Autobody News April 2012 Northeast Edition

On March 16, a group of 188 U.S.lawmakers led by U.S. Senator Deb-bie Stabenow (D-MI) urged Presi-dent Obama to crack down on“predatory” Chinese pricing prac-tices, which they said are threateningthe U.S. auto parts industry and couldcost the U.S. more than a millionjobs.

“We cannot wait until furtherdamage is done,” the nearly 200members of the House and Senate—including all the Democratic mem-bers of the House Ways and MeansCommittee—said in a letter to Presi-dent Obama. “Seventy-five percent ofthe jobs in the automotive sector arein auto parts, and these jobs are at riskin every state in the nation.”

The Congressional letter encour-ages Presidential action against Chi-nese predatory trade practices in thissector to be one of the “first and high-est priorities” of his Administration’srecently created Interagency Trade

Enforcement Center. The lawmakerspraised the administration’s creationof the Interagency Trade EnforcementCenter to promote a more coordinatedeffort, which they say will provide theUnited States additional resources toexamine China’s and other nations’trade violations. This effort, unlikeany that have taken place in recentmemory, asks the Administration tofurther investigate the barriers thatChina has adopted and initiate appro-priate action to level the playing field.

The complaint is supported bythe United Steel Workers. “Mosttrade cases are filed by the privatesector after substantial injury has oc-curred. China’s practices in this sec-tor have already caused harm, but thegoal is also to alter its policies beforethe complete decimation of our do-mestic industry. In these critical eco-nomic times, we must take everyappropriate action to address unfair

by Chasidy Sisk and Janet Cheney

Attendance at the recent NORTH-EAST™ trade show, at the Meadow-lands in Secaucus, NJ, was 20%higher than last year, which was up

from the year before. Some seminarswere overflow seating and organizershad to pull in extra chairs for peoplewho arrived late were standing.

There were some direct benefitsassociated with presentations, such as“Hybrid Aftermarket Service,” which

gave attendees a certificate toward NJAuto Body License renewal. NickHalliday, sales manager for NucarWholesale Parts Distributors, facili-tated the seminar with Jim Micklefrom General Motors.

Aaron Schulenburg, Execu-tive Director of SCRS washeard to say: “The forum pro-vides a tremendous opportunityfor us to pull together key lead-ers in the collision industry,here in the northeast area of thecountry, and talk about issuesthat really matter to our mem-bers. The event and NORTH-EAST as a whole enables us toshare information and ulti-mately make this business bet-

ter, both now and in the future.”Heard and seen at the show were

other familiar figures in the industry.Several took the mike at the NortheastLeadership forum.

One person we all wanted to hear

NORTHEAST™Trade Show Leadership Forum

See Chinese Auto Parts, Page 38

Nearly 200 Congressmen and Senators Write inOpposition to China’s Auto Parts Practices

See Northeast Show, Page 46

of 3issuesSPECIAL

PAINT & REFINISH TECHNOLOGIESPAINT ISSUE

AASP/NJ Exhibiting at their own show, NORTHEAST™

The U.S. Senate has passed Senate Bill1813, a two-year transportation billworth $109 billion to go toward high-way construction and auto safety ini-tiatives. The House of Representativeshas not completed work on its highwaybill and may take up the Senate bill.The Senate legislation includes thefollowing:

● revises highway safety improve-ment programs● directs the secretary to establish re-quirements for regularly recurring up-dates and approval of state strategichighway safety plans● requires the secretary to issue guid-ance to states on establishing per-

U.S. Senate Passes Transportation Bill withHighway Safety Provisions

See Highway Safety, Page 57

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Amato Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Audi Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 61BASF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11BMW Audi of Turnersville . . . . . . . . 45BMW Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 51CCC Information Services . . . . . . . 17Central Avenue Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Chief Automotive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Classifieds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63CSS USA, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42DCH Family of BMW Stores . . . . . . 31DuPont . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Equalizer Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Ford Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 50Fred Beans Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Fuccillo Auto Group. . . . . . . . . . 22-23Garmat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4GM Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . 56Healey Chevrolet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Hoffman Services, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . 25Honda-Acura Wholesale PartsDealers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32-33

Hyundai Wholesale Parts Dealers . 55Jaguar Wholesale Parts Dealers. . . 62Kia Motors Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Koeppel VW-Mazda . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Lazare Kia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Lexus of Massapequa. . . . . . . . . . . . 7Lexus Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 54Matrix System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Maxon Hyundai. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Maxon Mazda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Mazda Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 52Mercedes-Benz Wholesale PartsCenter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Mercedes-Benz Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Metric Subaru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Millennium Hyundai . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6MOPAR Wholesale Parts Dealers . . 13Nissan/Infiniti Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Nucar Mazda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29PCL Automotive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Plaza Auto Mall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Porsche Wholesale Parts Dealers . 61PPG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2RealParts.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Safety Regulations Strategies. . . . . 46SATA Spray Equipment . . . . . . . . . 28SCA Appraisal Company . . . . . . . . 63Scion Wholesale Parts Dealers. . . . 54Security Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep . . . . 20Solution Finish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Stadel Motors Volvo . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Star-A-Liner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Subaru Wholesale Parts DealersDE, South NJ, PA. . . . . . . . . . 14-15

Subaru Wholesale Parts DealersNorth NJ, NY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Thompson Organization . . . . . . . . . 41Toyota Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 46VeriFacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60Volkswagen Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Volvo Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 60

Inde

xofAdvertisers

REGIONAL36 in NY Allegedly Involved in Auto Insurance

Fraud Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6American Auto Salvage & Recycling Opens

Auto Shredder in Millville, NJ . . . . . . . . . . . 4Connecticut Bill Adds Subsection to Require

Recycled or A/M Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Delaware Bill (HB 242) Prohibits Insurers

from Exploiting Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Fire Consumes Pennsylvania Automotive

Service Garage, 1 Injured . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Jiffy Lube Heartland Acquires 12 New

Locations in the New York Marketfrom Suffolk Lube Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Lehigh Valley Collision Repair Associationto Hold April Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Mt. Kisco, NY, Body Shop Catches Fire,Possibly a Careless Cigarette . . . . . . . . . . . 6

NORTHEAST™ Trade Show Leadership Forum . 1Pennsylvania Parts Manager Active in

Suicide Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Pennsylvania Texting While Driving Ban

Takes Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Rhode Island Bill Would Delete Anti-Steering

Legislation Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

COLUMNISTSCheney - Class Auto Center: An Aptly

Named First Class Operation. . . . . . . . . . . 53Chess - CAFE Standards Will Affect More

Than A Shop’s Miles Per Gallon . . . . . . . . 36Franklin - Sprucing Up Your Shop For Spring. 18Insurance Insider - ‘Survival of the Fittest’

Also Applies to Collision Repairers . . . . . . 62Nigro - Feather, Sand and Fill: Paint Operations

Body Shops Perform But Don’t Get Paid For. 40I-CAR - Oil Spill at the I-CAR Tech Centre in

Appleton, WI, Raises Awareness. . . . . . . . 58Sisk - County Line Auto Body: NJ Shop

Grows From Chicken Coop toMulti-Building Complex. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Sisk - The NORTHEAST™ 2012 Trade Show:All About the Seminars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Weaver - What If You’re Looking for Morethan One Waldo? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Williams - Maxon Hyundai-Mazda: Father-to-Son Dealership Serves NJ and NY . . . . . . . . . . 56

NATIONAL22 West Virginia Schools to Integrate

I-CAR Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47275,000 Subaru Forester SUVs From 2009–12

Recalled For Rear Seat Belts Failing toLock Properly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

ABRA Auto Body & Glass Expands Operationsinto TN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Assured Performance Network Offers OtherOEM Rewards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Automotive Recyclers Assocation SupportsLicensed Buyers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

CARSTAR Expands Sales and Marketing Teams. 30Chrysler Launches Certified Collision Repair

Facility Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Fix Auto Appoints Tim Clark as Senior VP,

Insurance Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Guardian Auto Glass acquires Glass Specialty

Company of Bloomington, Illinois . . . . . . . 26Gyant Compliance Launches ‘Vocwebmanager’

Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Helpful Documents, Tools And Information

Only a Click Away for Shops. . . . . . . . . . . 48Hyundai Recalling 2011-12 Sonata Hybrids

For Rear Seat Belt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Infiniti Launches National Certified Collision

Repair Network. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Infiniti Recalls 2003-05 Q45 Sedans. . . . . . . 18Iowa Shop’s Action and Iowa Collision

Repair Association, Established in 2005,Starting to be Heard Statewide . . . . . . . . . 51

LQK Has Record Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Mexico Implements New Mandatory Auto

Insurance Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Mitchell’s Claims Triage is Available to Carriers. 30Montana Collision Repair Specialists’

Legislative Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Nearly 200 Congressmen and Senators Write in

Opposition to China’s Auto Parts Practices . 1Nissan Leaf Nationwide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Performance Racing Industry to be Sold

to SEMA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42PSE Appoints Guy Barnes as VP, Sales

& Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Ray Gunder to Sponsor Free Legal Seminar

for Collision Repairers in Lakeland, FL . . . 43The Levan Group—Where Crash and

Mechanical Parts Intersect . . . . . . . . . . . . 54TopTech Finder Unites PDR Techs with

Body Shop Managers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45U.S. Senate Passes Transportation Bill

with Highway Safety Provisions . . . . . . . . . 1UPDATE on Tow-for-Pay Scam, “Evangelist

Jerry Bratt” and “Jacqueline Harris” . . . . . 59Verifacts Symposium Recognizes Achievement,

Industry Unknowns, and Negotiation. . . . . 60Women’s Industry Network Holds Planning

Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

PPAAIINNTT SSPPEECCIIAALL2012 Ridler® Award Winner Features

BASF’s Glasurit® Paint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57Airbrush Artist JoAnn Bortles is Writing

Her Seventh Painting Book . . . . . . . . . . . . 44BASF Advises Shops to Join the Move

to Waterborne Coatings Now . . . . . . . . . . . 8Bobby Alloway’s 5 Essential Tips for

Achieving a Flawless Black Finish . . . . . . . 52Custom Painter Charley Hutton Explains

Step-By-Step How to Create RealisticWood Grain Effects With PPG Products. . . 10

PCL Has Been Primed Since 1929 withClear Solutions for Shops . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

RBL Products New Pre-Treat System . . . . . . 39

Contents

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

Serving New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delawareand adjacent metro areas, Autobody News is a monthlypublication for the autobody industry. Permission to re-produce in any form the material published in AutobodyNews must be obtained in writing from the publisher.©2012 Adamantine Media LLC.Autobody NewsP.O. Box 1516, Carlsbad, CA 92018(800) 699-8251 (760) 721-0253 Faxwww.autobodynews.comEmail: [email protected] N

ortheast

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The Lehigh Valley Collision RepairAssociation will hold a meeting fortheir members on April 4 at 6 p.m. atDaku Auto Body in North Cata-sauqua, PA.

Jeff Anton with CCC Informa-tion Services will be discussing thefeatures of CCC’s latest estimatingsystem, CCC One. He will also ad-dress questions regarding the prod-uct.

Two presentations on paint ma-terials will also be given. They willfocus on how you can track yourusage to determine your profit mar-gin and how to then establish a basisfor billing out your jobs.

The meeting will also feature anupdate from I-CAR regarding theirlatest offerings in the association’smarket.

The group will also have a 50/50drawing to benefit the Association.Pizza and refreshments will beserved.

For questions or directions callMatt at 610-253-1528. Please RSVPto [email protected] or Matt atthe number above to secure your seat.For more information please visitwww.sites.google.com/site/lvcolli-sion.

Lehigh Valley Collision RepairAssociation to Hold April Meeting

Heartland Automotive Services, Inc.,America’s largest Jiffy Lube fran-chisee, has announced its expansionin the New York market with its ac-quisition of 12 locations in the LongIsland area. In February, the companycompleted the purchase of the loca-tions from Suffolk Lube Centers,Inc., which owned and managed theJiffy Lube locations.

“Last year at this time, NewYork became a powerful new marketfor us as we expanded into the areawith our first Jiffy Lube locations,”said Brett Ponton, Chief ExecutiveOfficer at Jiffy Lube Heartland.

The new Heartland Jiffy Lube loca-tions in New York are located in: Selden,Riverhead, Port Jefferson Station, Hunt-ington, Patchogue, Commack, Farming-dale, Saint James, Shirley, HuntingtonStation, Deer Park and Rocky Point.

All of the employees across thenewly acquired stores were invited toremain in their current positions fol-lowing the acquisition. In many in-stances, Heartland brings new healthcare insurance and retirement bene-fits to employees not previouslyavailable to them.

This acquisition is part of an ag-gressive acquisition strategy the com-pany embarked on in 2011.

Jiffy Lube Heartland Acquires 12New Locations in the New YorkMarket from Suffolk Lube Centers American Auto Salvage & Recycling,

a fourth-generation recycling com-pany based in Cape May, N.J., heldan official grand opening for its autoshredder in Millville, N.J. AmericanAuto Salvage started a new company,called American Iron & Metal Inter-national, to operate the auto shredder.

Joe Silipena Jr., president ofAmerican Auto Salvage, says the new,12-acre facility that is housing theauto shredder includes an AmericanPulverizer shredder with a Hustlerconveyor and an Eriez eddy currentdownstream system. The downstreamsystem will be totally enclosed in an80,000-square-foot building. Thecompany says that it is one of only ahandful of companies that presentlyoperate a shredder with a totally en-closed downstream system.

Silipena says that the auto shred-der will be powered by two 2,000-horsepower motors. One news reportsays that American Auto investedaround $6 million on the auto shred-der.

Silipena adds that in addition toan auto shredder, American Iron &Metal will operate as a traditionalscrap metal recycling facility and ac-cept both ferrous and nonferrous met-als. Plans call for the shredder tooperate five days a week.

American Auto Salvage & RecyclingOpens Auto Shredder in Millville, NJ

Pennsylvania Parts Manager Active in Suicide AwarenessParts and Service Manager Rob Cot-tle of Stadel Volvo in East Petersburg,PA, will again walk in an 18-milewalk in San Francisco, CA, on June 9

as part of the Out of the DarknessOvernight, an event that raises moneyfor the American Foundation for Sui-cide Prevention.

The goal of this journey, whichwill begin at dusk and finish at dawn,is to raise funds for suicide preven-tion, mitigate the stigma surroundingsuicide and its causes, to encouragethose suffering from mental illness toseek treatment, as well as to showsupport for the families and friends ofthe 30,000 Americans who die by sui-cide and the 20 million people thatsuffer from depression each year.

Cottle is asking for donations andsupport of this effort. Donations aretax-deductible and can be given at Cot-tle’s personal fundraising webpage,http://theovernight.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.par-ticipant&eventID=501&participan-tID=3848

Cottle is walking as a part of thegroup called “Remembering Ryan”and will be walking with his friendDebi, who lost her son by suicide fouryears ago.

“I hope that you’ll share this in-credible journey with me—by sup-porting me in my fundraising efforts,”said Cottle.

The net donation proceeds willsupport the American Foundation forSuicide Prevention’s programs andmission.

AFSP is a small foundation, andmuch of their funding comes fromThe Overnight.

According to AFSP, “Every dol-lar you raise will help you save thelife of a child, a parent, a sibling or aclose friend.”

For more information aboutAFSP, please visit www.afsp.org. Formore information about the Out ofthe Darkness Overnight please visitwww.theovernight.org.

Pennsylvania’s texting while drivingban, signed by Gov. Tom Corbett inDecember, took effect March 8. Driv-ers will now risk fines if they sendtext messages from behind the wheel,according to the Philadelphia In-quirer. Reading or sending of e-mailsand Web surfing are also included inthe ban. Although drivers are still per-mitted to talk on their handheldphones, which police say will makeenforcement tougher.

“The Pennsylvania State Policeanticipate the law will educate law-abiding citizens on the dangers of tex-ting and driving and will hopefullycreate voluntary compliance by themajority of motorists,” said MariaFinn, a State Police spokeswoman.

The Pennsylvania law also makestexting a primary offense, whichmeans that police may pull over adriver for texting alone.

Those who are caught will befined $50 but will not receive pointsagainst their license. The new lawmakes Pennsylvania the 38th state toprohibit drivers from texting. The lawdoes not pertain to GPS devices, or sys-tems that are physically or electronicallyintegrated into vehicles, or devices at-tached to mass transit vehicles.

Pennsylvania Texting WhileDriving Ban Takes Effect

The “Remembering Ryan” walk group fromlast year



Phone:

516-282-3810Fax Your Order:516-281-7535

Parts Dept. Hours:Monday - Friday: 8am - 5pm

220 North Franklin St., Hempstead, NY 11550

Call Us First For All YourParts Needs!

• Free Next Day Delivery• Experienced & Knowledgeable Parts Team

MILLENNIUMHYUNDAI

Nassau and Suffolk Only

[email protected]

36 in NY Allegedly Involved in Auto Insurance Fraud SchemeFederal and local authorities in NewYork announced charges on March1 against 36 defendants—including10 doctors and three attorneys—al-legedly involved in a systematicscheme to defraud auto insurancecompanies of more than $275 mil-lion under New York’s no-fault in-surance law, according to InsuranceJournal.

According to the indictment,those involved in the scheme al-legedly created fraudulent medicalclinics to defraud insurance compa-nies under the state’s no-fault law.The charges include conspiracies tocommit racketeering, healthcare fraudand money laundering dating back toaround 2007.

The majority of defendants werearrested on February 29, according tonews reports.

“While purporting to be legiti-mate medical care clinics specializingin treating patients, the no-fault clin-ics were, in fact, medical fraud millsthat routinely billed automobile in-surance companies under the no-faultlaw for medical treatments that wereeither never provided and/or unneces-sary, because the patients did notmedically need the treatments,” ac-cording to the indictment unsealed on

February 29 in U.S. District Court inManhattan.

The indictment also stated thatthese clinics are not owned, operatedand controlled by licensed medicalpractitioners. Instead, the actual own-ers, operators and controllers of theclinics were individuals who were notlicensed medical practitioners andwho were not identified on docu-ments filed with New York State au-thorities.

The indictment also alleges thatthese clinics allegedly received cashkickbacks for each referral from otherindividuals who fraudulently owned,operated and controlled similarlyfraudulently incorporated entities.These additional treatments includedphysical therapy, pain management,audiology, neurology, psychology,magnetic resonance imaging, x-rays,acupuncture and chiropractic medi-cine, among others.

The indictment also stated thatthese clinic controllers also allegedlyreferred the patients to personal injurylawyers, so that lawyers could filepersonal injury claims and lawsuits onbehalf of the patients to obtain addi-tional funds separate and apart fromthe $50,000 available to each patientunder the no-fault law.

A fire of undetermined origin causedextensive damage to Heddings FordWorld, an automotive service garage inPotts Grove, PA, and sent one worker toan area hospital for treatment of burns.

The fire started just after noonMarch 1, according to the SunburyDaily Item.

Owner Jeff Heddings said thefire apparently started in or aroundone of the service bays and spreadthroughout the interior of the con-crete block building.

Fire Consumes Pennsylvania Au-tomotive Service Garage, 1 Injured

Firefighters put out a blaze on theroof of a Mount Kisco auto bodyshop that may have been sparked byan errant cigarette. The fire was re-ported at 2:57 pm on March 8 at Si-mone Bros. Auto Body. It did notinvolve any cars at the adjacent Nis-san dealership. About 50 MountKisco firefighters responded, as wellas firefighters from Bedford Hills. Noinjuries were reported, and the causeis still under investigation. MountKisco Fire Chief Mike Boles said acigarette may have started the fire,but the investigation is ongoing.

Mt. Kisco, NY, Body Shop CatchesFire, Possibly a Careless Cigarette

Raised Bill 387 in CT calling for the useof alternative parts as the primary meansof repair on state vehicles. The amend-ment reads: (j) In performing the re-quirements of this section, theCommissioners ... shall use recycled, re-manufactured or aftermarket parts as theprimary means of maintenance and re-pair of the state fleet, provided the re-quirements of this subsection shall notapply to any fleet vehicle under the man-agement of the Department of Emer-gency Services and Public Protection.

Connecticut Bill Adds Subsectionto Require Recycled or A/M Parts

As more insurers begin offering pay-as-you-drive insurance options inwhich vehicle driving patterns aretracked by the insurer through a de-vice hooked to the vehicle’s on-boarddiagnostic system, a Delaware bill(HB 242) would prohibit the releaseof such data by insurers to others, andwould prohibit insurers from usingthe information for anything otherthan consideration for premium dis-counts, unless the policyholder givesconsent. Any violation of the billwould charge the violator with aClass G Felony.

Delaware Bill (HB 242) ProhibitsInsurers from Exploiting Data


Phone:

516-797-3600Fax Your Order:631-608-7371

Parts Dept. Hours:Monday - Friday: 8am - 5pm

141 Albany Ave., Amityville, NY 11707

[email protected]

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Rhode Island is becoming a legislativebattleground for competing interestsbetween shops and insurers. No fewerthan six bills have been introduced thisyear in an attempt to modify the state’sunfair competition laws. In January, H7688 introduced a classification sys-tem: creating “three (3) classificationsof full collision licensees based uponthe amount and type of equipmentmaintained and used by the auto bodyshop, the number of certified techni-cians employed by the auto body shop,certification and compliance with en-vironmental agencies such as theEPA.” This bill also required differentlabor rate surveys for each classifica-tion. H 7690 introduced “three (3)business days advance notice to the in-surer adjusting the claim for damage tothe vehicle for the purpose of allowingthe insurer an opportunity to appraiseand photograph the vehicle prior to dis-mantling” and bolstered the insurancefraud statute by requiring shops and in-sureds to certify that repairs have beenmade in accordance with the insurer’sappraisal and indemnifying the insurerfor repairs not made at the request ofthe insured. Now, bill H 7782, intro-duced Feb. 16, would amend the state’sunfair competition law by deleting thesection of the law that requires insurers

to inform insureds or claimants of theirright to use the shop of their choice.The deleted section (15) reads:

(15) Requiring that repairs bemade to an automobile at a specifiedauto body repair shop or interferingwith the insured’s or claimant’s freechoice of repair facility. The insured orclaimant shall be promptly informed bythe insurer of his or her free choice inthe selection of an auto body repairshop. Once the insured or claimant hasadvised the insurer that an auto body re-pair shop has been selected, the insurermay not recommend that a differentauto body repair shop be selected to re-pair the automobile. An auto body re-pair shop may file a complaint with thedepartment of business regulation al-leging a violation of this subdivision(15). Whenever the department of busi-ness regulation has reason to believethat an insurer has violated this subdi-vision (15), the department shall con-duct an investigation and may convenea hearing. A complaint filed by an autobody repair shop must be accompaniedby a statement written and signed by theinsured or claimant setting forth the fac-tual basis of the complaint, and the in-sured or claimant must voluntarilyappear and testify at any administrativeproceedings on the complaint.

