright get paid for it so they can continueto provide that service to the Americancustomer.”

The next court date is set for No-vember in Orlando, FL. “The allegationsthat are part of the multi-district litiga-tion being heard in Florida are not in linewith State Farm’s mission to serve theneeds of its customers, and our long,proud history of achievements in ad-vancing vehicle safety,” said DickLuedke, spokesperson for State FarmInsurance.

“A vibrant, profitable auto collisionrepair industry is in the interest of StateFarm,” said Luedke. “At the same time,we are advocates on behalf of our cus-tomers for reasonable repair costs. Webelieve repairer profitability and qualityauto repairs that are reasonably pricedcan both be achieved.

“Our customers choose where theirvehicles are going to be repaired. Weprovide information about our SelectService program while at the same timemaking it clear they can select whichshop will do the work,” he said. Parkerbelonged State Farm’s Select ServiceDRP until earlier this year. Since Aprilhe said they have steered a substantialamount of business away from him.

“Just in short pays alone I have over$150,000 worth of claims they won’tpay,” he said. “Operations that we actu-ally do the vehicles to make the vehiclessafe that they won’t pay us to do.

“These shops need to stand up forwhat’s right and quit letting the insuranceindustry run their business for them,”said Parker. “They are just terrified thatthe insurance companies are going tosteer the work away.” We’re just as busynow as we were because we’re educat-ing consumers.” He has found it benefi-cial to explain to consumers what theinsurance companies are doing. “Theyneed to take their businesses back andthey need to run their own businesses.”

When Autobody News went topress this month, an additional 25 stateswere in the process of filing lawsuits tomeet an Oct. 31 deadline before return-ing to court in November. “What wewant to achieve is number one, that thesafety and the quality of repairs for theAmerican public is restored,” said Eaves.“The industry will never be the sameafter this.”

When contacted by Autobody Newsfor comment Allstate Insurance Com-pany and Progressive both said that, dueto company policy, they do not commenton pending litigation.


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CaCaCaCaCallllllll y y y y youououour r r r lololololocacacal l l l l JoJoJoJoJoJobbbbbbbbbbererererererererer o or:r:r:r:r:r:r:Call your local Jobber or: wwwwwwwwwwwww.w.w.w.w.w.clclclclclcleaeaeaeansnsheheheheetetetetsmsmsmsmsmfgfgfgfg.c.c.c.c.comomomomwww.cleansheetsmfg.com8888800000000000---333333666555555----111111133333330000008888800-365-1308

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Western November 2014 Issue

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collision repair shops

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memphis radio

calibercollision centers

cookscollision centers

strugglebody shops

shop ownerbill fowler

shop owner bill fowlerappear