Rhode Island Bill Would Delete Anti-Steering Legislation Language Gyant Compliance Launches ‘Vocwebmanager’ ApplicationGyant Compliance, a division of GyantGroup, a Lake Forest, CA, based com-pany, announced Feb. 9 that it haslaunched a New VOCWEBMANGERApplication for the Collision RepairIndustry.

“Gyant Compliance developedVOCWEBMANGER due to experi-encing first-hand challenges of com-pliance that McLaren Unibody, myfather in law’s old shop had facedwith AQMD,” said Jon Gypsyn,CEO. ”I witnessed auto body shopsstruggling with tracking VOC’s, ex-piring permits, keeping up with newregulations, getting fines for beingover their VOC limits, and scram-bling for product last minute with nocentral system for all of their envi-ronmental needs,” Gypsyn contin-ued.

“It took three years to developthe VOCWEBMANAGER web ap-plication, and there were severalconsiderations in the development ofthe VOCWEBMANAGER,” saidMike Ramirez. “It needed to be webbased so that there would not be aneed for extra equipment, or inter-ference with existing software pro-grams. It had to be user friendly forthe painter to operate. The painteradds the usage amount, and with a

click the VOC’s are automaticallycalculated and populated into re-ports. It needed to keep track of in-ventory and send an email alertwhen the shop was low on productand allow them to order with a click.It had to alert the shop when theywere nearing VOC limits or whenpermits were expiring. It needed tostore MSDS and technical datasheets, and be able to update ownerson new regulations that affectedtheir business with access anywhereat any time. In other words, itneeded to be the compliance and in-ventory tracker all in one place andthat’s exactly what the vocwebman-ager accomplishes, added Ramirez.

Gyant is an environmental com-pliance company focused on emis-sions tracking, reporting and carbonfootprint management.

The company operates and main-tains a web-based VOC and CO2Monitoring & Tracking System to as-sist clients in complying with govern-mental regulations and guidelines. Theweb application also complies withCOSHH, HAPS, and HSE regulations.VOCWEBMANAGER streamlinesmonitoring and reporting in real timeat any time. For more informationcontact: [email protected]

Environmental legislation and in-creasing restrictions on VOC emis-sions continue to transform thecoatings industry and collision repairbusiness. Waterborne paint systemshave become more prevalent as thebest way to radically reduce green-house gasses. At BASF, this environ-mental breakthrough has also becomean opportunity for product and serv-ice innovation to add superior value,helping increase shop safety, produc-tivity, quality and, ultimately, cus-tomer satisfaction.

Innovative BASF Products LeadsAs a world leader in automotive refin-ishing products, BASF introduced oneof the first waterborne systems withthe launch of the Glasurit® 90-Line™in 1992. Ahead of its time, the high-performing 90-Line began a revolu-tion that has not only made manycollision repair shops more environ-mentally friendly, but has improvedquality and throughput — throughease-of-use, low material consump-tion, fast-drying formulas, better hid-ing and easier blending.

Moreover, the fact that approxi-mately 70 percent of all new cars arefinished with waterborne paint make90-Line an ideal system for repair. Andwhen it comes to quality, it’s reassur-ing to know that the world’s finest au-tomobiles—including Mercedes-Benzand BMW—have waterborne paint. Inaddition, ultra-luxury cars such asMaybach and Rolls Royce are handsprayed at the plant with 90-Line.

For collision repair centers thatdemand high productivity, superiorquality and cost efficiency, BASF’s R-M® automotive finishes continue to bethe right choice. R-M’s low-VOC wa-terborne basecoat—Onyx HD™ —has been used by many independentcollision repair centers and car dealer-ships for almost two decades. The sys-tem brings next-generation processesinto the shop, while offering excellentversatility, durability and cost effec-tiveness along with superb colormatching with BASF’s proprietaryCOLOR-MAX® system. And, OnyxHD does all this while meetingtoday’s most stringent VOC regula-tions at local, regional and nationallevels.

The combination of R-M’s fastdrying primers, high gloss “no-bake”clears and Onyx HD low-VOC water-borne basecoat reduce cycle time and

energy consumption while helpingpreserve the environment. Beinggreen with Onyx HD can actually save

you some green, helping make thebusiness case to switch to the water-borne system.

More Than Just Great ProductsBASF’s Glasurit® 90-Line™ and R-M® Onyx HD™ paint products aresupported by industry-leading lifetimewarranties, along with technical train-ing programs, advanced color infor-mation systems and businessmanagement programs.

SmartTrak® is a state-of-the-artcolor management system that pro-vides fast and accurate color formulas.It’s designed to help increase shopprofitability and productivity throughcolor updates, inventory and stockcontrol management, formula cus-tomization, cost and low-VOC track-ing, advanced reporting and more.

The company’s comprehensiveVisionPLUS® program is an industry-leading suite of value-added programsgeared specifically for collision repaircenters. This full-service toolkit helpscollision center managers and ownersmonitor, grow sales, streamline busi-ness operations and gain a solid com-petitive edge in the industry. And,VisionPLUS Online is a turnkey toolthat allows collision repair centers totrack, analyze and advance their busi-ness in real time. This allows for im-mediate and continuous improvement,increasing shop productivity and prof-itability.

Better to Lead Than Follow the PackIn the U.S., some state and local ju-risdictions are taking the lead in

regulating automo-tive refinishing emis-sions. California andDelaware, for exam-ple, have developedpractice standards forshops to reduce VOCemissions. And, as afurther indication ofthings to come,Canada has alreadyrequired all shops toswitch to waterbornebasecoats.

Clearly, shopswould be well advisedto stay ahead of com-ing legislation andswitch to waterbornesystems before it be-comes mandated.

When consideringconversion to a water-

borne paint system, be sure to consultwith your BASF representative. Be-yond the regulatory considerations,

keep in mind the following advan-tages:• Reduced basecoat solvent emissionsby approximately 90 percent• Increased quality and customer sat-isfaction• Improved color matching• Improved throughput• Applied with conventional sprayequipment and easy to clean up• Improved safety (less toxicity, lowerodor and reduced flammability)• Reduced hazardous waste

Before you make the final deci-sion to change to a waterborne paintsystem, it is important to be aware ofnot only the advantages of using wa-terborne technology, but also key dif-ferences when compared to a solventsystem. There are many questions ashop should ask before switching towaterborne coatings. Let the expertson Waterborne Automotive Finishesfrom BASF answer them for you.

For more information aboutswitching to waterborne, contact yourBASF representative by calling 800-825-3000, or visit www.basfrefin-ish.com.

BASF Advises Shops to Join the Move to Waterborne Coatings Now


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Custom Painter Charley Hutton Explains Step-By-Step How to CreateRealistic Wood Grain Effects With PPG ProductsCharley Hutton, custom painter ex-traordinaire, explains how to create arealistic, wood grain look with a fewsimple tools and PPG Envirobase®

High Performance basecoat.A painted wood-grain effect is

one way to add a distinctive look toyour custom build. In this step-by-step article, Charley will show youhow to paint a panel with one style ofwood in the center, framed by anotherwood grain look.

Creating the wood grain effect isabout having the right tools. You’llwant to have a variety of sponges,some with loose density for creatinglarger grain, and others more densefor tighter grain. Sea sponges areideal. You’ll also need a choice ofbrushes, preferably inexpensive oneswith stiff bristles. The brushes areused to create very tight grain lines,what we call the “dry brushing” tech-nique. And finally, you’ll need an air-brush and compressor for shadowingand highlighting.

Of course, like learning any spe-cial effect technique, it will take somepractice to get the technique down.“Some of the techniques I’ve learnedactually came by accident,” said Hut-ton. “For example, Paul Stoll, PPG’scustom painter/trainer, and I discov-ered a cool trick while doing a ’49 tinwoody. We didn’t like the look wewere getting, so when we went towipe the paint off, it smeared and cre-ated a really nice wood grain effect—and I’ve been using this techniqueever since.”

The PaintTwo colors of basecoat are neededfor the wood-grain look—a dark,reddish brown (T442 Woody Brownat 800.0 pts. and T430 Green 100.0pts.) and a lighter tan color (T429Trans. Golden Yellow at 940.0 pts.,T442 Brown 40.0 pts. and T430Green 20.0 pts.) In my case, Huttonuses PPG Envirobase® High Per-formance basecoat and he says itworks wonderfully.

“I especially like the fact that ifyou apply some paint and you don’tlike the effect you’re getting, you caneasily re-wet again with more water-borne color, giving yourself a freshstart,” said Hutton.

Painting the Outer Frame(1) Hutton starts with a white base-coated panel, masked off to create acenter panel. Each end of the outerframe should be masked with miteredcorners, typical of wood frames.

(2) Start with the top and bottomportions of the frame. Wet your finersponge with the lighter tan color,squeezing out the excess by pressing itinto the side of the mixing cup. Then,simply drag the sponge across the sur-face in one direction, repeating theprocess several times. Next, we needto mask the outer frame to create abeveled look. With ¼-inch tape, maskfrom the side where you want the lightsource to appear to come from. Do the

same with the bottom edge. Then maskthe frame panels, leaving only the bot-tom edges of the frame exposed.

(3) Then, as the paint begins todry and get sticky, drag your glovedhand across the painted surface. As itbegins to drag it’ll create authentic-looking grain with that knotty look.After dragging all the way across thepanel for several strokes, start fromthe center and drag, and make smallerswipes in succession, gradually taper-ing your strokes to short swipes. If thepaint starts to set, just re-wet it withmore waterborne paint.

(4) After finishing the top and bot-tom of the outer frame, mask the cor-

See Hutton, Page 28

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I attended my second consecutiveAASP/NJ Northeast Trade Show, of-ficially show number 36, on March 9and 10 at the Meadowlands Exposi-tion Center in Secaucus, NJ. As Ispend more time at these kinds ofevents I begin to appreciated howmuch there is to learn in this compli-cated business of collision repair. It isa very educational and useful eventthat collision repairers should makethe effort to attend next year if possi-ble.

My focus this year was to coverthe seminars which included water-borne technology, nitrogen welding,triage blueprinting, and managerialcourses. I was especially curious onhow they had been updated from lastyear. If you didn’t see my coverage oflast year’s show it might be worth aquick review as several of the speak-ers drew upon their previous presen-tations. Check out my story atautobodynews.com, search ‘Northeast2011’ (select exact phrase).

Shop Differentiation: How to MakeYour Shop Stand Out, with Mark OlsonIn a presentation geared for shop own-ers and managers on how to more suc-cessfully promote their facilities andto set their shop apart from local com-petitors, no one has more of the nec-essary experience and backgroundthan Mark Olson, COO of VeriFactsAutomotive and a well-known indus-try speaker for a couple of decades.

Olson is an accom-plished expert inmany specialties incollision repair buthas particular ex-pertise in vehicledamage assess-ment, proper repairmethods and colli-sion industry

forensic analysis. Starting with a reminder that

shop owners will get no business ifthey do not remember to ‘ask for thecar keys,’ Olson focused on the goalto obtain more business. With the de-cline in the number of industry shops,his seminar attempted to show shopowners and managers what it’s goingto take to stay in business.

Beginning with the assumptionthat quality work will make a shopstand out, Olson admits that thiscomes with a price since standing outtoo much will make competitors try toknock you down. He notes that peoplewill know a shop for two reasons: ifthey do something really great, or ifthey do something really bad.

Drawing on his seminar from lastyear, Olson reminded attendees thatthere are things that people know,things that they are aware they do notknow, and then there are things thatthey are unaware that they don’tknow. Addressing several attendeesdirectly, he proved his point by show-ing that there are many rules in the in-dustry that shop owners are not awareof since the rules change constantly.He stressed that this business is allabout understanding the rules of colli-sion repair.

An example Olson gave of autobody technicians being unaware ofrules was the case of weld-throughprimers. Most weld-through primersstate on their label not to weldthrough, and they must be dabbed oneven though they come in a spray can.See last year’s coverage for more de-tails.

Though the rules change con-stantly, technicians are held account-able to the current rules, so they needto stay up-to-date. Shop owners ormanagers should acquire informationfrom the vehicle manufacturers or anaftermarket service that acquires theinformation from the manufacturerson every car, for every repair. This istheir responsibility since the manufac-turers will not alert shop owners whenthey change their rules. While Olsonadmits that many mistakes result fromshop owners and technicians beingunaware of the current regulations,this can be aided by knowing every-thing about a car from the very begin-ning of the job, when they first writethe estimate to ensure a quality repair.

“The goal of any repair is to putthe vehicle back into the same stateand shape as it was so it performs thesame way in the next collision as it didin this collision and is cosmeticallycorrect,” said Olson.

Switching topics to that of the

counter culture of quality, Olson rein-forced that a “quantity culture” is onein which shops focus on throughput,cycle time and profits, assuming qual-ity will take care of itself. Askingquestions such as “how soon?”, “howfast?” or “how much?” sends the mes-sage to technicians that quantity ismore important than quality.

Olson believes it is necessary toestablish a new culture with a balancebetween quantity and quality wherethere should be a shift from “goingthrough the motions” to everyonebeing committed to the process. It isthe responsibility of each employee todeliver a quality repair to the cus-tomer. Though he insists that everyonewants to do the right thing, doing sorequires everyone knowing what theright thing is.

The four components to a posi-tive repair experience are thoroughdamage assessment and customer

communication, internal quality con-trol stage checks and peer inspections,pre-delivery inspection and estimatereview, and well-defined customer de-livery protocol. Concerning customercommunication, it is useful to learnthe customer’s preference for commu-nicating to best provide customerservice; some customers might prefera personal phone call while others findan email or text to be sufficient.

VeriFacts also suggests using astage-check verification in which thetechnician and a peer inspector signsoff at each step of the repair: Body,Refinish, Assembly, Sublet, Interior &Exterior Clean-up and Final Inspec-tion. This will help reduce the numberof unsatisfied customers and increaseyour CSI.

Olson put it simply: “this is aboutexposing your excellence.”. Some keyways to show the world that a partic-


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The NORTHEAST™ 2012 Trade Show: All About the Seminars

with Rick WhiteShop Management

with Stefan GesterkampPaint Management

with Gonzo WeaverGonzo’s Toolbox

with Richard ArnoldJobber Journal

with Dale DelmegeAsk Dale

Mainstream Media

Automakers’ Actions and Analysisby Autobody News Staff

Shop Showcaseby Autobody News Staff

with Ed AttanasioShop and Product Showcase

with Ed AttanasioConsumer Callout

with Walter DanalevichShop Strategies for Savings

with The Insurance InsiderInside Insurance

with Ed AttanasioCustom Corner

with Chasidy Rae SiskCompany Connections

with Chasidy Rae SiskNortheast News

with Chasidy Rae SiskShop Showcase

with Erica SchroederShop Showcase

with Erica SchroederShop Snapshot

Chasidy Rae Sisk is a freelance technical writer from Wilmington, Delaware, whowrites on a variety of fields and subjects, and grew up in a family of NASCAR fans.She can be contacted at [email protected].

See Trade Show, Page 20

Verifacts’Mark Olson



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County Line Auto Body in Howell, NJ,has been a successful shop for nearlythirty years, but recently they havemade several major improvements tothe business.

Founding owner, Gary GardellaSr. is putting his faith in his two sons:co-owners Rich Gardella and GaryGardella Jr. His close connectionwith his sons has led to some majordecisions in the business designed tobenefit County Line Auto Body andtheir customers.

In 1982, Gary Gardella Sr., alongwith a partner, opened County LineAuto Body as a two-bay shop that lit-erally had been converted from achicken coop. From the very begin-ning, Gardella and his partner hadhigh expectations, working hard toshow local customers through theirdedication and determination that theywould provide quality auto body re-pairs, despite the shop’s chickenishappearance. Over time, the coop shopexpanded, and new employees werehired as customers shared their expe-riences, leading to repeat customersand new clientele.

Some years later when Gardellaand his partner split up, Gardella ded-icated even more time and energy intohis business; however, it was difficultto run a thirty-man operation with lit-tle management to draw upon. Luck-ily, his two sons decided to join thebusiness in 2001. Rich Gardella, 24 atthe time, was finishing college, whileGary Jr., at 21, was working in theshop. Both young men had spent yearsaround the business, working for theirfather after school and during theirsummers. Between the paint and de-tail shops, they understood the basicsof the business. Rich attended schoolin order to learn estimating, whileGary Jr. took on the role of productionmanager.

During this time period, Gary Jr.also became involved in sport compactdrag racing, beginning a successful ca-reer lasting eight years during whichhe won several championships and set

several national records. Whenthe popularity of the sport di-minished in 2008, he becameinvolved in drift car racing,both across the country andoverseas. His team became oneof the best in America. A fewmonths ago, Gary Jr. decidedto step out of motorsports dueto a lack of program partners,

and is now able to focus all of his en-ergy on the family business.

Since his sons became co-own-ers, Gary Sr. says they have “helpedto take the business to another level.”The three Gardella men work closelywith their shop teardown manager,Jay Crisson, to make County LineAuto Body the best it can be. Gary Sr.runs the paint shop and any othershops that are short-handed whileRich manages the office, Gary Jr. is incharge of production, and Jay man-ages teardown and assembly.

With his sons’ involvement,Gardella has recently begun makingseveral big changes to his thirty-year-

old business. The shop has begunusing a new management system andis improving paint efficiency with theDuPont Cost Tracking System. TheGardellas have also been hard at workupdating and preparing for the deliv-ery of new shop equipment. Andwhere better to house said equipmentthan a new building? Gary Sr. has anew building underway for their com-plex. They broke ground in Septem-ber 2011, plan to continue the buildingthrough April, with a June 2012 com-pletion.

County Line Auto Body employsthirty technicians. The shop consists

of multiple buildings on one property,totaling thirty-five production bays.The newest building will add an addi-tional 8000 square feet to the workarea.

Gary Jr. adds that he “is in theprocess of marketing and advertisingthrough social media and local printmagazines, something County Linehas not done before. Rich has beenworking on developing strategies forup-selling customers, which is new toCounty Line, introducing the shop tooutside mechanical work. The only

mechanical work previously broughtin was strictly related to collisionlosses, but now the shop has a greatmechanic and are beginning to intro-duce our customers to many moreservices, setting County Line up as a“one-stop-shop.”

The large shop has plenty ofhardware for major repairs, including

four Chief frame machines,one Celette frame machine,and one Car-O-Liner Speedframe machine. They alsohave two spray booths and oneedging booth, along with spot,MIG and TIG welders, align-ment computers, tire ma-chines, and wheel balancers.By leveraging the size of the

shop, the number of technicians andthe extensive equipment, County LineAuto Body completes between 180and 200 repairs monthly on average.

The shop is I-CAR, ASE, BMW,Nissan and GTR certified. CountyLine Auto Body uses DuPont paints,and though they receive a large mix ofvehicles, they do not typically haveproblems with color-matching. SaysGary Jr., “Color matching is an areawhere we have put a lot of effort toexcel. Like most shops, we do run intocolor matching issues here and there;however, one phone call to ourDuPont rep, and we are able to trou-

bleshoot and resolve the difficultyquickly.”

When contemplating currenttrends in the industry, Gary Jr. notesthat County Line Auto Body has seena difference in the demands of directrepair programs with a lot of theirguidelines becoming stricter which,in turn, produces more work fortheir writers. Additionally, someDRPs are requiring cars to be torndown within twenty-four and forty-eight hours, a time constraint thatplaces an added demand on schedul-

ing and maintaining comple-tion dates for previouslyscheduled vehicles.

As he considers the autobody industry’s future, GaryJr. states “for many collisionshops, I see it being a race tothe bottom. Many shops Iknow of have been looking to

continue and grow their relationshipswith DRPs. Yearly, DRPs are ex-pecting shops to produce more, withthe same monetary figure and thecycle downward continues, which ismaking it very difficult for manynewcomers to keep up with the de-mand.”

County Line Auto Body is wellaware of the stress caused by trying tokeep up with each DRP’s guidelinesas they are affiliated with DRPs fortwenty different insurance companies.Gary Jr. claims, “it seems to me weget into the conversation of hiring newwriters once a month because of theincrease in demand, deadlines and cri-teria.”

Despite all the stress caused bymanaging so many DRPs, CountyLine Auto Body maintains a positiveattitude as they focus on customerservice and increasing contact withcustomers to meet their expectations.The Gardellas have even made plansto get out and see the AASP/NJ North-east™ Trade Show, a luxury they havenot previously been able to indulge in.(See related coverage this issue.)

County Line Auto Body278 Alexander Ave.Howell, NJ 07731732-363-5904www.countylineautonj.com

County Line Auto Body: NJ Shop Grows From Chicken Coop to Multi-Building Complex






Mainstream Media













Chasidy Rae Sisk is a freelance technical writer from Wilmington, Delaware, whowrites on a variety of fields and subjects, and grew up in a family of NASCAR fans.She can be contacted at [email protected].


It’s been said that a picture is worth athousand words. Yet, with today’sdigital cameras in cell phones, even,pictures are worth less than a dime adozen. Yesterday’s promotionalpieces, flyers, brochures and evenwebsite pages, all may have nicephotos, but people are less impressedwith them these days. To really makean impact on a potential source of re-ferral business, you need to get themto come to the shop and see the realthing. One live contact is easilyworth more than a thousand pictures.

With spring arriving, this couldbe a good time to spruce up the shopand push for some live visits by re-ferral coordinators you’ve been chas-ing. Over the winter some aspects ofyour shop may have fallen into disre-pair or worse. Getting an entire shopshowcase-ready is generally not aneasy task. Spare parts storage and thepaint mixing room may have becomemajor eyesores. Walk through theshop and imagine you have an insur-ance executive or dealership ownerwalking along with you. Try lookingat your place from his or her eyes andtake some notes. These could be theimprovements that make the differ-ence in how your shop is valued as aplace to refer customers.

A few standard interior-decorat-ing measures can make a major dif-ference in how your shop isperceived. If you often have spareparts or some other eyesore in youroffice or waiting area, a useful deviceto hide that kind of thing is the roomdivider. These are generally just acouple of free-standing 2’x 6’ or 3’x6’ panels hinged together, but de-pending on how they’re painted or

covered with fabric or used to displaypromotional posters, they can be asignificant visual asset in an other-wise drab room. If the office or wait-ing area is uncomfortably small, amirrored wall gives an illusion oflarger space and also reflects light tobrighten a dimly lit room.

Although a body shop is in theautomotive painting business, it’ssurprising how many shops fail to ad-equately paint their buildings, drive-ways and equipment. Just paintingthe spray booth doors makes themlook newer and better maintained at aglance. The same is true of the paintstorage room. Older equipment likeancient frame machines and weldingequipment can be spruced up quicklywith a coat of the metallic paint youuse on vehicles every day. Dealershipshops are more likely to have identi-fying signs over bays indicating bodywork, frame work, welding, etc.

Dealership driveways also usu-ally have painted lines to direct cus-tomers to various parts of the facility.But an independent shop can add aperspective of professionalism byadding a few signs around to desig-nate how various bays are used andperhaps some painted lines on drive-ways. These simple cosmetic meas-ures will make a major difference tovisitors accustomed to well organizedand generally very clean offices.

While these improvementsmight be made to impress an insur-ance executive or dealership owner,other changes might be added formore specific visitors. Some shopshave begun to take advantage of the“baby boom generation” achievingthe status of “seniors,” and looking

for ways to alleviate physical prob-lems that can come with aging. Spe-cial handicap access elements aroundthe shop can assist an older persontaking a shop tour and the shop couldprofit from offering and installinghandicap-assistance devices likepower running boards. Drivingschools have begun to multiply aspublic schools drop driver trainingclasses. Some shops invite studentdrivers in to look at heavy hits toalert them to what can result fromhazardous driving. A shop showcasemight add a display to that effect.Also a shop that caters a bit to moth-ers and parents should consideradding some child-entertainmentitems that could be emphasized whenshowing a mother or parent aroundthe shop. This kind of conveniencecan make a major difference when aprospect is comparing competitorshops in your area.

While all of these improvementswould significantly help sell yourshop to prospective referral sourcevisitors, the impact on shop person-nel shouldn’t be overlooked. Spruc-ing up a work bay and perhapsmaking some improvement in the ap-pearance of standard worker clothingtells a technician his or her work isvalued and especially appreciated atthis time. This same technician islikely to also present a better P.R.image when people are comingthrough on a tour. Efficiency studieshave shown that personnel in generalperform better in well organized, at-tractive spaces. You may have startedout to simply make improvements toimpress anyone coming through on ashop tour, but you could also bepleasantly surprised to find that yourimprovements have reduced cycletime and made a major difference inyour financial bottom line.


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Sprucing Up Your Shop For Spring

Custom Cornerwith Rich Evans

On Creative Marketingwith Thomas Franklin

Action Countswith Lee Amaradio Jr.

with Sheila LoftusYour Turn

Opinions Countwith Dick Strom

Shop Showcasewith Janet Chaney

Industry Overviewwith Janet Chaney

Industry Interviewwith Janet Chaney

Industry Insightwith John Yoswick

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

The U.S. National Highway TrafficSafety Administration and NissanNorth American has issued a recallwarning for 2003-2005 model yearInfiniti Q45 cars, according to Con-sumer Reports. The luxury sedansmay have electrical wiring that, overtime, may develop a resistancewhich prevents the front seat-mounted side air bags from deploy-ing during a collision.

According to NHTSA, thefault lies with the wiring connec-

tors used in the Infiniti Q45 luxurycar. Nissan says it believes about5,777 Infiniti Q45 sedans may havethis issue with front side air bagelectrical systems. Nissan will no-tify Q45 owners of the recall start-ing March 12. Owners will beinstructed to bring in their recalledInfiniti Q45 sedans to local dealer-ships. Mechanics there will inspectand modify the side air bag wiringfree of charge. For more informationcall 800-647-7261.

Infiniti Recalls 2003-2005 Q45 Sedans


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ular shop is great is through word-of-mouth, Internet, especially socialmedia, and advertising. It is also use-ful to give customers tours of theshop, just as giving an insurance com-pany a tour to demonstrate flow,equipment, special certifications andso forth is helpful in convincing themto add your shop to their DRP andrefer their business in your direction.

VeriFacts’ research finds thatshops tend to improve in quality overtime. The typical pattern shows an im-provement in quality, followed by adrop before the shop finds a steadypattern. Olson emphasizes that it onlytakes a month to create a habit whichis necessary for those looking for sus-tained change over time. The manageror owner drives this pattern, and ifthey enforce a particular behaviour fora solid month, employees are morelikely to accept this as habit and con-tinue adhering to it.

Discussing quality dimensions,Olson says the five key elements arerepair planning, equipment, materi-

als/parts, process consistency and re-pair quality. Repair planning meansensuring that the shop has the requi-site systems, credentials and access torepair information, while the equip-ment aspect concerns making sure thatessential equipment is well-main-tained, accessible and working prop-erly. Shops should make sure thecorrect materials and parts are beingutilized also. Process consistency en-tails setting up and enforcing standardworking procedures “to ensure con-sistency and sustainability of repairoutcome,” and for repair quality, “theassessor will verify repair quality byobserving in-process vehicles andtechnicians’ work to validate confor-mance to VQ standards.”

A process that Olson recom-mends implementing is working oncars using the OEM recommenda-tions. It is necessary to follow manu-facturers’ instructions by-the-book asthey have reasons for their require-ments, and disregarding their rules canlead to unsafe repairs. The fact thatmistakes occur in this area is a failureof the process, not a failure of techni-cians, according to Olson. He claimsthat there needs to be consistency in

the market for shop owners to exposetheir excellence.

OEM Procedures v. Repair StandardsDecisions for Estimology: Part 1OEM Repair Procedures vs. RepairStandards was a two part seminar,given by Larry Montanez III of P&LConsultants and IACDA, which ad-dressed repair standards: where they

are now andwhat’s likely inthe future. ManyOEM’s repairstandards werecovered, includingdiscussion of theOEM positions,repair procedures

and the potential development of re-pair standards within the industry.Montanez broke his seminar into twoparts beginning with P&L’s missionstatement: “Our training programswill assist the Collision and InsuranceIndustries to work together during allstages of a physical damage claim in aspirit of fairness, intelligence, cooper-ation and accuracy. This will help toserve a vehicle’s owner, the mutualcustomer, with fast, safe and pre-loss

condition repairs that are fiscally rea-sonable under OEM and industry ac-cepted practices.”

Montanez began with the OEM’sself interests: liability protection,component failure supported by test-ing, government regulations, con-sumer advocates, IIHS crash testingand NHTSA investigations, lawsuitsand court decisions, and warran-tee/defects attributed to design flaws.OEM position statements were cre-ated for the purposes of or because ofOEM liability protection, componentsfailures supported by case studies,lawsuits and court decisions, re-engi-neering design flaws, ensuring safe re-pairs and product, copyright andtrademark protection.

Getting specific with OEMguidelines from several manufactur-ers:

Montanez illustrated thatAcura/Honda forbids the use of after-market or alternative components aswell as the replacement of structuralcomponents. They forbid the use ofsalvaged airbags or other components,as well as sectioning frame compo-nents, bonding, and steel or aluminumwheel repairs.


Continued from Page 12

Trade Show

Larry Montanez III

Audi dictates which spot weldersand bench systems can be used as wellas specific repair equipment, specifictraining for ASF and steel, specificwelding, and repair procedures andparts. They also specify the use ofOEM components and wheels and de-fine structural repair.

BMW specifies the use of spotwelders, bench systems, repair equip-ment, rivet-bonding, steering geardamage, and other repair proceduresand parts. They also demand certaintraining for steel and dictate the use ofOEM components and wheels, a spe-cific body filler thickness and PDF re-quirements.

Chrysler/Jeep’s OEM guidelinesrequire certain weld bonding proce-dures, structural component usage,and the use of heat during repairswhile prohibiting reconditionedwheels and salvaged air bags. GeneralMotors forbids the use of salvagedairbags and reconditioned wheels, butthey allow recycled OEM compo-nents. They specify panel bondingprocedures, clipping procedures andPDF procedures.

Montanez discussed the OEMguidelines of several additional manu-

facturers, but most were some varia-tion of the above. More importantly,he advised where to find the repairprocedures. In addition to OEM web-sites, shop owners or managers can goto i-car.com or nastf.org. Both providelinks to OEM websites, or they can goto ALLDATA collision’s websitewhich provides access to approxi-mately 95% of OEM information on-line. Montanez emphasizes theimportance of acquiring OEM infor-mation for each repair made in a shop.

Noting that “repair standards aremade up by people who are trying toappease a different group of peoplewho have no business being involvedin collision repair, and who are justlooking to save money on it”, Mon-tanez noted that if repair standards arecreated, they should be decided scien-tifically by a group including repairspecialists, engineers, and so forth. Hespecifies that creating repair standardsare only a good idea where none existand the manufacturer refuses to re-lease any. OEM repair standards can-not be rewritten to save moneybecause, as Montanez reminded hisaudience, “when you start playingaround for money, you’re risking peo-

ple’s lives.”

OEM Procedures v. Repair StandardsDecisions for Estimology: Part 2Continuing his seminar on OEM andrepair standards, Larry Montanez IIIof P&L Consultants and IACDA fo-cused his second session on the prosand cons of developing General Re-pair Standards, as well as the legal is-sues involved, how they should bedeveloped and who should developthem.

Opening with the topic of whowants repair standards, Montanez ex-plained that collision repairers wantthem because they are untrained andtoo lazy to search for them on OEMwebsites. MLO shop owners wantthem to make insurance “partners”happy, since insurers desire repairstandards because they are greedy andcovet savings. Aftermarket suppliersare also driven by greed and the desireto make sales, while many industry as-sociations are influenced by insurers.However, Montanez insists that theidea of creating repair standards is notcompletely wrong.

The pros of creating repair stan-dards are as follows: more available

procedures, lower insurer costs, lowerseverity, fewer totaled vehicles, morerepaired vehicles, better insurer rela-tions, more use of used parts, moresectioning procedures and more partsoptions. Meanwhile, Montanez listedthe cons as: more improper repairs,more liability exposure, more fatali-ties, more injuries, more diminishedvalue lawsuits, more shop lawsuits,dangerous to motorists and more badbusiness decisions.

If repair standards were created,Montanez insisted that it should beginwith the formation of an independentgroup comprised of OEM representa-tives, collision repairers, engineers,physicists, metallurgists, industry ex-perts and I-CAR Tech Center’s JasonBartanen and Steve Marks. Addi-tionally, repair standards should onlybe created where none currently existand only after a request letter to theOEM has failed. They should also besupported by crash testing and com-puter animated drawings, and theyshould be reviewable every sixmonths. Montanez points out that thisprocess should not include insurancecompanies because “no one cares




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what the insurance companies think.”Using a case study of a business

decision, Montanez talked about a2006 Nissan 350z which was soldafter chroming the factory rims. Onemonth later, in October 2006, theowner was driving northbound on Rt.405 in Los Angeles while an LAPDmotorcycle traveled southbound whenwheel separation occurred, causingthe wheel to hop the median and hitthe police officer, throwing him 150feet from the point of contact. Whenthe car’s owner purchased the vehicleat a local dealership, he was offered achrome rim package, and the job wassublet. (Search ‘Nagel’ at autobo-dynews.com for this story from 2011.)

Unfortunately, Nissan has pro-hibited chroming on their rims sincethe mid-1990s since they noted achange in metallurgical propertieswhich caused problems with holdingstrength. The dealership paid $2.75million between the salesman, theowner and the technician, while the$20 million case against the sublet

jobber, owner, technician and evendriver is still pending. Montanezclaimed that every shop that uses anoutside rim source promotes improperrepairs.

In the case of improper repairs, li-ability falls on the repair facility, theowner personally, the technician (insome states) and sublet jobbers. Thesupplier can also be sued, but the in-surer will never be in the courtroom foran improper repair. In the instance ofliability, safety factors are important, soonly the OEM guidelines matter.

OEM procedures are derived usingthe scientific method which includes re-search, experiments, analysis and soforth. Their engineering design processworks as follows: define the problem,brainstorm, background research, spec-ify criteria or protocols, create alterna-tive solutions, choose the best solution,develop a design proposal, build a pro-totype or mode, test and evaluate or re-design, refine and retest, create orproduce, and finally, communicate theresults. The goal behind these engi-neering principles is to keep the occu-pants safe, therefore it is very importantnot to change the parameters of OEMguidelines. Shops should also heed

manufacturers’ repair areas.In closing, Montanez defined the

cost of business, specifying that mate-rials are not a cost of the shop. Theseshould be paid by the insurance com-pany or customer, so shops shouldnever ignore OEM procedures to cutcosts as this could lead to unsafe re-pairs which could result in injuries ordeaths to the occupants as well as po-tential claims against the shop. P&LConsultants can be found at pnLEsti-mology.com.

Drying Waterborne: What You Need toKnow NOWTaught by Tom Beck, CEO of FutureCare, the seminar about Drying Wa-terborne taught many important prin-ciples concerning how to properly dry

waterborne paints.Since Beck hasbeen involved inthe conversion towaterborne since2003, his goal inthis seminar wasto teach attendeesabout the realities

of converting to waterborne in an at-tempt to best prepare them for the

transition.Beck began by showing that fric-

tion slows down the air touching thesurface, thus there is a small area sur-rounding a car in a paint booth whereair velocity is decreased. This is thefriction micro barrier which extendstwo to three inches around the carwhere the air is pulled in tight. In orderto dry waterborne paint, it is necessaryto open up this micro barrier.

Laminar air flow is air that movesin one direction, and though this iswhat is used in spray booths, it is theenemy of waterborne which needs amulti-directional air flow in order todry efficiently and effectively. Thoughair velocity is more important thantemperature, increasing air velocityand temperature is even better.

When researching how to bestdry waterborne, Beck found that whileincreasing the amount of air, cubicfeet per minute, by adding fans willreduce dry time, it increases energyconsumption, thus costing moremoney. Switching tactics, he investi-gated the effectiveness of increasingthe speed of the air, linear feet perminute, and found that it is a very use-ful method in drying waterborne, even



Trade Show

Tom Beck

more so if the temperature is also in-creased. By offering a system withmultiple nozzles, he is able to acceler-ate speed and increase the temperatureof the air simultaneously.

An issue with waterborne paintsis the rate of evaporation as waterdries slower than solvent-based paints,evaporating chemically at its ownpace. Humidity is the enemy of wa-terborne paint, as is the dew pointwhich is the point at which the aircannot hold any more moisture. Thus,it becomes necessary to condition theair to accepting more moisture inorder to dry waterborne paints moreeffectively.

Warm air is less dense than coldair and is thus able to absorb moremoisture. Unfortunately, cold air set-tles lower to the ground since it ismore dense, and this leads to an inef-fective method of drying paint whenusing a downdraft air flow which willpush air down over the car, causingthe ends of the car to dry much fasteras more air is being pushed throughthese small spaces between the vehi-cle and the walls of the booth.

Accelerated Drying Systems canreduce flashoff and energy costs be-

cause they increase productivity by al-lowing more cars to be processedthrough the booth. Beck classifies sys-tems that use compressed air, such ashand-held dryers, as stage one systemswhich consume a lot of energy. Stagetwo systems do not use compressedair. Such systems include ceiling fans,booth pods and Jun-Air QADS.

Jun-Air’s Quick AcceleratedDrying Systems (QADS) providetwice the velocity of a booth pod, plusthey increase the air temperature bythirty degrees by redirecting thehottest possible air from the plenumdown to the car. Beck said the tem-perature will need to be greatly in-creased in a system that forces airdownward in order to reach the goalof 140°F in bake mode, but since coldair sinks and warm air settle on top ofit, the lower surfaces of the car willstill not reach the necessary tempera-tures for the paint to dry properly. Thisis critically important as the paint willmove if a clear coat is applies before100% of the water in the paint is evap-orated. By bringing air from theplenum through ducts on the side ofthe booth, the QADS allow all surfaceareas on the vehicle to reach the nec-

essary temperature to dry effectively.Additionally, the QADS contains

a ionization bar which neutralizesstatic electricity within the booth.Since static electricity is the enemy inthe spray booth, the QADS system dis-perses positive and negative ions in theair, allowing flake to orient properly sothat the paint will look the same in allplaces. The system can be retrofittedwith AFC, Accudraft, Blowtherm, Fu-ture Cure, Omia, SprayBake, Sunkissand Welbuilt, among others.

Painting With Blended NitrogenMichael Haydell, President of HaydellIndustries, taught the seminar on paint-

ing with blendednitrogen to teachthe secrets of paint-ing with nitrogentechnology insteadof compressed air,claiming that it willcause a significantdrop in the use of

wet materials, a dramatic increase inbooth through-put and a large decreasein the cost of booth exhaust filters.

During the seminar, Haydell dis-cussed his company’s nitrogen tech-

nologies compared to general com-pressed air spraying systems. Be-cause of moisture, temperature andstatic changes, the viscosity of paint-ing material changes each time it issprayed, and it is therefore not re-peatable in every instance. Addition-ally, a typical air compressor buildsstatic, and colder, dry air is more stat-ically charged which results in thematerial separating once applied tothe substrate.

According to Haydell, “static ismaking the material do what it wantsit to do, not what the painter wants itto do.” He adds that this is the case re-gardless of whether the reducer is sol-vent-based or waterborne.

Showing two videos to comparespraying with compressed air and withnitrogen, Haydell demonstrated thatwith compressed air, some parts of thesubstrate were never touched by thepaint, even after three coats. Mean-while, the substrate was fully coveredin only two coats when applied withHaydell Industries’ perfect fluid car-rier.

As another means of showing theperfect covering technique of his fluid


Michael Haydell



by Ed Attanasio

When it opened its doors more thaneight decades ago, Pacific Coast Lac-quer (PCL) Automotive was providingproducts for body shops painting auto-motives such as Ford Model A’s, Hud-son Roadsters and Austin 7’s. Today,the brands and names have changed,

but PCL still markets a wide range ofpaint-related products to the collisionindustry, including surface cleaners,pre-treatment coatings, primer surfac-ers, primer sealers, single stage top-coats, aerosols and solvents.

The body shop business haschanged in a big way since 1929, backin the days before DRPs or labor ratesurveys. But according to Ruben La-guna, PCL’s Director of Sales andMarketing, quality products backed bysolid customer service is still a formulafor success and longevity. Since beinghired by the company in 1988, Laguna

has seen PCL grow and change withthe times and is proud of the com-pany’s role by providing solutions forbody shops that are 100% compliantand make financial sense as well.

“I tell my customers that ourproducts offer all three things: Per-formance, quality and price,” Lagunastated. “That’s why they represent a

great value across the board. You cansave money, but are you sacrificingquality or performance as a result?And just because you pay more, doesthat necessarily mean you’re gettingreal value?”

Manufacturers of automotive re-finishing products have come andgone over the years and PCL is proud

to be the only manufacturerof its type still doing businessin California. By developingnew products through its ex-tensive R&D efforts at itsheadquarters and factory inLos Angeles, PCL has devel-oped a wide range of innova-tive products, includingseveral that can be used with

both solvent and waterborne paint sys-tems,” Laguna explained.

Body shops make up 85% ofPCL’s total revenues through morethan 300 paint suppliers and jobbersstatewide. The company’s best-sellingproducts are its primers and clears andwithin the last few years, the manufac-turer’s flat black and flat clear topcoatshave become extremely popular, espe-cially with customizers making thefashionable trend more commonplace.

Twenty-four years ago, changesin California’s environmental lawsdrastically changed the types of sol-vents that had to be used for cleaningpaint guns. PCL quickly became thenumber one provider of these types ofsolvents in the California market, be-cause they were able to change rapidlyand adhere to the new requirementsquickly.

In addition, all of PCL’s compli-ant cleaning solvents adhere to SouthAir Coast Air Quality ManagementDistrict (SCAQMD) Rule 1171,which began requiring more water-borne cleaners starting in 1999. All ofPCL’s products are designed to meetand/or exceed local and national envi-ronment and air quality laws and re-quirements, according to Laguna.

Exemplary hands-on customerservice has long been a key element to

PCL’s continued success, Laguna ex-plained. “If you use our products, youalso get our knowledge and our yearsand years of experience. We respond

quickly to questions and concernswithout fail, and if one of the bodyshops using our products gets cited forsome reason, we’re there to representthem and address the violation. Itdoesn’t happen very often, because weformulate our products to be 100%compliant across the board, but whenit does, we do everything we can torectify it.”

Training in order to learn the ap-plication techniques associated withany of PCL’s products is also alwaysavailable, Laguna said. “Our products

are very easy-to-use, so most of ourcustomers don’t require training. Butif they want it, we will come out thereand train them right at their shop. Weback every product we make andthat’s why we’ve been serving the au-tomotive industry continually for solong.”

By making products that have be-come invaluable to body shopsthroughout California over thedecades, PCL has survived several re-cessions without taking a hard hit, La-guna said. “Between 2007 and 2008,

when the economy took a beating, weincreased revenues by 20-25%. Whentimes are lean, more body shops buyour cleaners, primers and sealers par-ticularly, because they know they willdo the job, saving them time andmoney.”

Susan Simmons is a 30-year vet-eran of the automotive paint industryand is the store manager of Finish-Master in Montclair, California. Serv-icing approximately 200 SouthernCalifornia body shops, Simmons hasbeen working with PCL since she en-tered the field, she said.

“PCL has definitely found sev-eral niches over the years and by pro-viding compliant products ataffordable prices, they’ve done verywell,” Simmons said. “We sell theirprimers, surfacers, sealers, clears andsolvents to a wide range of differentcustomers, from custom shops to do-it-yourselfers to hobbyists, restorationshops and of course, regular bodyshops. We get customers who call usall the time and ask specifically forPCL’s products, especially their flat

black paint fast-drying prod-uct.”

Simmons values the sup-port and accountability of-fered by PCL, she said.“Paul Casanova is my PCLrep, and he is always avail-able and willing to help us inany way. He has assisted usin training and on numerousspecial projects. If we ever

have any issues with PCL products,Paul is there to do whatever it takes tomake it right. If there is any hint oftrouble, he replaces the product with-out question. PCL definitely followsthrough and stands behind all of theirproducts, which makes working withthem a no-brainer.”

PCL Automotive3150 East Pico Blvd.Los Angeles, CA 90023(800) 752-1566www.pclautomotive.com

PCL Has Been Primed Since 1929 with Clear Solutions for Shops

Guardian Auto Glass LLC announcedFebruary 27 it has formed a new com-pany, Guardian Auto Glass Bloom-ington, LLC to acquire the assets ofGlass Specialty Company based inBloomington, Illinois. Guardian AutoGlass provides glass repair and re-placement services for automobiles,

buses, trucks and recreational vehiclesand now has more than 75 locationsthroughout the United States. GlassSpecialty began operations in 1957and currently provides auto glass re-placement and repair services frommultiple servicing locations acrossIllinois.

Ron Talley, current CEO of GlassSpecialty will serve as vice presidentand managing partner of the new com-pany. “We at Glass Specialty are ex-cited to partner with Guardian AutoGlass and look forward to expandingour business in Illinois and in adjacentcommunities,” said Talley.

“Glass Specialty is a well estab-lished business with experienced anddedicated employees,” said Marc Tal-bert, vice president and managing part-ner of Guardian Auto Glass. “This newpartnership will provide Guardian AutoGlass the opportunity to expand ourfootprint.”

Guardian Auto Glass acquires Glass Specialty Company of Bloomington, Illinois


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ners off before doing the sides. Be sureto “under mask” a bit, which in the endwill create a darker line highlight.Then, using your sponge and gloved

hand, create the wood-grain look on theside panels, as you did on the top andbottom. Remove the masking on thecorners and allow the paint to dry.

(5) Next, we need to mask theouter frame to create a beveled look.With ¼-inch tape, mask from the sidewhere you want the light source to ap-pear to come from. Do the same withthe bottom edge. Then mask theframe panels, leaving only the bottomedges of the frame exposed.

(7) Airbrush the areas left un-masked. This will darken them andcreate the illusion of shadows.

(8) After creating the darkershadow lines, re-mask over the linesin preparation of creating a lighter,highlight line. Once you airbrush theunmasked areas of the frame, making

it darker, the area covered by the tapewill leave a lighter, highlight line.

(10) Shadow and Toning. Next,reduce the same lighter color with aclear basecoat T490 at 2:1, and re-duce 4:1 with reducer. This willmake the color more transparent.Airbrush the outer frame panels toadd tone and accentuate the grain inthe wood. When the ¼-inch lines areunmasked it will leave the lighterhighlights.

Painting the Center Panel(11) After it’s dried, re-mask the outerframe, and remove the masking fromthe center—you’re ready to create thewood grain effect on the middlepanel. With the sponge, use the sametechnique as the outer frame to applythe color. Start at one end and drag the

sponge in straight lines across thepanel. Keep applying coats and as thepaint begins to dry, it’ll get sticky andcause the sponge to drag. This createsa streaked, grained look.

(12) Now you want to add tonewith a paintbrush and the darker, red-dish shade of brown. Dip the brushinto the mixing cup and tool it out, solittle is left on the bristles. Using lightstrokes, swipe the brush across thepanel, creating the darker streaks.First, apply strokes horizontallyacross the panel. Be sure to leavestreaks to mirror the inconsistentcolor of natural wood.

(13) Next, airbrush the panel invertical, up ‘n down strokes. This iscalled “ribbing.”

(14) If you’d like to add a simplelogo, this is the stage to do it. Usingthe same paint you used to tone thewood, airbrush the cut-out of thelogo. This will create a darker high-light around the letters, creating a de-bossed effect.

For more information about theproducts used in this project, pleasevisit www.ppg.com.



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And Now We Offer Price Matching throughour Newly Announced

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CARSTAR Expands Salesand Marketing TeamsCARSTAR Auto Body Repair Ex-perts is expanding its corporate lead-ership and service teams to addindustry experience and expertise,naming David B. James as VP ofMarketing and Sharon Mazanec asRegional Service Manager for theMidwest.

James is an award-winningmarketing professional with over 15years of experience leading corpo-rate strategy and marketing initia-tives. James brings a broadbackground in traditional and onlinemarketing.

Joining James on theCARSTAR Team is SharonMazanec, CARSTAR’s MidwestRegional Service Manager.Mazanec comes to CARSTAR withover 25 years experience in the col-lision repair industry and was re-cently named one of 2011’s MostInfluential Women in the CollisionRepair Industry by AkzoNobel.Mazanec has an extensive back-ground in the collision repair indus-try including Allen SamuelsEnterprises and Sterling AutobodyCenters, among other collision re-pair companies in Texas.

Fix Auto Appoints Tim Clark asSenior VP, Insurance ServicesFix Auto USA announced the ap-pointment of Tim Clark, CPCU, assenior vice president of insuranceservices. As a key member of FixAuto USA’s senior managementteam, Clark will be charged withstrengthening Fix Auto’s existing in-surance relationships and implement-ing new strategic partnerships. Inaddition, Clark will oversee the FixAuto insurance services department,including the Fix Full PerformanceClaims Solution (FFPCS) program.

Before joining Fix Auto, Clarkled Performance Claims where hewas instrumental in launching thenetwork management technologyplatform used by four of the top eightU.S. insurers. Prior to PerformanceClaims, Clark was the vice presidentof insurance services at Safelite AutoGlass, where he was responsible fordeveloping Safelite’s claims out-sourcing strategy for extending man-aged claims solutions to Property andCasualty insurers. Clark began his in-surance claims career at Safeco In-surance, holding a variety of fieldmanagement and corporate positionsbefore becoming an elected officer ofthe company.

PSE Appoints Guy Barnes asVP, Sales & MarketingPainters Supply & Equipment Co.(PSE) has announced the promotionof O. Guy Bargnes to the position ofsenior vice president, sales and mar-keting effective March 12, 2012.Bargnes has served as vice-presidentof sales and marketing since joiningthe company in June, 2010. “Guy hasbeen instrumental in driving sales andmarket share growth of our automo-tive refinish business,” said PSEPresident, Patrick Mayette. “He hasalso lead PSE’s Learning Center ini-tiative to deliver the best value-addedprograms to our customers.”

Bargnes will be taking on addi-tional responsibility in 2012 leadingthe development of the specialtycoatings group which was recentlyannounced at PSE’s national salesmeeting. He will continue to repre-sent Painters Supply on the followingindustry trade organizations: Auto-motive Aftermarket Industries Asso-ciation (AAIA) where he is PBESChairman until May, 2013, NationalAuto Body Council (NABC) andCollision Industry Conference (CIC).

Prior to joining PSE, Bargnesheld senior level sales and marketingpositions at BASF Corporation.

Mitchell’s Claims Triage isAvailable to CarriersMitchell has announced the immedi-ate availability of Claims Triage, atechnology solution created specifi-cally to streamline resource alloca-tion decision-making for physicaldamage claims. Claims Triage al-lows insurance carriers to determinethe most efficient resource for an as-signment at First Notice of Loss(FNOL), thereby improving cus-tomer satisfaction by acceleratingclaims settlement.

“Mitchell is continuously striv-ing to improve the insurance claimsexperience with the most innovativesolutions, driven by our data-centricapproach to high performance claimsmanagement,” said Paul Rosen-stein, Vice President for Mitchell.

“Claims Triage is another com-pelling example of our commitmentto serving the unique property claimsneeds of our insurance clients.”

Claims Triage eliminates as-signment guesswork by definingquestions and criteria around the sta-tus of the vehicle. Claims Triage isfully integrated within MitchellWorkCenter™.

To learn more, please go toMitchell.com/WorkCenter.


BMW of GreenwichPace BMW of Mamaroneck110 Midland Ave.Port Chester, NY 10573-4943(800) 926-9727(914) 937-0312 Fax

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Babylon HondaWest Baby lon

631-669-5800Dept. Hours:

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Brewster HondaBrewster

845-278-4177Dept. Hours:

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

Dick Ide HondaRochester

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

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

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Lamacchia HondaSyracuse

315-471-7278Dept. Hours:

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

Lia Honda of AlbanyAlbany

800-272-6741518-482-2598

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

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

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

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Ray Laks HondaWest Seneca

716-824-7852Dept. Hours:

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800-883-0002856-649-1584

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

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Rossi HondaVine land

800-893-3030856-692-4449

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Route 22 HondaHi l ls ide

973-705-9100Dept. Hours:

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Apple HondaYork

800-960-9041717-848-2600

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

[email protected]

Baierl HondaWexford

724-940-2006Dept. Hours:


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

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

Mike Piazza HondaLanghorne

215-702-2614215-702-2615

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

Shadyside HondaPi t tsburgh

800-468-2090412-390-2908

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

[email protected]

Sussman HondaRoslyn

800-682-2914215-657-3301


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Acura of WestchesterWestchester

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Curry AcuraScarsdale

800-725-2877914-472-7406


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Northeast AcuraLatham

877-525-4029518-785-4105

Dept. Hours:M-F 8-5

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Paragon AcuraWoodside

718-507-3990Dept. Hours:

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

Smithtown AcuraSt . James

888-832-8220631-366-4114

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888-883-2884856-649-1884


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856-722-9600Dept. Hours:


Apple AcuraYork

877-5APPLE5717-849-6639

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800-246-7457724-935-0800


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866-50-ACURA215-943-7000


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877-860-3954610-967-6500


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Autobody News April 2012NEW YORK • NEW JERSEY • PENNSYLVANIA • DELAWARE


Infiniti has launched a new nationwideInfiniti Certified Collision Repair Net-work, a comprehensive program de-signed to recognize and distinguish bodyshops that meet or exceed standards forrepair work, training, equipment and de-livery of Infiniti customer service.

The new certification program isopen to both Infiniti retailer-ownedand independent collision shops.

“The purpose of the certificationprogram is to provide the resources tohelp ensure consistency of the repairof Infiniti vehicles on a national basis,”said Carnie Colliver, senior manager,Parts and Service, Infiniti Americas.

“Each Infiniti owner that comesinto these certified facilities presentsadditional face-to-face opportunitiesto reinforce the Infiniti Total Owner-ship Experience.”

The certification program will beconducted in conjunction with DuPontPerformance Coatings (DPC), whichwill assist in the implementation ofthe program’s certification process,and I-CAR, the Inter-Industry Confer-ence on Auto Collision Repair, whichwill conduct technician training.

“Facilities that have the willing-ness to participate in this programmust have the commitment to achievehigher standards in the collision repairindustry. This program will be a plat-form to satisfy all aspects of their cus-tomers’ automotive service needs,”said Colliver.

● Infiniti Certified Collision Re-pair Facilities will be able to distin-

guish their facility from non-Certifiedrepairers, by an ever expanding mar-keting package including but not lim-ited to:

● A shop plaque acknowledgingto customers the facility is a memberof the Infiniti Collision Repair Net-work and recognized as meeting therequirements set forth by Infiniti

● Customer marketing materialsexplaining the benefits of using thecertified shop network for repairs andthe use of OEM collision parts

● Exclusive website for InfinitiCertified Collision Repair Facilities toobtain program and technical infor-mation

● Infiniti owner awareness mar-keting initiative

● Shop locator for owners toidentify Certified shops in their area

“The overriding goal is to pro-vide a better customer experience—with an assurance of safety throughthe repair process and facility stan-dardization, and the financial preser-vation of the vehicle to help minimizediminished value after collision re-pairs,” added Colliver.

“Certified network collision repairfacilities will deliver a professional re-lationship consistent with the Infinitibrand—and enjoy the added prestige ofbeing recognized by Infiniti as meetingour stringent factory standards.”

For more information on en-rolling contact the Infiniti collisiongroup via email at: [email protected]

Infiniti Launches National CertifiedCollision Repair Network

Chrysler Group’s Mopar Brand hasannounced that enrollment is nowopen for the newly launched ChryslerRecognized Certified Collision RepairFacility program. This program in-volves the services of Assured Per-formance Network and allows dealersand independent collision repair facil-ities to meet the qualifications neces-sary to be recognized by Chrysler as acollision repair facility of choice forits Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Fiat andRam vehicle owners.

Chrysler’s program is managedby Assured Performance Networkand is designed to benefit OEMparts purchases and ensure customersatisfaction via Certificates of Au-thenticity (see sidebar below).

Under the program, shops willbecome a “Chrysler Recognized Cer-tified Collision Repair Facility,” andreceive official signage from Moparwith Chrysler Group logos. The certi-fication opens the shop for approvalfor other programs, not yet specified.

Member shops will receive 5%rebates on 100% OEM Chrysler col-lision repair parts. When repairs arecompleted with OEM collision repairparts, a Write Certificate of Authen-ticity, to help the resale value of thecustomer’s vehicle, will be created forthe customer’s records. Updates willbe made to the CARFAX vehicle re-port showing 100-percent OEM partswere used in the repair, and that aChrysler Recognized Certified Colli-sion Repair Facility made the repairs.

Shops will also receive a busi-ness development report to help eval-uate the business and identify keyimprovemments.

“We announced earlier this yearthat Mopar would be changing theentire ownership experience of ourvehicles, and this program is anotherimportant step forward,” said TonyBrenders, Vice President of Techni-cal Service Operations, Mopar.“Working with Assured PerformanceNetwork, we will not only expandour repair capabilities across theU.S., we will also ensure that thework performed will be to the highestlevel of quality.”

The new certification process re-quires key business standards includ-ing:

● Road to Gold: Attaining andmaintaining I-CAR Gold Class Pro-fessional shop status

● Minimum welding standards:Owning and utilizing squeeze typeresistance spot-welding equipmentwhich duplicates the original assem-bly process

● Minimum measurement stan-dards: Utilizing structural straighten-ing equipment with three- dimensionalmeasurements

The program launches on March26, 2012. Shops interested in begin-ning the certification process canvisit:www.ChryslerCertifiedShop.com formore details and program registra-tion.

Chrysler Launches Certified CollisionRepair Facility Program

Assured Performance Network Offers Other OEM RewardsChrysler joins GM and Nissan in thecertified collision shop program man-aged by Assured Performance Net-work which is designed to benefitOEM parts purchases and ensure cus-tomer satisfaction via Certificates ofAuthenticity.

Assured Performance Net-

work also offers member benefitswhich earn 5% rebates from GMand Nissan. GM and Nissan areproviding an incentive and rewardfor shops to use more genuine GMand Nissan parts and less after-market.

Members can receive a rebate

of 5% off list price on GM and Nis-san parts when you repair using100% GM and Nissan parts on ALLrepairs using GM and Nissan colli-sion parts.

Members can print and presenta “Certificate of Authenticity” totheir customers illustrating that

you have used 100% Genuine GMand Nissan parts to repair their ve-hicle.

The posting and auditing processis automated with 100% Write ESP(enhanced settlement process).

For more information see:www.assuredperformance.net


OK, I really do fix cars for a living. Itake a car that’s acting up, locate theproblem, and make the appropriate re-pair. Sometimes I haven’t a cluewhere to look when I start, but with afew proper tools, a little ingenuity,and a whole lot of experience I’ll findthe problem eventually.

It’s like finding Waldo, that nerdylittle guy dressed in red and white whotravels a lot and specializes in challeng-ing people to locate him. He sometimeshides in plain sight. You’ll usually haveto look closely to find him. Except my“Waldo” doesn’t wear a red and whitecap to give himself away. My Waldo isusually something to do with a compo-nent or part that has failed, or has de-cided to be difficult. I sometimes thinkthat these weird repair jobs that end upat my shop are like an elaborate game of“who can find Waldo first?”

I’m not always the first guy to tryand find Waldo. A lot of times a cus-

tomer will take their car to a relativeor next door neighbor, or they’ll findthe cheapest shop or the closestgarage in their area. I’ll hear a cus-tomer tell me they always go to a cer-tain shop for all their repairs, so theythink nothing of going to a specialistfor repairs. But, when that doesn’twork it’s time to ask for a recommen-dation for a shop that can make the re-pairs. Now, of course, this isn’t trueof everyone. A lot of people have afamily mechanic they have used foryears, while others believe the dealer-ship is the only place to go for repairs.Whichever or whatever way worksfor each and everyone is just fine withme. One way or another somebodyhas to find Waldo.

When it comes to cars, Waldocan be pretty crafty. He can be hidingin thousands of places. He can beunder the hood, behind the dash, inthe trunk, or under the seat. He can be

well concealed or under layers ofcomponents—carpet, plastic, or en-gine parts. With today’s cars he caneven be inside a computer lurkingabout in the form of a corrupted bit ofinformation. I never know where he’llshow up, but I’ll do my best to findhim. The other day I was on a Waldohunt for a whacked out gas gauge.The fuel gauge was stuck on emptyon this ‘03 Ford Van. It came from an-other shop after they had given up onit. The shop had already tried a newsending unit in the tank, but it onlylasted a day or two before the gaugequit again.

So where is that little beanie capwearing weirdo hiding this time? Istarted with behind the steeringwheel. After doing the self test on thedash it was clear the gauge was notresponding, so I broke out the gaugesimulator and hooked it up to the fuelgauge. Even with the tester adjustedto 160 ohms (full tank reading) itnever budged off of empty. GotchaWaldo! You’re in the instrument clus-ter… aha! Got ya this time for sure yaskinny little twerp!

I got the new cluster approved andinstalled it the next day. I hooked up tothe scanner, checked that all the pro-gramming needed was done. That’stypical stuff… mileage, tire size, etc …not a big deal (with the right scanner,an IDS in this case or the dealer partsdepartment can set most of it up for youwhen you order it. Actual program-ming needs vary from year to year, sobe careful to follow all manufacturer’sdirections). I was so convinced that Ihad this one I didn’t think I needed torecheck my work, so I was in for a sur-prise when the gas gauge didn’t moveright away. I’ve seen this before. It cantake a minute or two, or up to 20 min-utes if the key was on while filling upthe tank. I didn’t recall turning the keyon when I was installing the new clus-ter, but by the time I had the van off thelift and backed out of the shop thegauge was working. Done, problemsolved. Waldo, you’re out-of-here!

Boy was I wrong. Seems oldWaldo had to come back just a fewdays later. The gauge is back onempty again just as it did with the firstshop. Now what is he doing? Waldo

is a crafty kind of nerd. Is he messingwith me? I’m about to “go mechanic”on his butt.

Back to the gauge tester again.This time the gauge reacted with everymovement and changed with everysetting I could put it through on thetester. I knew the empty reading onthis tank is around 15 ohms and a fulltank is 160, so I should have a readingsomewhere in between those readingsfrom the tank sender. It was 16 ohms?Oh, come on. Is this tank empty? Igave the tank a couple of knocks withmy knuckle “rap, rap, rap” and askedsheepishly, “You in there, Waldo?”

I got an approval to drop the tankdown to check it further. I could tellthe other shop changed the tank send-ing unit. They had butt-connected thelead together (Gee, ya could have justdisconnected it) but I did notice some-thing rather strange about the sendingunit. The float was bent around thefuel pump and an edge of the bail wastrapped against the actual fuel pumpbracket. Waldo is up to somethinghere, and it’s not the sender.

I grabbed a flashlight and lookeddown in the tank. There inside the tankis the tray that the fuel pump rests in.It’s mainly there as a way to control thesloshing affect of the fuel and to helpgive the gauge a steady reading. Theonly thing was the tray wasn’t stayingin place. It had broken free from thebottom of the tank and was slidingback and forth as the van drove downthe road. “Waldo, you’ve been a verynaughty little fellow,” I said to myself.

The only thing that made senseabout the dash being bad was thatsomebody must have tried to sendvoltage back up the sending wires tothe dash, and it probably knocked thegauge out. It wouldn’t have been hardto do with the gauge and fuel pumpleads all in the same connector. Some-body could have easily (accidently Ihope) crossed the wrong leads, whichcreated another Waldo. While theoriginal Waldo remained in hiding in-side the gas tank the whole time.

Now I just have to tell the cus-tomer where I found him at this time.Great, just great—two Waldo’s in twoplaces in one car. I think I’ll let Waldoexplain this one to the owner himself.

What If You’re Looking for More than One Waldo?

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


Ask most people about CAFÉ stan-dards and they would immediatelythink of food quality control. There isanother meaning that you probablyknow and it will drastically impactyour business, but you may not beaware why it will.

CAFÉ stands for Corporate Aver-age Fuel Economy-- the average milesper gallon on an OEM’s passengercars and trucks. The standards forpassenger vehicles will rise from thenational current 27.5 mpg to 35.7 mpgby 2015, while light trucks will gofrom 23.5 mpg to 28.6 mpg. My nextquestion is how will the OEMs ac-complish these figures? Car andtrucks will be lighter and smaller, witha greater use of aluminum, plastics,carbon fiber, magnesium and ad-vanced high strength steels (60 per-cent of all steel in today’s vehicles isAHSS). These exotic materials are thereason that fuel economy will impactbody shops.

Aluminum is being used on vir-tually all makes and models builttoday, not only on upscale importsports cars. The hood on a ToyotaPrius for example is made from alu-minum. You will need to invest innew tools and training to work withincreasing use of this metal.

Even with an increase in the useof aluminum, the percent of usage isrelatively small compared to the useof Advanced High Strength Steels.Steels (AHSS) will pose the biggestproblems for repairers and we need

to look at the challenges for thesesteels. The first area is we need tounderstand is the effect of heat onmetal.

Heat applied to mild steel will in-crease its strength (once it cools).Heat applied to high strength steelswill decrease its strength. Heat ap-plied to ultra high strength steels(UHSS) will destroy the steel. Re-member these facts.

A couple of other facts that youneed to remember: There are twotypes of energy behavior that weneed to recognize when dealing withtoday’s vehicles. The first one is en-ergy absorption. This is the processof dissipating the energy by the de-formation of the part. As the partcollapses, energy is lost as it travelsfrom front to back or back to front.This deformation is accomplishedby use of laser welds (differentthicknesses of metal or differentmetals attached together with laserwelds), collapse zones and rein-forcements. Most of the metal ontoday’s vehicles utilizes highstrength steel with MPa (a megapas-cal is a unit of pressure, which hereis a measure of stiffness or tensilestrength of materials) ratings be-tween 440 and 590. The second

type of energy behavior that we dealwith is energy transfer.

The design of energy transfer isto move the energy away from the im-pact without it deforming. This is ac-complished by making the partextremely strong. Many OEMs uti-lizes ultra high strength steels in thecabin reinforcements (“A” pillar rein-forcement, “B” pillar reinforcementand roof and rocker reinforcements).The MPa ratings are 600 and abovewith some metals reaching over 1400MPa’s for these metals. You ask thequestion why are they using thesesuper metals. The answer is simple.The government and Insurance Insti-tute for Highway Safety demanded it.Let’s look at Federal Motor VehicleSafety Standard 216A.

By the model year the governmentwanted a 2 ½ times gross vehicleweight to be placed at the “B” pillar, butthe IIHS wanted 3 times and by modelyear 2012, 4 times. What happenedwas most manufacturers were able tomeet the 2012 standards in 2009 andthose vehicles received a 5 star rating.

We now need to look at heat andits affect on these metals.

I am going to heat the metal withan induction heater and monitor thetemperature with a non contact ther-mometer. I will take a before and afterreading with an instrument to test thestrength of steels.

The next part to be tested was a“B” pillar reinforcement from a VolvoXC90. The part is constructed of ad-vanced steel alloyed with boron.

CAFE Standards Will Affect More Than A Shop’s Miles Per Gallon

Tech Notes

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

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

with Jeremy HayhurstPublisher’s Page

with Karyn HendricksShop Showcase

with David M. BrownShop Showcase

Shop Showcasewith Jeremy Hayhurst

Hey Toby!with Toby Chess

California Autobody Associationwith David McClune

Collision Repair Association of CA.with Richard Steffen

Insurers Excel at Steeringwith Richard Steffen

Year in Quoteswith John Yoswick

Transition Planningwith John Yoswick

Mainstream Media

My Turnwith Joe Momber

Toby Chess is an I-CAR program instructor, Training specialist, and former salvage yard operator.Toby is universally known in the collision industry for his work with first responders and advocacyfor body shops and consumers. He can be reached at [email protected]

Besides hand tools and aluminum stud guns,you will need to know how to weld aluminumand you may need to invest in a dedicatedaluminum welder

Note that the front of the Volvo has collapsedand shortened length is evident, but there is nodeformation in the passenger’s compartment

The IIHS devised a test to determine thestrength of the “B” pillar to withstand roofcrush in a roll over scenario

The above 2 welds are fusion welds. Themetal becomes molten (over 2200 degreesFahrenheit) and when it cools, a ring formsaround the weld known as the Heat AffectZone. This area on high strength steel isweaker than its surrounding metal. In thecase of ultra high strength steel, this areahas a strength equivalent to the strength ofmild steel, which has no energy absorptionor energy transfer capabilities

HEAT AFFECT ZONE

MIG Weld

Spot Weld

One method of reducing the heat affect zone isskip welding. A bead length of 25 to 38 MM ismade (#1 weld). A second weld is made(#3) and the weld is closed by last weld (#2).Let’s look at what heat does to metal

The first test was done on a front rail on a2009 Toyota Camry which is high-strengthsteel and has a strength category of 440 MPa.The value of the steel is 16.9 which convertsto a 440 MPa reading

See Hey Toby!, Page 38


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I want to end this with a couple ofthoughts.You will need to invest in an inverter3 phase spot welders.You will need to invest in obtainingdata for all structural repairs.You will need to invest in Training,You will need to invest to be compet-itive and safe.


The steel was heated to 1000 degreesFahrenheit for 15 seconds and allowed tocool naturally. A second reading was taken

The strength of the metal dropped to 250 MPa.It lost nearly 50 percent of its strength. This isthe reason why Toyota states in their CRIB#175 -- “Do not use heat for straightening”

trade practices by foreign countries,”said USW President, Leo Gerard.

This letter follows action by theUnited Steelworkers (USW) andothers to identify broad sets of prac-tices utilized by China to protect itsauto parts sector to the disadvantageof its competitors. The Congres-sional letter ratifies USW concernsand calls for immediate action. TheUSW represents about 850,000workers in the United States andCanada in a wide variety of indus-tries, ranging from glass making tomining, paper, steel, tire and rubberand other manufacturing environ-ments.

The United Steelworkers (USW)says that America’s auto parts sectorcontinues to be threatened by unfairlytraded auto parts imports from Chinaand its policies that exclude US prod-ucts from their markets. The USWlauds the 188 members of Congresswho signed the Congressional letter,demonstrating broad political supportbehind intentions to stop China’s pro-

A reading of 53.7 or 1380 was observed.Again the part was heated to 800 degreesFahrenheit for 20 seconds

Readings were taken again after the part wasallowed to cool naturally

The reading was 27 or 50 percent less onthe point scale, but was a slightly above600 MPa. Think about this. Fusion weldingtakes place at 2200 degree and this partwas only heated to 800 degrees. Thinkwhat would have happened to the steel if itwas heated to 2200 degrees? It would havelost all of its strength. This is why mostmanufacturers require the cabinreinforcements to be installed at factoryjoints and not sectioned

This “B” pillar reinforcement on a 2010 ToyotaScion is being replaced at the factory joint inthe roof and it is not sectioned


Hey Toby!Continued from Front Page

Chinese Auto Parts


tectionist, predatory and illegal tradepractices.

The lawmakers included manyfrom the auto manufacturing states ofthe upper Midwest, which will likelybe important in Obama’s bid for re-election in November.

They said China uses a “vastarray of policies” to give its auto partsproducers an unfair trade advantage.

Those include Chinese limits onimports of foreign auto parts and sub-sidies that drive down the prices autoparts that are made in China, the law-makers said.

“These tactics are working. Chi-nese auto parts exports are rapidlygrowing and have increased almost900 percent since 2000,” the lawmak-ers said.

The appeal follows Obama’s re-cent decision to establish an intera-gency task force to boost U.S.enforcement of trade agreements. Thelawmakers urged Obama “to use allexisting authorities” to protect theU.S. auto parts sector, but did not out-line a particular course of action.

Advocates have said the admin-istration’s options include bringing acase at the World Trade Organization

or initiating an action under U.S. traderemedy laws that would lead to dutiesor other restrictions on imports fromChina.

The USW also filed a petitionwith the US government alleging thatthe Chinese government unfairly fa-vors, through subsidies and othertrade measures, its domestic manufac-turers of “green” goods like solar pan-els and wind turbines. The petitionwas filed under a section of US tradelaw—Section 301 of the Trade Act of1974—that was once a strong protec-tionist weapon but has basically gonedormant since the advent of the WorldTrade Organization.

RBL Products has introduced its Pre-treatment system in the automotive af-termarket. The system is very simple.It consists of a water-based conversioncoating that is applied by wiping ontoa bare metal surface. The product pro-tects against corrosion and promotesadhesion. The directions are simply,you just wipe the pre-treatment ontothe bare metal. Then let it air dry. Theaverage dry time is between 2–5 min-utes. You can then apply primer sur-face directly over the pre-treatment. Itcan be used on Hot and cold rolledmetal, galvanized, stainless steel, alu-minum, and other exotic metals.

The pre-treatment system was de-veloped as a substitute for wash, etch,and epoxy primer. Expensive primersand waiting for 24 hours, as well asadhesion and corrosion issues, are nowa thing of the past.

The pre-treatment system chem-istry was developed and patented byHenkel Corporation. RBL Products re-cently was granted exclusive rights toconvert the technology into pre-satu-rated wipes and markers. Henkel is thelargest pre-treatment company in the

world. The same process is used onevery car produced since World War ll.Every vehicle as soon as it enters thepaint shop is processed by a multi-stage zinc phosphate dip and rinse sys-tem before it enters e-coat and primer.

RBL president, Ron Lipsonstated “The pre-treatment product putsback what was removed from themetal when grinding and sanding oc-curs. Once the industry understandsthe product and how it works it willbecome standard on all bare metal re-pairs. Insurance companies are goingto mandate this product where appli-cable.” For more information visitwww.rblproducts.com.

RBL Products New Pre-Treat System

A bare metal piece treated with the RBL Pre-treatsystem (left) and a non-treated piece (right)

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How much money are you losing eachyear by not charging for Feather, Sandand Fill (aka Feather, Prime andBlock)? If you’re charging nothing, Ican guarantee you $5,000 more inyearly profits if you follow this adviceand start getting compensated for thenecessary work you’ve always beendoing.

Feather, Sand and Fill is a non-in-cluded procedure that takes the sur-face from 150-grit level smoothness tothe condition of a new, undamagedpanel that can then begin the refinishprocess. The labor and supplies usedwith with feather, prime and blockmay fluctuate based on the nature ofthe repair area and should be consid-ered when deciding which work needsto be performed. I will address the is-sues many shop owners have in get-ting insurance companies to pay forthis procedure, the laws involved, andpossible solutions to consider.

In 2006, the Collision IndustryConference Estimating Committee de-fined feather, prime and block as“non-included refinish operations thatcomplete the process from 150 grit tothe condition of a new, undamagedpanel... The body/paint labor and ma-terials necessary to prepare the re-paired area from 150 grit to thecondition of a new undamaged part isa valid and required step in theprocess. The labor and material al-lowances for these operations requiresan on-the-spot evaluation of the spe-cific vehicle and damage.”

Despite this clarification, shopsare still having trouble claiming thisprocess and being paid for the workand materials. Some insurance com-panies say that Feather, Sand and Fillis included in the repair process,which simply isn’t true. In addition,often times, on many insurance com-pany estimates, they state that feather,sand and fill is included in the repairprocess, which directly contradicts thelaw, the P-Pages, and the logic of ourbusiness. Of course, the insurancecompanies don’t want to pay for thiscostly operation becuase they’vehaven’t had to pay for it for years.

An even stronger argument can bemade using the language in the federalregulations imposed through the EPA’s

6H rule. “On January 9, 2008, the EPAaccepted a new standard known as theHAPs 6H rule to reduce the public’shealth exposure to Hazardous Air Pol-lutants (HAPs). The agency’s main ob-jective is to significantly lessen theamount of HAPs released into the en-vironment during paint stripping orsurface coating operations.

During such work practices, themost dangerous chemicals, namely,methylene chloride (MeCl), cadmium,chromium, lead, manganese andnickel compounds, represent signifi-cant risk to employee health if properengineering and administrative con-trols are not in place.”

The 6H rule requires that thisportion of the process needs to bedone by the paint department, in anenclosed space, and is therefore a re-finishing procedure, not a body repairprocess. This rule helps solidifyFeather, Sand and Fill as a refinishingprocess by definition of the law, but itstill isn’t properly compensated for bythe Insurance Companies.

This means that any application ofprimer that is sprayed through a HVLPspray gun must be done by a certifiedpainter, inside an enclosed sprayboothand billed as a paint procedure.

But how should your shop chargeand get paid for it?

It is a judgment call that must benegotiated on the spot. The repairprocess only takes you up to the 150grit level, but I have to get the panelsto pre-loss condition before the refin-ish process can take place. I am facedwith this issue on almost every singlejob and I approach it by talking withthe adjuster directly. I say “If the P-Pages state that this is a necessaryprocess to repair a job and bring itback to pre-loss condition, then whywould it not be covered?” So, first Iprove my point that it’s a necessarypart of repairing the vehicle. I cite The6H rule that supports claiming it as arefinishing process. At this point,some insurance companies will payfor the operation, while others simplywill not pay. In this case, the insurancecompanies are forcing auto bodyshops to break the law by not listingthe procedure as a refinishing processand therefore admitting to violating

the 6H rule. Failure to comply to the6H rule can result in hefty, daily finesand even jail time. If your shop does-n’t report or charge for it, you are in away admitting to breaking the law.

Another typical response is thatcharging for feather, sand and fill is notcompetitive in the market, and becauseother body shops are allowing the in-surance agencies to take advantage ofthem, they claim that all shops shouldfolllow suit. I also hear “you’re the onlyshop that charges for this process,”which simply isn’t true. So the insur-ance company is literally telling us thatbecause other shops aren’t recoupingthese costs, we should all lose the rev-enue and break the law.

So how do you calculate the costsof FSF (or FPB)?

A simple forumla that I’ve comeup with over the years in the business,and doing my own time studies is asfollows: I use .3 per repair hour to cal-

culate FSF. The example we’ll use is a2 hour repair. 2 X .3 = .6, Refinishlabor rate = $48 x .6 = $28.80, Paintand Materials = $27 x .6 = $16.20.

Total costs associated with FeatherSand and Fill on a 2 hour job is $45.

If a shop performs two of theseeach week, there is a yearly loss of$4680 a year. In addition, at a sales taxrate of 8%, the state is losing $375 ayear for each shop not being paid forthis process.

If you simply use the formulaabove, your painter’s efficiency goesup and you’re no longer supplyingthese materials for free.

Determine your repair times first,state this is only a repair process, firstnegotiate your body repair time andspecify that this is only for the repairs,not for refinishing.

Once that is established then younegotiate your time and costs for


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Feather, Sand and Fill: Paint Operations Body Shops Perform But Don’t Get Paid For

with David BrownShop Showcase

with Attorney Martin ZuradaBody Shop Law

with Domenico Nigro

The Community-Focused Body Shop

with Janet CheneyShop Showcase

Domenico Nigro is the president of Nigro’s Auto Body, a very progressive shop fortheir community in Philadelphia. In addition to many productivity innovations, Nigro’sinstalls equipment for disabled drivers, has developed several phone Applications,and represents products which directly support charities such as United Way and theNational Breast Cancer Foundation. Contact him at: [email protected].

See Feather, Sand and Fill, Page 42


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carrier, Haydell suggests putting opti-cal enhancers in the primer and usingblack lights in the booth to see thespots that were missed. Likewise, ifUV blockers are added to the base, itis easy to see where the optical en-hancers are not covered under a blacklight, thus showing the ability to com-pletely cover the substrate in only twocoats when using nitrogen technology.

Haydell Industries separates im-purities at a gas level by temporarilyseparating the gases to redirect air’sproperties. They also control temper-ature through their hose, allowingthem to control viscosity by control-ling temperature. By using less mate-rial, shops can release less VOCs intothe atmosphere as well. Haydell alsoclaims that his system is very lowmaintenance as long as the hose is notdamaged by being run over.

Overall, Haydell insists that byreducing coats and materials by30–50%, shops can also save 20–30%in material costs by using nitrogentechnology.

Feather, Sand and Fill by using myformula. This will increase yourpainter’s efficiency, it will increasethe profitability of your paint suppliesand it will add to your overall busi-ness success and bottom line.

If you try these methods and theydon’t work, you should show the ad-juster the P-Pages, even reference thisarticle. Ask the adjuster to prove toyou that you don’t have to do this stepwhich is required by all three esti-mating systems and established as anindustry standard. What do they say?If you’re still not being compensated,have them call me.

Write us, let us know if you’recharging for this operation. The onlyway for justice and fair compensationfrom insurers is through cooperationand unity among shop owners. Al-lowing the insurers to strong armyour bottom line is costing us thou-sands each year. A standard formulacan be applied to all jobs that accountfor these costs in a fair and transpar-ent manner.


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Feather, Sand and FillContinued from Page 25

Trade Show Performance Racing Industryto be Sold to SEMAPerformance Racing Industry (PRI),producers of the motorsports businessmagazine and trade show, finalizedplans to be purchased by the Spe-cialty Equipment Market Association(SEMA). The transaction is set toclose in late March 2012. With 20-plus years of publishing and manage-ment experience at PRI, John Kilroywill serve as Vice President/GeneralManager of PRI and assume day-to-day operations for the group. All theoperations, employees and officeswill remain intact at PRI’s current lo-cation in Laguna Beach, California.

“Steve Lewis launched the PRIconcept a quarter-of-a-century ago, asan organization totally dedicated solelyto the racing industry,” said Kilroy. “Itwas Steve’s dream that PRI continue toserve the racing community, and to‘nest’ PRI with an organization thatclearly understands PRI’s heritage andthe role we play in how the racing in-dustry conducts business. We arepleased to have found that strategic part-ner in SEMA.” The 25th Annual Per-formance Racing Industry Trade Showtakes place November 29 - December 1,2012, in the North/South Building of theOrange County Convention Center inOrlando, Florida.

ABRA Auto Body & Glass, a Min-nesota-based damaged vehicle repaircompany and industry leader contin-ues its national expansion with theannouncement of their newest fran-chise location in Clarksville, Ten-nessee, just north of Nashville.

Final preparations are under-way for the opening of ABRA’s 39thstate-of-the-art franchise located at855 Kraft Street in Clarksville. Itwill be one of the largest collisionrepair centers in the area with morethan 21,000 square feet of repairtechnology and shop operations. Theofficial opening is scheduled forApril 2.

Operations Director DwayneBrown said, “We are combining twobody shops into one and look for-ward to doing the ABRA way ofbusiness…we are quite impressedwith the ABRA process and howwell orchestrated it is.”

The new franchise will be inde-pendently owned by the Wyatt-John-son Automotive Group, one ofTennessee’s top GMC-Buick dealer-ships. Brown said the repair centerwill be a large and modern facilitythat can handle a great deal of vol-ume.

ABRA Auto Body & GlassExpands Operations into TN

As a result of overwhelming interestand questions from repairers and con-sultants across the nation, a CollisionIndustry Legal Seminar is being pro-vided for collision repair profession-als by Ray Gunder of Gunder’s AutoCenter and Barrett Smith of AutoDamage Experts (ADE).

This event promises to provide aunique opportunity for many as therehas been a great deal of interest re-garding the success repairers acrossthe country have had in their efforts toaid their customers in the recovery ofthe full costs required for a proper andthorough repair.

Together, Gunder and Smith areco-sponsoring this legal seminar andthe duo’s legal counsel, Brent Geo-hagan, Esquire, will provide an openforum to offer information and to an-swer questions as to how repairersmay improve their businesses andservice to their customers, whilelessening unnecessary interference,encumbrances and potential liabili-ties.

“This will not be the standardtraining on “how to increase work

flow”, “cycle times” or “KPI’s” andsuch,” said Smith, “However, the in-formation gained during this meetingwill likely enable attendees to workmuch more effectively and to betterserve the needs of their customers andtheir businesses through more effi-cient administrative processes whileavoiding unnecessary legal liabilities.This information, properly employed,will likely result in greater profits andreduce operational costs and frustra-tions.”

The intent of this seminar will beto provide information on legal basicsincluding an overview of the muchdiscussed processes involving the“Power of Attorney” and “Assignmentof Proceeds” (aka Assignment of Ben-efits). Answers to attendee’s individ-ual questions as to how it may benefitthem, their business and their cus-tomers will be available along withother topics such as:● Understanding the Repairer’s LegalResponsibilities● Understanding the Customer’sLegal Responsibilities● Understanding the Insurer’s Legal

Responsibilities● Understanding the difference be-tween 1st and 3rd Party Claims forRepairers● Understanding Tortious Interference● Relationship Building Based uponKnowledge and Respect● Recognizing Legal Liabilities andHow to Avoid Them and/or ChannelThem to the Appropriate Parties● How to Turn Potential Liabilitiesinto Significant Profits and ImproveYour Bottom Line.● Making your Repair AuthorizationsLegally Iron-Clad and Profitable● The Importance of Knowing andUnderstanding your State’s Laws andRegulations as They Relate to YourBusiness● Recognizing and Understanding“Unfair Trade Practices” and how toavoid them● Post Repair Inspections…A QualityRepairer’s Best Friend and a Poor Re-pairer’s Nightmare!● Understanding “Diminished Value”and its Benefits to Repairers and TheirCustomers ● Understanding “Federal Anti-Trust

Laws” and What Repairers Can andCannot Discuss Openly Without Fear ● Summary of the March 2012 CCREMeeting held by the PennsylvaniaCollision Trade Guild

This Seminar Will be Open toAll Collision Repair Professionalsand Industry Supporting VendorRepresentatives and will be held atRegal Chevrolet at 925 US Hwy 98South, Lakeland, Florida 33801 onSaturday April 14th, 2012 at 11:00a.m.

To register simply send your e-mail with your full name and com-pany name and contact information to:[email protected] with “AT-TENDING LEGAL SEMINAR” inthe subject line; please feel free to usethe same e-mail address if you haveany questions or need additional in-formation.

Note: If others within your or-ganization will be joining you in at-tending this seminar, please providetheir full name and title so necessaryarrangements and provisions can bearranged. Sandwiches and beverageswill be provided.


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Ray Gunder to Sponsor Free Legal Seminar for Collision Repairers in Lakeland, FL


Airbrush Artist JoAnn Bortles is Writing Her Seventh Painting Bookby Erica Schroeder

Airbrush artist JoAnn Bortles, whoowns Crazy Horse Custom Painting,and lives in Waxhaw, NC, started air-

brushing her art onto motorcycles as ateen in the seventies on a dare. A life-long interest in art led her to Parson’sSchool of Design in New York City,but she eventually had to return to

suburban Connecticut to help out herparents. She had taken welding classesin high school and became a certifiedwelder after returning home. Sheworked various factory jobs for thenext few years until the words “Ifyou’re such a hotshot artist, why don’tyou try and paint my bike tank?”jolted her into the world of custompainting.

Her painting career really tookoff after the unexpected death of afriend in 1993. Her friend David hadalways pushed JoAnn to take herpainting to the next level, saying sheshould be more serious about her tal-

ent. After he passed away unexpect-edly JoAnn decided to honor hismemory by taking a crack at becom-ing a professional custom painter. Soshe moved to Florida, which then, asnow, was a hot spot for custom paint-ing and honed her craft.

“Being around all these greatpainters made me really want to upmy game,” said JoAnn. While inFlorida JoAnn met and married herhusband (now ex-) and they moved toWaxhaw in 1996. When she got toNorth Carolina, JoAnn realized it wasa totally different game and since shewas relatively unknown in the areashe had a hard time finding peoplewho would let her paint their cars.

“Those first years in North Car-olina were pretty rough,” said JoAnn.She painted hot rods, motorcycles,boats, just about anything she could.

Then in 1998 JoAnn showed sixmotorcycles she painted at theEasyriders Bike Show in Charlotte,NC. The six bikes took home the sixtop trophies, including Best of Show.This got the attention of one of theEasyriders Magazine editors and hetold her if she did well at their showin Columbus, OH, that the magazinewould do a feature story on her.JoAnn’s Stevie Ray Vaughan tribute

bike won Second Place Bestof Show at the Columbusshow, so the magazine did thearticle on her.

The publicity from the arti-cle and her awards at Char-lotte attracted many morecustomers and was a turningpoint for her career. JoAnnwas featured in (and wrote herown articles for) SouthernLiving, Easyriders, VTwin,Street Rodder, Hot Rod,American Iron, Ironworks,

Hot Bike, VQ, and many other maga-zines.

She has also written no fewerthan six books on custom paintingwith publisher Motorbooks. Her firstbook “How to Custom Paint YourMotorcycle” was published in 2005.JoAnn is currently working on herseventh book with SATA SprayEquipment, to be titled The CompleteGuide to Automotive Painting: FromPrep to Final Coat, which will havea heavy focus on waterborne paintingtechniques, using PPG’s Envirobasewaterborne paints in particular.

The book is slated to come out

in 2013 and will have two main sec-tions. The first half will focus onvehicle restoration from plastic re-pairs to sheet metal to body restora-tion. JoAnn’s welding andbodywork background will shapethis how-to section. The second half

will focus on custom painting usingboth waterborne and solvent tech-niques. One of the main projects inthe book will be restoring a 1967Firebird that has been waiting forattention for 20 years.

The car is “pretty rough” saysJoAnn, but by the end of the year shewill have the car restored completely.

The book will detail this process andJoAnn hopes it will show her readershow manageable a big project can beif approached with the right attitude

and processes. The goal is tomake the book answer anyquestion about bodywork,painting and custom work.The book will be availablethrough all SATA jobbersworldwide in addition tobeing sold on Amazon,Barnes and Noble and otherbooksellers.

JoAnn started using PPGpaints in 1995, and she saysshe couldn’t be happier with

their products.“PPG is without a doubt the most

user-friendly product I’ve ever used,”said JoAnn, “And that’s what makes itthe best bargain for painters. The highquality of PPG products actually savepainters time and money. PPG prod-

ucts make my painting lifeeasier.”

JoAnn stands behind herwork and the durability ofPPG’s products with a con-sumer guarantee on her workfor 5 years.

JoAnn also says that of allthe waterborne paints she hasused, PPG paints thesmoothest with the tightestlines. She finds it especiallyunique for painting wood-grain faux finishes. She alsostill uses PPG’s solvent-basedpaints for some applications.

“Whether I’m using solvent or water,I use whatever works best for thepainting situation,” said JoAnn.JoAnn also likes SATA Spray Guns.She recalls first starting out usingthe cheapest equipment she couldfind. Then when she met the peopleat SATA and tried out their productsshe said she realized why you

would pay more to use theseguns.

“Paint is so expensive,”said JoAnn, “When the paintis all mixed and you’re readyto go into the booth, is not thetime to find that you have aproblem with your paint gun.And time is money. Havinggood quality equipmentmakes all the difference.”Joann now uses SATA gunsexclusively on her work.

“Using good equipmentchanged the way I work,” said JoAnn.She is really thankful for some of herother product relationships, including

See Crazy Horse, Page 49

A close-up of the 1965 Impala SS that JoAnn painted inLas Vegas; this car has taken home several awards forbest flames

The Stevie Ray Vaughan mural JoAnn won 2nd Place Bestof Show with at the Cleveland EasyRiders Show in 1998

The ‘67 Firebird JoAnn is restoring and customizing forher seventh book. This is what the car looks like beforeany work has been done. The after photo will look far dif-ferent. According to JoAnn, many of her projects looksomething like this when she gets started.

A close-up of some burlwood woodgrain Crazy Horsepainted on a ‘46 Ford

JoAnn astride one of her custom creationswith a favorite spray gun, a SATA RP. The bikewon Best Motorcycle Paint of the Year in 2005


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TopTech Finder Unites PDR Techs with Body Shop ManagersTopTech Finder, an open job market-place bringing together automotive re-pairers and paintless dent repair(PDR) technicians, announces itswebsite is now available at:www.toptechfinder.com. By provid-ing an online search engine to connectautomotive repairers and qualifiedPDR technicians, TopTech Finderputs power and convenience back intothe hands that count. In addition, be-cause of the damaging storms in theSoutheast and Midwest, TopTechFinder is waiving all fees on jobsposted in the month of March by bodyrepair shops in effected states.

TopTech Finder is the vision ofCEO Jeff Herman, who developed theidea to help body repair shops easilyconnect with reputable PDR techni-cians to fix hail damaged vehicles.“When hail storms hit, a shop’s regu-lar PDR resources are often over-whelmed with work. Shops are thenforced to choose from techs who ar-rive at their door, without any knowl-edge of the tech’s reputation, qualityof work, experience, or training.Shops have told me horror storiesabout handing that first customer carover to an unknown tech”, said Her-man. “TopTech Finder solves this

problem by letting repairers investi-gate techs before they hire them.”

Repairers of all types can posttheir PDR jobs for free on the site.They can then search for techs and seetheir online profiles. Tech profilesshow qualifications including experi-ence, training, certifications, and as-sociations. If satisfied, repairers caninvite techs to the job. Conversely,techs can search for and apply forjobs. Body repair shops, retail PDRbusinesses, hail teams and other re-pairers can create their free, no obli-gation account at:www.toptechfinder.com.

Nissan opened up sales for their Leafall-electric vehicle to all states in theUS on March 1, 2012. After the EV'sinitial launch in limited markets atthe end of 2010 and a piecemeal,state-by-state roll out throughout2011, the Nissan Leaf will finally beavailable to order all around the U.S.Nissan sent out a statement saying inpart, “We are officially a 100% elec-tric nation. Look out for an e-mailaround 3/1/12 detailing when youcan order your Nissan Leaf.”

Nissan Leaf Nationwide

Mexico Implements New Mandatory Auto Insurance LawsTwo of the most popular Mexican des-tinations for US and Canadian touristshave passed new laws recently requir-ing drivers to carry auto liability insur-ance at all times. Baja California Norte(home of destinations such as Tijuana,Ensenada, Rosarito, and San Felipe)and Jalisco (home of destinations suchas Guadalajara, Lake Chapala, andPuerto Vallarta) have passed laws re-quiring that all drivers carry liabilityinsurance. Other states have had simi-lar mandatory auto liability insurancelaws in place for some time.

Derek Kartchner, Vice Presidentof Business Development forhttp://www.mexpro.com said, “We feelthis is a good step towards solving ahuge problem; whether in the US or inMexico uninsured drivers create an un-needed burden at the time of an acci-dent, and cost all drivers more. Weapplaud the states that have taken stepstowards alleviating the number ofuninsured drivers in Mexico, and en-courage other states to do the same.”

Jim Labelle, CEO of IIG said,“While this is an important law, wewould also urge our customers to en-sure they are protecting their own in-terests. Not only should visitors toMexico purchase Mexico Auto Liabil-

ity coverage, but also Comprehensiveand Collision coverage. We encourageall of our customers who drive to Mex-ico to obtain a similar level of cover-age in Mexico that they carry in theUSA or Canada."

Labelle's firm has insured over 1million US and Canadian plated vehi-cles since launching its website a littleover ten years ago. Visitors to Mexicocan purchase and print their policies inreal time on http://www.mexpro. com.All policies sold on the site meet thenew state requirements, and manyother optional coverages are availableto ensure that consumers are properlycovered when driving in Mexico.

For more information about theselaws or to purchase a Mexico Auto In-surance policy visit http://www.mex-pro.com or call 1- 888-467-4639.

LKQ Corp. has announced results forits fourth quarter and full year endedDec. 31, 2011. Income for the fourthquarter was $56.1 million, a 36 per-cent increase over the 28 cents pershare reported for 2010. For the fullyear 2011, income from continuingoperations was $210.3 million.

LQK Has Record Results

from was the owner of North StateCustom, Greg Coccaro, who sur-prised a number of attendees with therevelation that he’s back to doingbusiness with Progressive Insurance,

despite the longand torturous legalbattles between thetwo. Even thoughbusiness is rela-tively slow forshops in the area,his Progressivework has actually

picked up. Coccaro was told by a Pro-gressive employee that “Progressivedoes not have a network of shops inNew York any more, so the intensesteering they practiced in this area hassubsided.” Coccaro added, “I’m nowrepairing cars for Progressive’s cus-tomers once again.” Coccaro stillowes some $500,000 in legal fees todefend his shop’s reputation and hisown name. He hopes to be able to re-cover his losses due to the causes ofaction in his pending lawsuit against

Progressive.Another engaging speaker at the

forum was Tony Lombardozzi withAutomotive Collision Repair Servicesin New Hampshire, who repeated hismessage of self-sufficiency for the in-dustry and his advocacy of independ-

ence from insurersthrough his presi-dency of theCoalition for Col-lision Repair Ex-cellence (CCRE).Lombardozzi putit plainly: “The in-surer is not a third

party to our contract with our cus-tomer and should not be involved inthe repair process. What an insurer ap-praiser writes is meaningless. It servesno purpose in the repair process.”

The executive director of show-organizer the Alliance AutomotiveService Providers of New Jersey(AASP/NJ), Charles Bryant, agreedwith Lombardozzi’s assessment of in-surer involvement. Bryant under-scored that repairers not negotiatewith insurers.

“Offer them a cup of coffee, talkto them about last night’s hockey

game, and direct them to the car theywant to write an estimate on,” Bryant

said. “But don’tgo back there withthem and don’tnegotiate the re-pair... You are theexpert on how torepair cars, not theinsurance com-pany. Write what

needs to be done, make a proper andsafe repair and bill fairly for yourwork.”

Both stressed that repairers needto take responsibility for educatingcustomers about the repair processand explain why the estimate the re-pairer wrote is the most reliable one.

Janet Cheney gave a quick re-port on a coupleof state’s associa-tions that don’t al-ways have the earof the nationaltrade press. Seeher article thisissue (p. 50 and51).

See also Chasidy Sisk’s columnon NORTHEAST this issue.


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Continued from Front Page

Northeast Show

Tony Lombardozzi

Janet Cheney

Greg Coccaro

Charles Bryant

Women’s Industry NetworkHolds Planning MeetingThe Women’s Industry Network(WIN) Board gathered in Dallas, TX,in late January to review the group’sactivities in 2011 and plan for 2012and early 2013.

“This Strategic Planning meetingis a yearly event that we rely on tohelp keep us focused and on-track toachieve the goals we have set out forour organization,” said Board Chair,Victoria Jankowski.

WIN will focus on these primaryareas this year: enhancing the value ofWIN membership and sponsorship;improving WIN’s web and socialmedia presence to provide a more ro-bust communication and educationalvehicle for members and sponsors;forming a Task Force to conduct aneeds analysis on our website and so-cial media presence and make recom-mendations to the Board; increasingindustry visibility of WIN, our activi-ties and our members; providing aWIN presence at strategically signifi-cant industry events; making WINpromotional materials available uponrequest to WIN members who arewilling to represent the organizationat events of importance to them; es-tablishing a more robust operational

See WIN, Page 49


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Automotive Recyclers Assocation Supports Licensed BuyersThe Automotive Recyclers Associa-tion (ARA) says it recognizes the ef-forts of legislators in Florida and Utahwho have made “significant steps toprotect consumers and the environ-ment by preventing untrained and un-licensed individuals from buying carsat salvage pools.”

Last week, legislators in Utahpassed SB 260, a bill that restricts pur-chases at auto salvage auctions tothose with valid Utah business andsales tax licenses. That legislation alsoaids law enforcement by requiring re-porting to the National Motor VehicleTitle Information System and theUtah Motor Vehicle Enforcement Di-vision. Additionally, the bill creates anon-repairable category of vehiclesthat will serve to keep severely dam-aged automobiles from being repairedand returned to the roads.

Keeping non-road worthy vehi-cles off the roads was at the heart ofanother salvage pool bill that passedrecently in Florida. ARA opposesopening up auto salvage pools, andthat they are taking steps to roll backefforts to make it easier for these ve-hicles to fall into the wrong hands.

On March 20 legislators in Ohiowill hear testimony on Senate Bill 273that allows unlicensed and untrained

individuals to purchase cars at salvageauctions. This bill threatens Ohio’s en-vironment as unqualified businessesattempt to handle, dismantle and dis-pose of environmentally-harmfulproducts and hazardous materials suchas mercury, oil, and gasoline. SenateBill 273 threatens the safety and wel-fare of Ohio residents and other con-sumers by allowing damaged vehiclesto be repaired cosmetically and sold tounknowing consumers who end updriving dangerous vehicles on Ohioroads.

Moreover, the bill creates a com-petitive disadvantage for licensed re-cyclers in Ohio who go to great lengthand expense to stay in accordancewith all local, state and federal lawsand regulations. It will reduce theavailable inventory for licensed autorecyclers across the state as these ve-hicles are sold to unlicensed individu-als at inflated prices in Ohio andaround the country.

22 West Virginia Schools to Integrate I-CAR ProgramThe West Virginia Department of Ed-ucation/Division of Career and Tech-nical Education will integrate theindustry recognized I-CAR® Profes-sional Development Program™ - Ed-ucation Edition into the curriculum ofall 22 secondary and vocationalschools in the state of West Virginia.This marks two firsts for I-CAR. WestVirginia’s initiative marks the firsttime I-CAR training will be used at astatewide level within a school sys-tem’s curriculum and West Virginiawill be the first publicly announcedadopter of the I-CAR® ProfessionalDevelopment Program™ - EducationEdition.

Students that receive this train-ing will have the opportunity to ben-efit from a dynamic, role-relevanteducation that directly aligns with I-CAR’s industry-recognized trainingprogram and a solid foundation towork from as they begin their colli-sion industry careers.

Kathy D’Antoni, West VirginiaAssistant State Superintendent ofSchools said, “Our vision is to growa highly skilled and quality drivenworkforce that leads the way for abetter tomorrow. The Business andEducation segment must work to-gether to make sure the curriculum

being taught in our career technicalcenters satisfies industry needs.”

The I-CAR® Professional De-velopment Program™ - EducationEdition delivers a comprehensive,performance-focused training expe-rience with three successive traininglevels, each referred to as an I-CARProLevel®. The West Virginia De-partment of Education/Division ofCareer and Technical Education hasset a goal for its secondary and voca-tional schools to produce Non-Struc-tural Technicians and RefinishTechnicians who have successfullycompleted the first ProLevel by2012-2013. By meeting this goal,students will be knowledgeable onmany of today’s collision repair pro-cedures and will be better preparedto enter the industry’s workforce.

Bill Stage, I-CAR Senior Di-rector of Segment Developmentstated, “I’m pleased to see that theWest Virginia Department of Educa-tion/Division of Career and Techni-cal Education shares the I-CARVision and recognizes the impor-tance of education within the colli-sion repair industry. Without propertraining, we run the risk of improp-erly repairing vehicles, which canimpact the driver’s safety.”

Search:Autobody News

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by John Yoswick

Looking for tips, tools and resourcesto help your business, defend your po-sitions or do your part for the indus-try? Here’s a collection of links tosites, documents and information youmay find interesting and useful.

— Motor Information Systemshas released a revised edition of itsGuide to Estimating(http://tinyurl.com/7zhbvr3), its ex-planation of what is and is not in-cluded in its estimating labor times(the system used by CCC InformationServices). Revisions made in the Feb-ruary 2012 version are highlighted inblue within the guide.

The new guide, for example, in-dicates that recalibration of the steer-ing angle sensor is not included inMotor labor times. Bumper labortimes are now shown to include lampswhen mounted to the bumper but notinclude optional equipment lamps orthose not mounted to the bumper.Labor times for fender inner panelsare now shown to include grinding,filling and smoothing welded seamsup to 150 grit sandpaper. The guideadds electrical wiring to the list ofnon-included items on frame labor,steering column overhaul, trunk lid,lift gate and quarter panel times.Hinge pillar glass and moldings arenow listed as included in cowl, hingepillar and dash panel times.

— I-CAR has actually loweredthe cost of its online training(http://tinyurl.com/7rsb2sb) to make itcomparable (on an hourly basis) to thefee for its live, classroom training.There are now more than four dozenonline classes available, some vehicle-specific (such as “Ford F-150 FrameReplacement”) and others more gen-eral (such as “MIG Brazing”).

— Although the NationalHighway Safety Administration(NHTSA) said earlier this year ithad found no discernable defectthat led to two fires in ChevroletVolts weeks after they crashed, it isstanding by its recommendation(http://tinyurl.com/7jd88tu) thatshops not store severely-damagedvehicles with a lithium-ion batteryinside or within 50 feet of a struc-ture or another vehicle.

— Whether or not your shop par-ticipates in State Farm’s “Select Serv-ice” program, it can be interesting tocheck out the program’s revised shop

locator system (http://tinyurl.com/7yegybx) that policyholders, agents orclaims personnel can use to locate aparticipating shop. Rather than locat-ing shops based solely on proximity,the system now ranks shops based ontheir current performance score fromState Farm (although those scoresaren’t shown on the site). Interest-ingly, only three shops appear on firstpage of search results; users have toclick through to subsequent pages(each of which lists five shops) to seeadditional shops - potentially includ-ing shops that could be much closer totheir home or work than ones higherup on the search results.

— Ask shops about their naggingconcerns about the future, and chancesare they’ll mention the increasingcrash avoidance technology on newvehicles. They probably weren’theartened by the fact that DavidStrickland of the National HighwayTraffic Safety Administration recentlysaid his agency will decide next yearwhether to mandate vehicle-to-vehicle communication technologiesin new cars, which he said could ad-dress up to 80 percent of crash sce-narios

“We have been working on thisnotion for over a decade,” Stricklandsaid, according to the Detroit FreePress. “We really do feel very bullishon the prospect of getting it on theground.”

But those who make a livingbased on auto crashes can take somemeasure of comfort from a recent re-port (http://tinyurl.com/7ujp5ws) fromthe Highway Data Loss Institute. Itsays that even with such mandates, itcan take decades before new safetyfeatures are in 95 percent of vehicleson the road. According to the report,it won’t be until 2016 that 95 percentof vehicles have front airbags, for ex-ample, and until 2028 for side airbags.

Based on that trajectory, forwardcollision crash avoidance technologywon’t be in 95 percent of registeredvehicles until 2049, the Institute pre-dicts.

— And just in case you want toread more about future vehicle tech-nology, an article (http://tinyurl.com/6s88yp6) in a BBC news magazineasks, “How close are we to a crash-proof car?” It quotes a Volvo techni-cal adviser who says the automakerhas pledged that after 2020, no onewill be killed or seriously injured in

one of the automaker’s new cars.And Wired magazine in February

(http://tinyurl.com/7foslf4) featured afascinating look at the “autonomouscar,” one that essentially drives itself.

— This may come under the sar-castic heading of, “Tell me somethingI didn’t know,” but the highly-publi-cized report(http://tinyurl.com/6ukvr4s) regardingpaint and materials compensationmethodologies released earlier thisyear also found that while averagecosts for paint and materials havegrown by 50 percent since 2005, theaverage compensation rates paid byinsurers have risen by only 23 percent.

Much of the coverage of thestudy focused on the fact that it foundthat 64 out of 68 industry participantsinterviewed think the current waypaint and materials compensation iscalculated is a poor methodology.Only four people (including represen-tatives of three repairer operations andone estimating system provider) ratedthe current system as “adequate” or“good.” The study concluded the cur-rent system is flawed in part becauseon smaller jobs, repairers do not re-ceive adequate compensation, and forlarge repair jobs, insurers believe ma-terials charges become excessive.

The study, conducted by Rich-field Associates and commissioned byComputerLogic (which produces thePMCLogic paint and materials cost-calculation system), included inter-views with shops, insurers, suppliers,association executives, consultantsand trade publication editors.

—If you’re interested in somedocuments that challenge the insur-ance industry, the Consumer Federa-tion of America issued a report(http://tinyurl.com/6phzony) earlierthis year that says insurance premiumshave become an undue economic bur-den on low- and moderate-incomeAmericans, and that state regulatorsshould do more to help reign in thesecosts.

“What is undeniable is that highauto insurance costs for (these) house-holds either impose a substantial fi-nancial burden or greatly limiteconomic opportunity, especially ac-cess to jobs,” said the report’s authors,who are a former Texas regulator andthe executive director of insurance atthe Consumer Federation of America.

The report suggests loweringminimum liability limits, creating spe-

cial programs (as has been done inCalifornia and New Jersey) to helplow-income Americans get cheaperinsurance coverage, and eliminatingpolicy pricing elements (such as edu-cation level and credit history) thathurt low-income households.

Meanwhile, another recent reportfrom a coalition of consumer groupssays Insurers overstate their industry’sfinancial losses from natural disastersand otherwise manufacture perceivedcrises to allow them to dramaticallyincrease premiums and profits.

The report (http://tinyurl.com/7t6h8d2) says Americans have for 35years been “victims of this industry’slittle-understood economic cycle, cre-ated by anticompetitive (yet legal) un-derwriting practices, unique andopaque accounting policies and virtu-ally unchecked power when it comesto regulation of insurance rates.”

The report from Americans forInsurance Reform—a project of theCenter for Justice & Democracy atNew York Law School that includesnearly 100 consumer groups—said in-surers are once again using disasterslike Hurricane Irene to end a 5-year“soft market” of stable rates andheavy competition among insurers,and replace it with a “hard market”marked by extreme rate hikes.

Insurers can overstate losses fromdisasters, the report says, because theyare based on estimates of unknown fu-ture claims, which are, during “hardmarkets, wildly exaggerated.”

The study’s authors point outthat insurers make plenty of profit inboth types of markets not throughunderwriting but through investmentof surplus that has been set aside forfuture claims. That surplus has risenby a factor of almost 40, the studystates, and totaled $580 billion in2010.

The report urges governments torequire more data from insurers, gainmore control over rates, and repeal in-surer’s antitrust exemption under theMcCarran-Ferguson Act.

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

Helpful Documents, Tools And Information Only a Click Away for Shops

Evercoat, Gerson, American Tape andMeguiar’s.

“Just being able to say I workwith these companies is a very hum-bling experience, it shows just how farI have come,” said JoAnn.

JoAnn says her process really de-pends on the vehicle she is workingon; she generally creates a pre-workdrawing on the computer to show theclient and get their input. SometimesJoAnn and the customer will collabo-rate on the design a bit here, and

sometimes the customer ishappy with the initial draw-ing. Then after customer ap-proval she starts painting.JoAnn basically free-hands alot of the art; sometimes sheuses Art Tool templates onmore complicated projects.

“The templates are re-ally a time saver,” saidJoAnn. She often uses acombination of templates, sketchingand free-hand to get the look shewants.

“Custom paint is only as goodas what’s underneath it,” said JoAnn.And in her shop, much of the body-

work and prep are handledby her assistant DavidMalkin.JoAnn has won dozens ofawards for her work, includingPPG’s Top 5 Most Outstand-ing Paint in 2006, Best ofShow and First Place at the2006 Easyriders Bike Show,GoodGuys Shows BestFlames in 2005, Best Paint atthe Boardwalk Show at 2005Daytona Bike Week, Big BearCar Show Best Flames in

2009, Best Painted Motorcycle of theYear in 2005 and 2012, and many otherawards.

JoAnn will attend the SEMAshow this year and will also paint a1932 Ford on Power Block TV’s Mus-cle Car section in the coming weeks.She is also a member of the SEMAAssociation and serves on their SBNSelect Committee.

For more information aboutJoAnn and Crazy Horse CustomPainting, please visit www.crazy-horsepainting.com.

Crazy Horse Custom PaintingPO Box 623Waxhaw, NC [email protected](704) 843-3780


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JoAnn painted this 1939 Ford in 2005 with real fireflames, it was the first real fire paint that she did and itwon PPG's Top 5 Most Outstanding Paint in 2006

JoAnn and her 2004 Crazy Horse Chopper which hasbeen driven hard. The paint job has held up extremelywell, a testiment to the work and product quality

and governance structure for theBoard of Directors; refining standardsfor Board nominations and subsequentexecutive appointments; refining theWIN nomination process and put ad-ditional form around the executive ap-pointments.

“This new executive appoint-ment process will be implemented asthe current term ends and the new onebegins,” said Jankowski.

The 7th Annual WIN Confer-ence, “Be The Change!”, will be heldon May 6-8, 2012 in Atlanta, GA.

Keynote speakers for this annualconference will be Robyn Benincasa,an adventure racer, firefighter and mo-tivational speaker, and Cathy Bon-ner, CEO of Service King CollisionRepair Centers. Benincasa will pres-ent a keynote address titled “ExtremeChange: Adapt, Overcome & Win AsOne,” in which she will share storiesof triumph through adversity. Bonnerwill also present a keynote address ti-tled “The Ten Commandments ofLeadership.”

For more details please visitwww.womensindustrynetwork.com.


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Montana Collision Repair Specialists’ Legislative Recordby Janet Cheney

The Montana Collision Repair Special-ists is an active association that is ex-periencing growth in membership thisyear. The association’s spring meetingis in Great Falls in April. Guest speak-ers will be Steve Bullock, Montana At-torney General, who recentlyannounced his candidacy for Governor,and Jesse Laslovich, Chief Counsel forthe Montana Securities and InsuranceDivision, who has announced his can-didacy for Montana Attorney General.

This association has a strong leg-islative history. Their most recent leg-islative victory was in 2010 when a billwas passed that ‘prohibits insurers fromdisregarding a cost item identified by anestimating system.’

In October of 2011, Montana StateAuditor, (Insurance Commissioner),

sent an Advisory Memorandum to allProperty and Casualty Insurers doingbusiness in the State of Montana, ad-vising them of the law and stating pos-sible fines.

MCRS Past President, Max Yates,owner of Yates Body Shop in Butte,Montana has served region, HD 74, asState Representative for the last twoyears. Representative Yates has also an-nounced his candidacy to continue hisseat in the State Legislature in 2012/13.For a state as large as Montana, this as-sociation stays very connected throughtelephone calls and email and jobbersupport. Fall and Spring Meetings arewell attended, hosting at least 80 peo-ple. Many shop owners will drive 7-8hours to attend a meeting. Membershipis almost at 100 shops out of about 225in the state. Not bad for a state that hasmore cows than people!

Hyundai Recalling 2011-12 Sonata Hybrids For Rear Seat BeltA recall of 2011–2012 HyundaiSonata Hybrid cars was issued by theU.S. National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration on March 8. Accord-ing to the report, more than 14,700 ofthe Hyundai hybrid vehicles have rearcenter seat belts which fail to meetfederal safety standards. However,Hyundai believes it doesn’t need tofix the seat belt issue with all Sonatahybrids—or notify all affected Sonataowner, as required by the usual fed-eral safety recall procedures, due tothe fact that the issue only affectsSonata hybrids manufactured afterDecember 2010.

According to the federal safetyagency claims both the lap and shoul-der portions of the rear center seatbelts disconnect when occupantspress the 3-point safety belt’s unlockmechanism—a violation of safety

standards. According to ConsumerReports, Hyundai claims it will fixthe rear center seat belt issue in theapproximately 1,633 new Sonata Hy-brids still in dealer’s lots. But thecompany has filed a petition with theagency to not fix the approximately13,095 hybrids already in owners’hands “on the basis that the non-com-pliance described is inconsequentialas it relates to motor vehicle safety,”said the NHTSA recall notice. UntilNHTSA reviews and denies theHyundai petition, Sonata Hybridowners will not receive any notifica-tion from Hyundai that their vehiclemay have this safety issue and that afix is available. Owners can stay ontop of federal safety recalls regardingtheir vehicles by subscribing toNHTSA e-mail alerts from theagency’s website: www.SaferCar.gov.

275,000 Subaru Forester SUVs From 2009–2012 Recalled For Rear Seat Belts Failing to Lock ProperlySubaru of America is recalling 275,000Forester vehicles from the 2009 to 2012model years. The models have rear cen-ter seat belt systems which do not meetfederal safety standards and could inhibitthe proper installation of child safetyseats, said the U.S. National HighwayTraffic Safety Administration.

NHTSA also says the automaticlocking retractors in the rear center seatpositions of the recalled Subaru Forestersdo not lock properly. This increases therisk of injury to passengers sitting in thatseat position during a collision. The seatbelt flaw could prevent the proper instal-lation of child safety seats in the rear cen-

ter section of Subaru Forester vehicles.Subaru will notify owners of ForesterSUVs, manufactured from November2007 to March 2012, who may be im-pacted by this federal safety recall inmid-April. Owners will be instructed tobring their recalled Foresters to localdealerships where mechanics there will

replace the rear center seat belt assemblywith a new, modified automatic lockingretractor for free. Consumers can callSubaru's toll-free customer support line(800-782-2783) regarding the recall cam-paign identification number WQA-37.Consumers can also visit the NHTSAwebsite, www.SaferCar.gov.


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Iowa Shop’s Action and Iowa Collision Repair Association, Established in 2005, Starting to be Heard Statewideby Janet Cheney

When Tom O’Mara, an Iowa shopowner, was told by an insurance com-pany that they were only going to payhim $52 an hour, even though his laborrate is $56, he became “mad as heck andwas not going to take it anymore.” Hecalled the vehicle owner and read thestate law to him. The law in Iowa saysthat if the insurer writes an estimate orhas one written for them, and the repaircosts more than the estimate, the insurermust pay the difference. The vehicleowner called the insurer and insisted theypay O’Mara’s bill. Then O’Mara calledthe Iowa Governor’s office repeatedlyuntil he got a face to face meeting withGovernor Terry Branstad. O’Mara hadto convince the governor’s aide first be-fore getting a meeting with the governor.He showed him estimates and letters heclaims revealed insurer threats againsthim, the last three years’ worth of priceincreases he has had to endure, and acopy of the 1963 Consent Decree. “Ihighlighted everything in the ConsentDecree that the insurers agreed not to doanymore,” O’Mara said. “I let themknow this is the third time I’ve given a

copy of the Consent Decree to the Stateof Iowa and asked, ‘What are you goingto do about it? This is still enforceable.”As a result of this meeting, the Governorrequested that the Iowa Department ofInsurance research three business prac-tices in Iowa: collision repair labor rates,steering, and non payment of storage.This was last September.

This story made national news inUSA Today and may have helped opena line of communication between Iowacollision repairers and the governor’soffice.

In only a few years, the ICRA hasbecome an established and recognizedstate organization that supports educa-tion, training, and industry networking.

Sales Tax Reimbursement LegislationDue to the abbreviated legislative ses-sion at the State Capital in Des Moinesin 2011, the ICRA Sales Tax Legislationwas tabled. Representative Tom Sandshas been working closely with ICRAlobbyist Scott Weiser and has commit-ted that this initative will be first in linein the legislative docket in 2012.

In 2008 ICRA stopped the ColorAll franchise from getting licensed to

do business in Des Moines. Color Allis a franchise that promotes collisionrepair work done in a parking lot undera tent. ICRA has been introduced to thelegislative process at the State Capitalin Des Moines, working with the Na-tional Federation of Independent Busi-ness State Manager, Andy Warren.

In December last year, six BoardMembers of the Iowa Collision RepairAssociation (ICRA) met with Iowa In-surance Commissioner, Susan Voss andapproximately twenty representatives ofthe insurance companies. The DOI rec-ognized the association as representa-tive of the collision industry and askedthem to assist with the labor rate surveyin the next 30 days. Against the recom-mendation of the ICRA, a labor rate sur-vey was done in that short period oftime and results have not yet beenposted. This is a work in process and weare looking for a better working rela-

tionship with the DOI and Governor’soffice in Iowa and will move forwardthis year on the Governor’s request.

This association is hosting theMidwest Auto Body Trade Show,March 28 at Prairie Meadows, in theDes Moines area. Admission is free,there are management, technical train-ing, and product demos. Over 50 ven-dors are participating. We are veryexcited about this event. It is going tohave great product displays and lots ofshow specials and door prizes.

Most Iowa Community CollegeCollision Repair programs will alsohave booths and bring their students tothe show. Also, three of our dealershipmembers are bringing hot new cars tothe show room floor. Admission is freeand the ICRA is anticipating a greatand enthusiastic crowd.

For more information contact:www.iowacra.com



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Bobby Alloway loves the color black.Alloway, who has been building andpainting hot rods for years, was namedthe 2011 Autorama Builder of the Yearat the 59th Detroit Autorama earlierthis year. The award was just the latest

in a long series ofcoveted accoladesfor the painter, in-cluding Goodguys’Street Rod andStreet Machine ofthe Year, the DonRidler MemorialAward, America’s

Most Beautiful Roadster, plus count-less others. He was inducted into theRod & Custom Hall of Fame in 2004.

“It s rich, classy and doesn’t‘hurt’ any car,” says Bobby. “No oneever says, ‘that s an ugly color’ whenit s black.”

Some painters avoid black be-cause of its reputation for being un-forgiving in calling attention to eventhe tiniest of flaws. Alloway maintainsthat the prep and painting processshould be the same, regardless ofwhether the car is red, blue, white or

black. What is the secret to his flaw-less finishes? “The key is to not be ina hurry,” says Bobby. “Don’t take anyshortcuts.”

Here are some tips from the mas-ter himself:

Tip 1: “Make sure the car is straightas an arrow,” says Bobby. He followsthis rule religiously regardless of thepaint color.

Tip 2: Choose the right black color.Bobby uses PPG Deltron®, and is cur-rently a big fan of DCC9300 for singlestage work and DBC9700 when usingbasecoat. “It s a rich black,” saysBobby. “It s also friendly to use andisn’t prone to ‘printing’ (the kind ofunwanted imprint that can occur whenyou set a panel aside on a towel orrag).” For clearcoat, Bobby’s processincludes PPG Concept® DCU2002.Where two to three coats of clear arerecommended, Bobby and his teamwill apply additional coats.

Tip 3: Get the fat out (aka any ‘or-ange peel’),” using 600 grit sandpa-

per. “This is where most peoplemake their mistake,” says Bobby.“They’re afraid they’ll remove toomuch material by using the coarsepaper. You want to flatten it out sothat all that’s left is sand scratches.

This is where having five or six coatsof material is essential, since three tofour of them may be sanded off incertain areas.”

Tip 4: Sand single parts or panelsusing sanding blocks of varying sizesand shapes. Alloway’s hot rod shopuses many styles of blocks, but willalso make a new one if needed for theproject. “This doesn’t have to be ex-pensive,” says Bobby, “You can make

them yourself depending on what youneed.”

Tip 5: Sand, sand and sand somemore. Follow the 600 grit with 800,1000, 1200, 1500, 2000 and 2500 grit

sandpaper. Do not skip a sin-gle step! Whereas three to fourdays of sanding might be typ-ical, it is not uncommon for avehicle in Bobby’s shop to besanded for several weeks. TheAlloway process requires aflow coat of DCU2002 whichis sanded and buffed.

For more informationabout Bobby Alloway, please

visit www.allowaysrodshop.com. Formore information about the productsmentioned in this article, please seewww.ppg.com.


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RX-8 2012

Bobby Alloway’s 5 Essential Tips for Achieving a Flawless Black Finish

Bobby Alloway


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

NEW YORK

Metric SubaruHuntington

(631) 858-0316Mon.-Fri. 7:30-5:30; Sat. [email protected]

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Class Auto Center: An Aptly Named First Class OperationClass Auto Center in Long Beach,California is aptly named—truly afirst class operation. This 15,000square foot shop stands out like a

beacon to L.A. traffic on the 405Freeway. The facility was built from

the ground up in 1990 by owner RayNeveau.

Neveau’s first shop was a verysmall two-bay shop in a dead end

alley in Long Beach, how-ever his impeccable reputa-tion brought customers to hisdoor. Erik Sumen was a‘surfer’ kid who loved carsand knew of Neveau’s repu-tation, being very much inawe of him. Erik was fixingjet skis at home in hisgarage, when he found RayNeveau in his little shop inthe alley. Erik eagerly wentto work for Ray as the ‘donutboy.’ Neveau then builtClass Auto Center and theirrelationship has built thisbusiness to where it standstall today.

This unique, upscale repair fa-cility does all the estimating, book-

keeping and management of the op-eration upstairs. As you walk into thehi-tech waiting room, customers arewelcomed by a customer service rep-

resentative and seated in a quiet andclean environment, while the busi-ness of running this business is doneup stairs. Even parts are managed up-stairs and moved by a freight elevatorthat ascends to the parts room and de-

scends into a corner of the productionarea.

There are no Direct Repair Rela-tionships with insurance companiesat Class Auto Center. They havestrong relationships with their deal-ership partners and take excellentcare of their mutual customers. Thisshop pays close attention to all de-tails and they have a high customerreturn rate.

Class Auto Center proudly hasearned Manufacturer Certificationfrom Mercedes Benz, Audi, Porscheand a a special Certification for theNissan GT-R. The 15 trained techni-cians at Class Auto Center have thebest manufacturer certified equip-ment available for them. They exclu-sively use Celette, the only fullyauthorized unibody and frame struc-ture repair system for high end Euro-pean motor cars. They use the new

with David BrownShop Showcase

with Attorney Martin ZuradaBody Shop Law

with Domenico Nigro

The Community-Focused Body Shop

with Janet CheneyShop Showcase Janet Chaney has been involved in the collision industry as shop owner and business

consultant. She serves her clients through Cave Creek Business Development.Contact her at [email protected].

The aluminum room at Class Auto Center inLong Beach

Erik Sumen outside the new Global Collision Center atVW of Garden Grove, CA

See Class, Page 61

by Ed Attanasio

It’s like water and oil; church andstate—the Democrats and the Repub-licans. For many decades, there havealways been two disparate sources forcollision and mechanical parts. Butnow, still mired in an economy that isimproving but lagging, aftermarketparts distributors are starting to thinkoutside the parts box and adding me-

chanical parts to their collision inven-tory and vice versa. When ancillaryrevenue becomes vital to the bottom

line, every company starts lookingharder for the “new, new thing”. Bybeing a one-stop parts source and ex-panding their inventories, companiesare increasing profits and building alarger, more loyal customer base.

The Levan Group, Inc. has beenin business for two decades and hasfive locations in California and Texas,so owner Kenny Levan has seen thecollision parts industry change and re-

invent itself on many levels.That’s why he began incorpo-rating mechanical parts intohis collision inventory withinthe last several years.

“We’re always looking forways to increase our revenue,because once you rely totallyon certain types of parts, you’relimiting yourself,” Levan said.“We discovered that our bodyshop customers want certainmechanical parts to supplementtheir crash parts. It’s a matter ofconvenience and if we can

match the prices they’re finding else-where, it’s an easy decision for them.”

By offering a limited range of me-

chanical parts, such as radiators, lamps,window regulators, shocks, brake partsand struts, for example, the LevanGroup has attracted a new group ofcustomers, including nearby mechani-cal shops, walk-in cash customers and

a whole new business segment theyhad never tapped into before—the do-it-yourself (DIY) market.

“The DIY customers are starting tosave money by doing repairs theywould not consider before,” Levan said.“Now, we get about 30% of our busi-ness from these people. And by adding

more chemicals, clears, bondo and sandpaper (he does not sell paint), we areappealing more and more to the grow-ing DIY part of our overall business.”

Owned and operated by six broth-ers, Kenny, Michael, Brandon, Andy,

Harry, and Henry; each Levanoversees one location whileAndy works at all five ware-houses when required. It’s ahardworking family that cameto the United States from Viet-nam 33 years ago. In 1988,they started the Levan Groupwith little capital but lots ofsweat, Levan said.

“I came to this countrywhen I was 13 and I alwaystell people, I started workingthe minute I got off that boatand haven’t stopped yet,” he

said. “It’s a family business, so wemake the decisions together and wework as a team. We’re always think-ing of new ways to make our companybetter, and adding parts or supplies toour inventory has turned out to be awise move. We carry mechanical partsat all of our Bay Area locations and


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The Levan Group—Where Crash and Mechanical Parts Intersect

Inside Sales Rep Leo Puentes, Owner/Manager Kenny Levanand Sales Rep Andrew Knowles market a wide range ofboth collision and mechanical parts at the Levan Group

Kenny Levan runs the San Jose, Calif. location for TheLevan Group. He started selling collision repair parts inaddition to his mechanical inventory to better cater tothe do-it-yourself market and body shops looking for aone-stop solution

will be expanding to include Sacra-mento very soon. By the end of 2012,all of our Northern California loca-tions will have collision and mechan-ical parts, as well as shop supplies.”

Other parts distributors havemerged collision and mechanical partsand seen it lead to more profits and ad-ditional customers as well. SSF Im-ported Auto Parts in South SanFrancisco is such a business, market-ing both mechanical and collisionparts with good results, according toBill Foxworthy, the company’s Colli-sion Parts Director.

“When business slows down,both mechanical and collision shopsstart looking around for new sourcesof income,” Foxworthy explained.“Body shops obviously need mechan-ical parts to complete a lot of their re-pairs and more and more people arebuying salvaged cars, fixing them upand re-selling them, especially with alot of the higher-end imported vehi-cles we sell parts for.”

SSF sells a fair amount of frontend parts, water pumps, fans, bearings,condensers, wheel components and airconditioning parts to body shops. Con-versely, mechanical shops are buying

more headlights, grill, emblems andother accessory-type body parts asneeded, according to Foxworthy. It’shit-and-miss and tough to track, butFoxworthy knows that SSF is provid-ing a value-added feature by offeringboth. SSF sells collision parts for 80%of the car nameplates they also sell me-chanical parts for, including BMW,Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Volkswagen,Audi, Mini Cooper, Saab and Volvo.

“Sure, our mechanical lines areour bread and butter,” he said. “Butwe’re starting to see that the two typesare slowly morphing together, so we

realize that we need to keep sellingboth. When business starts lagging, wesee a spike in collision parts sales, sowe know it’s a necessary part of whatwe’re selling. We’re in an age of con-venience and shops realize time ismoney. If they can improve cycle timesas a result, it’s a win-win, definitely.”

Foxworthy has been in parts forseveral decades, so he has seen theparts industry change with the Internetand other technological advances, hesaid. “The auto repair industry hasseen a lot of drastic changes, but inother ways they’ve been reluctant tochange. Selling both mechanical andcollision parts would be a logical al-ternative, especially when we’re allfighting for that extra dollar. But, it’snot the traditional way of doing things,so aftermarket distributors aren’t goingthat way. The overall attitude is we’renot going to change something that’salready working. But, we all knowthat’s shortsighted thinking.”

By incorporating aftermarket col-lision parts into their inventory mix,Midway Aftermarket in Kansas City,Missouri has benefitted by the resur-gence in the DIY market while ap-pealing to body shops that want a mix

of recycled parts coupled with new af-termarket parts, Marketing DirectorAimee Studna explained.

“For more than 20 years, our sal-vage yard has been our core business,”she said. “Several years ago, westarted identifying a need with ourcustomers who wanted a mixture ofrecycled parts and aftermarket parts,both collision and some mechanic alparts, mostly air conditioning partsand radiators. Now customers askabout them and we sell them rightalongside the crash parts and our re-cycled inventory. This way they get amix of new aftermarket and recycledparts, which appeals to a lot of the in-surance companies.”

Can collision and mechanicalparts co-exist together in the samewarehouse? Will automotive shops ofall types gravitate toward this one-stop shopping approach to acquiringparts and how will the OEM’s reactwhen it starts becoming more thanjust a minor trend? Stay tuned, be-cause we’ve learned that if money isinvolved, people will adapt andquickly change their ways of thinkingin the pursuit of increased profits anda bigger piece of the overall parts pie.


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

QUALITY IS ALL WE THINK ABOUT. THAT

AND QUALITY.

Hyundai Genesis 2012

NEW YORKNEW JERSEY

Sport HyundaiEGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP

877-594-5727609-484-8983 Fax

Mon-Fri 7:30am - 5:30pmSat 7:30am - 3pm

[email protected]

Maxon HyundaiUNION

800-964-7281908-851-5631 FaxMon-Fri 8am - 6pmSat 8am - 5pm

www.hyundaioempartssuperstore.com

Wayne HyundaiAuto Mall

WAYNE

973-646-0333973-694-1700 FaxMon-Fri 7:30am - 6pmSat 7:30am - 4pm

Largest Collision Inventory inNorth New Jersey

Vision HyundaiROCHESTER

800-295-7977585-292-9724 FaxMon-Fri 8am - 8pmSat 8am - 4pm

www.visionhyundai.com

Plaza HyundaiBROOKLYN

718-253-8400347-492-8156 [email protected]

www.plazaautomall.com

Bill Foxworthy is the Collision Parts Director atSSF Auto Parts, a company that sells bothmechanical and collision aftermarket parts for brands such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz,Porsche, Volkswagen, Audi, Mini Cooper,Saab and Volvo


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Maxon Hyundai-Mazda of Union,New Jersey is this month’s recom-mended wholesale dealer. This dealerservices all of New Jersey, and partsof New York as well. This is anotherfamily store, a father-to-son dealer-ship for over 60 years. A million dol-lar inventory provides same dayservice for most orders, and next dayordering is of course standard proce-dure. Open Monday through Friday,from 8 to 6 and Saturday from 8 to 5.

All of us in the automotive in-dustry have been aware of the con-stant improvements in the products,by every manufacturer. Warranty re-pairs have steadily decreased, sched-uled maintenance has been reduced,and as a result, customer retail andwholesale business has gotten moreimportant.

I talked to Rick Weber, the partsdirector, and was very impressed withhis positive attitude. An experienced

professional, this man knows thevalue of customer relationships, andwants your business.

Rick has been managing thisstore since 1986, the start of Hyundaiin the U.S.A. Maxon added Mazda in1993. We talked about the improve-ments and the growth of both compa-nies over the last twenty years. Ricksaid Hyundai wants to be known asthe manufacturer with the most loyalcustomers while Mazda appeals tothose that want to go Zoom-Zoom. Ifyou look in Rick’s driveway you’llfind both products parked there!

Rick uses every resource, includ-ing the internet to create business.Three internet sites accept orders thatare shipped all over the country. Hebelieves in the value of personal con-tact, believing every one of his men isalso a sales representative. When he isnot visiting customers as the MaxonWholesale representative, Justin

Swanson can be found making deliv-eries to provide that extra personaltouch. Rick himself will also take timeto make a delivery, just to have thatimportant face-to-face contact.

Rick believes in using all formsof advertising, making sure that theMaxon Hyundai Mazda is a name thatis remembered by the repair industry.He promotes business by using maga-zines such as Autobody News, andeven direct mail. Rick manned theirbooth at the annual NORTHEAST au-tomotive trade show all weekend justfor the opportunity to meet and greethis customers. In order to devote moretime to the wholesale business, he del-egated his shop and internal sales to aseparate manager, JP Pascual, whoalso handles the Mazda inventory.Rick wants the Maxon name to be thefirst thought whenever Hyundai orMazda parts are needed, and it lookslike he will succeed.

Six drivers are constantly deliv-ering parts, and five countermen areavailable for incoming orders. Not justorder takers, over a hundred years ofexperience is available to their cus-tomers. If business continues to im-prove more employees will be addedto crew. Awards for this parts depart-ment include twenty consecutiveyears in Hyundai’s Million DollarClub, membership in AASP/NJ, andannual participation in the NORTH-EAST Automotive Show. Rick alsodid a five year stint in the Mazda Serv-ice & Parts Advisory Board and hasbeen a member of the Hyundai PartsPerformance Guild nearly every yearsince 1992.

This dedication to expanding hisbusiness is an example to others whoalso want to increase their wholesalerevenue, another proof that the busi-ness is out there, you just have to want

Maxon Hyundai-Mazda: Father-to-Son Dealership Serves NJ and NY

with Kathy Steck-FlynnAutobody CSI

with Dan EspersenALL OEM Information

with Tom McGeeALL OEM Information

with J.R. CarlsonConsumer Callout

Automaker Actions and Announcementswith Jeremy Hayhurst

Autobody Techwith Jeremy Hayhurst

Parts Profileswith Larry Williams

Automaker Actions and Announcementswith Janet Chaney

I-CAR Tech

Amaradio Explains CRAwith Lee Amaradio Jr.

Consumer Callout

The Right Causewith Mike Causey

with Ed AttanasioShop Showcase

Say What?!

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

See Maxon, Next Page

formance measures and targets forstate highway safety improvementprograms to reduce serious injuriesand fatalities on highways.

In addition, the bill authorizeshighway safety research programs,including data collection, crash re-duction projections, low-cost safetymeasures and safety policy studies.

The House version of a highwaybill currently has no new auto safetyprovisions. House Speaker JohnBoehner (R-Ohio) has said the Housewill not consider the five-year, $260billion proposal to fund highways, butwill consider a shorter-term bill.

The 2012 Ridler® Award winner an-nounced at Detroit Autorama® Febru-ary 26 was the 1955 Ford T-Bird,owned by Dwayne Peace of Tyler,Texas. The car was painted withBASF’s Glasurit® 90-Line™ BrilliantRed waterborne paint.

“BASF’s Glasurit paint has beenon six of the last 11 Ridler award win-ners,” said Vitor Margaronis, Mar-keting Director, BASF CoatingsSolutions, North America. “We’revery proud of this achievement andthe quality of our products.”

The list of products used to paintthe car included Glasurit’s Epoxy801-72, Polyester Filler1006-26, 90-Line Waterborne Basecoat and HSMulti Clear 923-155.

A total of 64 vehicles competedfor the coveted award at the DetroitAutorama. Vehicles are judged basedon three criteria: creativity, engineer-ing and workmanship.

“The execution of the plan andthe quality of the build were out-standing,” said Butch Patrico, Co-chairman of the Detroit Autorama andRidler judging supervisor. Patrico alsosaid the process for this build wassimilar to what a major manufacturerwould do to build a prototype. “Thiswas not a normal build. He didn’t fol-low a cookie cutter process.”

The car was painted by JacobEdens and Jeff Greening of GreeningAuto Company in Nashville, Ten-nessee.

“The entire painting process tookabout six months,” said Jesse Greening.“The color helped it show very well.”

The Ridler award is named afterDon Ridler, who started promoting

Autorama in the 1950s. With his ex-pertise, Autorama became one of thetop hot rod shows in the country. Fol-lowing Ridler’s passing in 1963, a de-cision was made to create an award tohonor his memory. The Ridler awardhas been given out to the best newcreations since 1964. Cars must beshown for the first time to be eligiblefor the award.

To learn more about BASF refinishproducts visit: www.basfrefinish.com.


2012 GT-R

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it bad enough, and be willing to putout the extra effort. Ken, Hector, Mason, Pat, Justin, JP,and Rick are all waiting to fill yournext Hyundai or Mazda order. Justdial 800-YES-MAXON. You’ll beglad you did!

2012 Ridler® Award Winner Features BASF’s Glasurit® Paint

The 2012 Ridler Award Winner from DetroitAutorama is the 1955 Ford T-Bird owned byDwayne Peace featuring BASF’s Glasurit90-Line Brilliant Red paint

Continued from Previous Page

Maxon



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A small motor oil spill incident at theI-CAR Tech Centre in Appleton, Wis-consin in the spring of 2011 has raisedour awareness of the many considera-tions involved with a material spillinto the environment. What started asan accidental collision between asnowplow and a 55-gallon drum of

waste oil on an adjoining property re-sulted in an experience we wouldnever want to repeat.

There were several steps and de-cisions that had to be made to assureproper cleanup. What was morestressful than what we knew about theincident was what was unknown. Howfar had the spill traveled? Was thegroundwater contaminated? Whatpublic agencies might have to be in-volved? How much was this all goingto cost?

We thought we’d share our expe-rience to perhaps benefit another fa-cility that might encounter a similarincident.

Discovery and Initial StepsThe spill was discovered in mid-Aprilas the snow melted (see Figure 1). A55-gallon drum of motor oil in a park-ing lot near the Tech Centre propertywas damaged by a snowplow duringthe winter. Some 30 gallons of spilledoil was carried off the pavement along

with the melting snow. A rainstormfurther aggravated the situation.

The company that provided thesnow plowing offered to immediatelycome in and dig out all of the contam-inated soil and stone, take it to a locallandfill, and replace it with fresh newmaterial. The offer was put on holdwhile we sought legal and other pro-fessional advice. We were informedthat because we discovered the con-tamination and it was on our property,we were responsible for immediatecontainment to minimize environ-mental impact. We were also respon-sible for addressing possibledownstream contamination.

A local civil engineering and en-vironmental firm was hired to assessthe spill. Their observation showed“visual and olfactory evidence of pe-troleum contamination.” That initialobservation was verified by a coresampling. It was recommended thatwood chips and hay bales be layeredon the visible spill areas in an attemptto contain it (see Figure 2). The engi-neering firm added a ten-foot ab-sorbent boom to the containmentefforts. They were also required to in-form the Wisconsin Department ofNatural Resources Regional SpillsCoordinator.

The Wisconsin Department ofNatural Resources was the only publicagency that had to be involved withthe incident. Numerous photographswere taken of the site, including aerialphotographs. An early concern wasthat the oil had leaked into a ditch con-taining surface water (see Figure 3).Whether the oil had contaminated anygroundwater was unknown untilweeks later.

CleanupA couple weeks after the initial obser-vation, it was agreed that the snowplowing company that first made theoffer to remove the spill would be al-lowed to do so, but only under theguidance and direction of the civil en-gineering and environmental firm.

Excavation began in May. Due tothe electrical and telecommunicationsunderground conflicts, it all had to bedug out by hand (see Figure 4). Nearlysix tons of soil were excavated,

loaded, and sent to a qualified landfill.The depth of the excavation varied,but it was no deeper than 6". By lateMay, the spill was entirely contained.By early June, all affected soil was re-moved. This had to be confirmed byanother round of soil samples.

The final 13-page report by thecivil engineering and environmentalfirm, in color and spiral bound, con-tained the entire testimony since thefirm was hired. An appendix includedall the photos, lab analysis charts, andstatements from everyone involved.The firm’s final observation wassummed up in the statement: “Giventhe amount of oil releasedand the amount of contami-nated material hauled away,the environment has been re-stored to the extent practica-ble.”

The excavated area hadto be backfilled with cleantopsoil and seeded. Thesnow plowing company han-dled all the expenses for thespill cleanup, except for theinitial core sampling that I-CAR had authorized on itsown.

One of the last steps was receiv-ing a final signoff from the WisconsinDepartment of Natural Resources Re-gional Spills Coordinator. That two-page report did not come until weeksafter the final engineering report wasprinted and delivered. The DNR re-port stated that the spill was cleanedup to the extent practicable, and nofurther cleanup is needed. Thegroundwater was not contaminated.The spill had not migrated into thedrainage ditch. It was also noted thatno citations had to be issued in con-nection with the spill. Final landscap-

ing of the area could then begin. Thefinal cost to I-CAR was much lessthan what we had feared.

Suggestions for a Similar IssueIn case a facility encounters a similarissue, we can only suggest beingforthright with the environmental au-thorities. It will do no good to try andhide the incident or ignore the issue.Contact the local agency and ask,“What do I need to do about an out-door oil spill?” Similar to a vehicleowner involved in their first collision,a facility owner doesn’t know what todo when an accident occurs.

We took the initiative to contact thelocal engineering firm to do a coresample. We then asked the firm whatdo we do next? Their advice was totake every effort to contain the spill.Being upfront about the incident is al-ways the best approach.

ConclusionThe affair required us to collaboratewith legal, engineering, and environ-mental firms that we had little or no

contact with previously. As it turnedout, the spill did not contaminate sur-rounding groundwater. It was con-tained and cleaned up in a relativelyshort time. We hope this story of ourexperience will help whatever con-taminant spill situation you may en-counter.

with Kathy Steck-FlynnAutobody CSI

with Dan EspersenALL OEM Information

with Tom McGeeALL OEM Information

with J.R. CarlsonConsumer Callout

Automaker Actions and Announcementswith Jeremy Hayhurst

Autobody Techwith Jeremy Hayhurst

Parts Profileswith Larry Williams

Automaker Actions and Announcementswith Janet Chaney

I-CAR Tech

Amaradio Explains CRAwith Lee Amaradio Jr.

Consumer Callout

The Right Causewith Mike Causey

with Ed AttanasioShop Showcase

Say What?!

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

Oil Spill at the I-CAR Tech Centre in Appleton, WI, Raises Awareness

Figure 1 - The spill was discovered in thespring after the snow melt

Figure 2 - Sawdust and hay bales were firstadded to the site for containment

Figure 3 - There was a fear that the spill hadmigrated into a nearby drainage ditch

Figure 4 - The excavation had to be done by hand due tothe obstructions in the area



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Last month we reported on the tow forpay scam going around and severalmore body shops contacted ABN tothank and update us. The invitationcomes by FAX or from a deaf-services

relay call. The relay call operator willcall you and say a deaf person has needfor your services. Calls have been re-ported in California, Florida and Geor-gia. Some names have changed but the

basic scenario is that their car needs tobe towed from another state to be fixedat your shop. But they need you to paythe tow bill before the car can be deliv-ered. Several shops have received faxes

from someone using the names “Evan-gelist Jerry Bratt” or “Jacqueline Har-ris” repeating the basic scenario sayingthey had an accident in a Cadillac Es-calade on their way to Kansas or to

visit their mother. The fax also asks forthe address of your shop.

For example, Sherry at Califor-nia Auto Body in San Diego, CA, re-ceived a fax from “Jacqueline Harris”

on March 13 stating the same set upas the Jerry Bratt scam. The fax shereceived came from a number with aDallas, TX, area code, but the faxeshave not all come from the same num-

ber or area code. The scammer ex-pects shops to pay a tow bill over a$1000 and they tell you the “wrecker”will only accept a moneygram. Some-times they also request a credit card.Paula Chipman at GTA Auto Body inChatsworth, CA, received the fax onthe right.

In the deaf or disabled relay ver-sion of the scam, Vivian from Chico,CA, reported that she had received thisscam relay call: “This person had asimilar scenario, they were from mytown traveling to Texas in a 2008 Es-calade and had an accident. After Iasked for the tower’s phone number soI could contact them directly, she dis-connected from the call. When I calledAT&T they said the call was generatedfrom a computer and there was nothingthey could do about it. They could be inanother country. This is not only ascam but a terrible way to use a dis-ability as a means to rip people off.”

Don’t fall prey but alert us if youreceive this fax or are otherwise con-tacted. The reported sending fax num-bers: 202-204-0669, 469-519-0414and 678-250-9047.


UPDATE on Tow-for-Pay Scam, “Evangelist Jerry Bratt” and “Jacqueline Harris”

by Janet Cheney

The fourth annual Verifacts Automo-tive Fix it Right/Fix It Smart Sympo-sium, was held February 23–24, at thespectacular Laguna Cliffs MarriottResort in Dana Point, California. Thisinvitation-only symposium was at-tended by 350 collision professionalsincluding shop owners, insurers, andrelated industry partners.

Industry veteran Dale Delmegewas Master of Ceremonies for thedayand a half event. In opening the eventDelmege asked if anyone rememberedthe name of Albert Einstein’s math

teacher?” After the expected and silentanswer of ‘no,’ Delmege answered hisown question: “No one remembers hisname, yet he unlocked the intellectualkey that changed the world.”

This simple question set the toneas Delmege invited the attendees tochallenge conventional thought andexplore the future. The internationalline up of speakers and panelists cameprepared to do that.

A most unusual and grati-fying segment of the Sympo-sium was Verifacts recognitionof other industries who have aproven commitment of qualityand excellence.

Dr. David Spong, who re-tired as President of BoeingAerospace Support, is theonly two-time recipient of theMalcolm Baldrige NationalQuality Award, the only for-mal recognition of the per-

formance excellence of both thepublic and private U.S. organizations,receiving said awards from PresidentsBill Clinton and George W. Bush. TheBaldridge Award is given by the Pres-

ident of the United States.Dr. William Buchanan, an Ortho-

pedic Surgeon with Kaiser Permanentehas been instrumental in pursuing con-tinuous improvement in the organiza-

tion with unprecedented success. Dr.Buchanan also serves as a volunteer onthe Los Angeles Sheriff’s Air RescueProgram. Dr. Buchanan brought a videoshowing an intense display of what theLA Air Rescue people do and how crit-ical systems and procedures are to thisprocess of saving lives.

Los Angeles County Sheriff LeeBaca and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s

Department Aero Bureau were recog-nized for their exemplary AviationSafety Management System.

Verfifacts CEO, Farzam Afshar,recognized these three with the Veri-facts “Role Model and Safety Award.”

Several presentations followed.Negotiate Like the Pros, by AttorneyJohn Patrick Dolan, was informa-tive, uplifting and much fun. Atten-dees participated in a brief ‘survey’identifying certain behavior styles.His message: be Tough, Shrewd andCool Under Pressure. ‘Don’t roll overand play dead—there are other op-tions.’

Fix it Right/Fix it Smart soundslike a simple formula, yet the chal-lenge of the unknown from every in-dustry segment was recognized.Discussion points revolved aroundthe theme of unprecedented change.Recognizing the ‘firehose’ of infor-mation being thrown at the industryand how is this to be assimilated andused effectively, to identifying thebalance of cost containment inter-secting with new technology. As oneindustry representative confessed,


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Verifacts Symposium Recognizes Achievement, Industry Unknowns, and Negotiation

COLLISION REPAIR PROFESSIONALSEPAIR PROFESSIONALS

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

VeriFacts Coaches will work with progressive shops while setting their own flexible schedule as an independent contractor. Full time and part time openings available in multiple states.

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

Please apply with resume or cover letter to:[email protected] or call (949) 272-3838

(l to r) Larry Jeffries, CARSTAR Canada, Stacy BartnikCARSTAR USA, and Farzam Afshar, CEO of Verifacts Au-tomotive at the NABC display

(l to r) Jeanne Silver CARSTAR Mundelein,Kristen Felder, Collision Hub, and ShawnCollins of 3M, share a moment at the VerifactsSymposium

Wielander-Schill Inverter SpotWelder.

Two down draft paint booths arein a separate building in a corner ofthe pie shaped lot , just a few feetfrom the production building. Twoprep stations are in the same buildingas production. Lead painter, Miguel,is a stickler for detail and expectsvery high quality from himself andhis team of four. They use SpiesHecker exclusively, and recently up-dated their waterborne technology to

the new Spies HeckerPermahyd Hi Tec.

Aluminum repairis a condition of mostManufacturer’s Certi-fication. All aluminumrepairs must be iso-lated and completed ina no-contamination en-vironment. Class Autohas again taken a steptowards exceptional quality and builttheir aluminum room in a completelyseparate building.

“We all take pride in what wedo,” says Sumen, “we have long termemployees and have built a culture of

working together.”You could hear thefriendly sound ofagreement whenwalking throughthis shop. Sumencontinues, “We arefamily oriented andsort things out so wecan keep things sim-ple in our employ-ees lives.” ClassAuto has a princi-pled core that makes

it easy for everyone to follow protocol.“We follow repair manufacturers rec-ommendations and do the repair rightthe first time,” Sumen states with con-fidence.

This year, Sumen and Neveauare tackling a new challenge. Theyhave opened Global Collision Cen-ter, located at V.W. of Garden Grove.This existing shop needed the busi-ness model, experience and enthusi-asm of this team. The major remodelof this facility has brought it to theClass standard, although Global willnot be a Certified facility. It willwork on all makes and models.

There will be no Direct RepairRelationships, at this time, at thisstore. The book of business will be

“we are not sure even where we aregoing.”

Selected industry partners dis-played innovative products and wereavailable for education and discus-sion throughout the event.

Verifacts CEO, Farzam Afsharand COO, Mark Olson, are co-

founders of thecompany. Theircollective experi-ence brings a highlevel of innovativethought, skills andindustry knowl-edge to VerifactsAutomotive. TheSymposium is areflection of theirindustry message.

This Symposium brought to-gether a collaboration of informationand an amalgam of industry mindsmelded together to work towards theultimate goal of achieving better re-pairs, better processes, better rela-tionships. In short, a better industryand Verifacts would say, ‘ExposingExcellence in Collision Repair.’

For more information see:www.verifactsauto.com.


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Mark Olson,Verifacts COO, talksabout the smartway to fix a car

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See Class, Page 63

Class Auto Center in Long Beach

The collision repair industry has toomany body shops. I’m not sure anyonewould seriously dispute that. Thesooner we can rid ourselves of 15,000body shops, the better all of us will be.Yes, it’s true, all of us will be far betteroff. This includes insurance companies,vendors, body shops themselves andconsumers.

How can we make this happen ata faster pace? That may be beyond thelimited scope of this mastermind, butit wouldn’t be an Insider article with-out a recommendation or two, sobuckle up and get ready.

The car manufacturers shouldfurther develop their certificationprograms and join together as onevoice to educate consumers at thepoint of purchase. “If your car is inan accident, you must take it to anOEM Certified Repair Facility toguarantee a proper repair. Takingyour vehicle to a body shop outside

the Certified program could result inan improper repair and compromiseyour safety.”

Sadly, that statement isn’t sometrumped-up idea to scare people. It’s afact and the motoring public should

know that while there are more than35,000 body shops in the country, toosmall a percentage are prepared to re-

pair aluminum, iden-tify substrates, weld“exotic” metals anduse proper-sectioningprocedures.

The complexitiesof today’s vehiclesprovide a significantchallenge to repair-ers. And five yearsfrom now, the 2012vehicles will looklike a Model A doestoday.

U n f o r t u n a t e l y,there aren’t a lot ofpeople who fully un-derstand the implica-

tions. Most industry pundits willprobably tell you that I’m solely re-ferring to the Mom-and-Pop body

shops as being ill-equipped or lackingin necessary repair information. Aucontraire, mon frère…I’m referring toshops that might be just like yours,maybe even most shops. I’m not try-ing to lose readers, just the shops thatare clinging to their outdated businessmodels and procedures like a motherbear to her cub.

And since we aren’t likely tosee car manufacturers creating so-phisticated certification programsthat virtually eliminate the bottom-feeders, there is an alternative. Onethat is probably a little more hu-mane. For the Rhodes Scholars andmy fellow Ivy league compadres, Ioffer you: The Darwin Theory. Yes,a concept so primitive that a cave-man could follow along. Flo?Maybe not.

It’s a simple but effective con-cept. Survival of the fittest is surelythe answer to the ills of this over-pop-


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‘Survival of the Fittest’ Also Applies to Collision Repairers






Mainstream Media













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

built from customer referrals anddealership relationships. They willmaintain their commitment of su-perior quality and customer servicethat will follow them from ClassAuto Center.

Global Collision is well equippedwith a Chief Ez Liner, down draftspray booth and updated weldingequipment. They will also use SpiesHecker waterborne Pernahyd Hi-Tec.Miguel, the lead painter from ClassAuto Center will oversee the paintdepartment in the new shop, as well.This facility has great curb appeal ona main thoroughfare in GardenGrove.

Class Auto Center is an activemember of the California AutobodyAssociation, participating in the

Glendale Foothills Chapter. ErikSumen also participates on the Gov-ernmental Committee for the Colli-sion Industry Conference (CIC).Class Auto keeps its fans apprisedwith a Facebook page and it lookslike there will be more social mediafor these shops in the future.

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ulated industry. If you are from anarea where deer are prevalent, youmay be able to better relate to mybody shop reduction initiative. Inmany states, deer have become aproblem. There are too many deer andnot enough predators to keep the pop-ulation down. The answer to thatproblem is open season.

How does this relate to bodyshops? I’m not suggesting open sea-son where we shoot the weak andvulnerable. There’s no need to sug-gest that when we have a naturalpredator. Consolidators are the yingto the yang, the french to the fry, andthe predator on the bottom-feedingbody shops.

Thankfully, the mega-mightyshops are slowly and steadily elimi-nating competition from the market-place. It’s a slow, arduous process butone that will ultimately yield the pos-itive result we all seek (even thoughyou may not know you want it),which is fewer shops. Consolidatorsreceive a substantial number of callsevery month from shops looking tosell their businesses. It has become abuyer’s market, and those with capi-tal are licking their chops but patiently

waiting. Why buy today when theprice tomorrow is going to be a littlecheaper? The Mom-and-Pop shopsare dying a slow death, and the longerthey wait to sell, the less they aregoing to get.

Most insurance companies arehappy to see the attrition of shops, al-though the rate of decline is less thandesirable.

This isn’t about eliminating theMom-and-Pop businesses that wewere once the backbone of Americaand still play a big role. It is abouteliminating the undersized deer, theone with a limp and the one that can’tsee very well. By eliminating theweak, the larger, more astute opera-tors can continue to grow at a rapidrate. That will raise the overall qualityand efficiency of shops in this indus-try. The shops that can better serve ourcustomer. Ooops, I mean our mutualcustomer.

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


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