Mw 0714 issue web

by Ed Attanasio

Kevin Walli has been the lobbyist forthe Alliance of Automotive ServiceProviders (AASP-MN) for the past20 years. He is a shareholder in thelaw firm of Fryberger, Buchanan,Smith and Frederick in St. Paul, MN.We got in touch recently to discussthe recent history of legislation thathas impacted the collision industry inMinnesota in the past five years.

Q: How did you become the lobby-ist for the AASP-MN?KW: I’ve been representing the colli-sion industry in Minnesota for 20 yearsnow, after working in government af-fairs for many years prior to that. Afriend of a friend knew someone at the

AASP-MN andtold me they werelooking for somerepresentation andmore support at theCapitol. Over theyears, we’ve beenworking hard toprovide more bal-ance between theinterests of the col-lision industry andthe insurance in-dustry, becausethere’s an ongoing

tug-of-war there obviously. I believethat there has been a constructive ap-proach by the two industries to try andcommunicate with one and other. So,

by John Yoswick

PartsTrader proposed state limits onuse of non-OEM parts, and challeng-ing the automakers’ patent designs oncrash parts were all being discussedwhen non-OEM parts manufacturersand distributors met recently inAustin, Texas.

The Automotive Body Parts Asso-ciation (ABPA) allowed only mem-bers in the room during discussion atits convention of the association’spending lawsuit challenging the valid-ity of six of Ford’s design patents oncollision repair parts. But proposed

federal legislation that would reducehow long automakers can use design

patents to preventother companiesfrom producing re-placement crashparts was amongthe topics dis-cussed at the eventby Louisiana taxlawyer Cassie

Felder, who is running for Congress.Felder, a Republican who be-

lieves in tax reform and repealingthe Affordable Care Act, told atten-

The Springfield business communityhas joined together to help transforman outdated Brinks armored truck

into a SWAT rescue vehicle for theSpringfield Police Special Opera-tions Team, according to a report inthe Springfield News Sun by AllisonWichie.

“We’ve done everything that wecan do to that truck,” said Fred Maine,owner of Maine’s Collision Repair.“And it’s for all the guys that do (spe-cial operations). This is my thanks toyou and we’re just happy that youmake Springfield a safer place.”

Maine’s Collision Repair, Nav-istar and the UAW Local 402, HaysFabricating, the Miami Valley AAA,the Port Authority of Springfield

Springfield, OH, Community Businesses DonateTime, Money for Rehabbed Police SWAT Vehicle

Aftermarket Parts Sellers Hear from CongressionalCandidate With Ties To The Industry

See Kevin Walli, Page 6

See Springfield SWAT, Page 45

Attorney and AASP-MN Lobbyist Kevin Walliis Minnesota’s Shop Champion

See Aftermarket Parts Sellers, Page 28

Kevin Walli, Esq.has been thelobbyist for

Minnesota’s Allianceof Automotive

Service Providers(AASP-MN) for thepast 20 years

Cassie Felder

by Chasidy Rae Sisk

Three-C Body Shops, a four-facility,multi-shop operation in the ColumbusOH, area, has filed multiple lawsuitsagainst State Farm Insurance Com-pany in an effort to recover allegedshortpay losses. Since November2012, Three-C has filed 104 suits

against the insurer, all of which accuseState Farm of engaging in “repeatedunderpayments for services generallyrendered and charged to their cus-

tomers when their vehicles have beendeemed total losses.” Currently,owner Bob Juniper is seeking$405,000 in recovery, including legalfees and court costs, of which StateFarm previously agreed to pay$31,565.03.

Juniper notes that he rarely hasproblems with insurers refusing to paythe full cost of repairs because “wenegotiate with them pretty well. Wespend a little time with their adjustersand can generally get to where weneed to be. We may not always get thefull amount of our estimate, but weget close by compromising until wecome to terms we can both agree on.”

In fact, Juniper hasn’t experi-enced difficulty from State Farm inpaying for repairs either. Three-C’sshortpay lawsuits are associated withcosts related to vehicles that aredeemed total losses which the insurerobjects to paying. Juniper provides thefollowing example: if the shop writes

OH’s Three-C Body Shops Has Filed Over 100 LawsuitsAgainst State Farm Alleging Systematic Shortpays

See Three-C Body Shops, Page 22

Three-C is Suing State Farm, Alleging Re-peated Estimate Discrepancies on Total Losses

The new Springfield Police Division’s SpecialOperations Team armored vehicle. Local busi-nesses, including Maine’s Collision Repair andNavistar, donated more than $100,000 of partsand labor to refurbish an old Brinks truck

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AAMStraining.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Audi Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 43Automotive ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12BMW Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 34Bolt Buster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Celette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Certified Automotive PartsAssociation (CAPA). . . . . . . . . . . 15

Charles Gabus Ford . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Chief Automotive. . . . . . . . . . . . 16, 17Chrysler on Nicholasville . . . . . . . . 28Classifieds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Dent Magic Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Dent Tools Direct USA . . . . . . . . . . 30Erhard BMW of Bloomfield Hills . . . 31Erhard BMW of Farmington Hills . . 31Ganley Auto Group, Inc. . . . . . . . . . 33GlasWeld Systems, Inc. . . . . . . . . . 10GM Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . 37Graham Auto Mall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Griffin Automotive Group . . . . . . . . 24Herkules Equipment Corporation. . . 8Honda-Acura Wholesale PartsDealers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20-21

Hyundai Wholesale Parts Dealers . 41Induction Innovations, Inc. . . . . . . . . 6Jake Sweeney BMW. . . . . . . . . . . . 39Jake Sweeney Chevrolet . . . . . . . . 39

Kia of Des Moines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Kia Wholesale Parts Dealers. . . . . . 44Laurel Auto Group of Westmont . . . 19Lexus Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 45Loaner & Rental Insuranceby Northland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Malco. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Management Success . . . . . . . . . . . 7Martech Services Company . . . . . . 16Mazda Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 40Minute Man Wheel Lifts. . . . . . . . . . . 4Mitsubishi Wholesale PartsDealers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

MOPAR Wholesale Parts Dealers . . 23Morrison’s Auto Parts . . . . . . . . . . . 18NACE/CARS Expo & Conference. . 27PDR Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Rare Parts, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22SATA Spray Equipment . . . . . . . . . 25Subaru Wholesale Parts Dealers . . 36Toyota of Des Moines . . . . . . . . . . . 11Toyota of Grand Rapids . . . . . . . . . 32Toyota Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 38Valspar Automotive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Volkswagen Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Zeigler Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep . . . . . 48

Inde

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I would like your opinion on somethingI’m seeing becoming a trend. I am see-ing more and more insurance companiesmaking the body shop do the original es-timate and send up pictures. We willhave one of our customers bring a car toour shop and they want US to do thework. They call their insurance companyup and let them know the car is at ourshop. Normally, they would send out ainsurance adjuster to do the estimate be-cause for years now if we did one it wasnot good enough for them. They wouldnot want it. They would do their ownand in turn we would go over it andmake adjustments or add to it from there.They may argue and haggle if repairtimes were unacceptable. Now, Nugentonline uploading of pictures and esti-mates is available. I’m finding more andmore insurance companies telling us togo ahead and use Nugent, upload andsend pictures.

All of a sudden now our esti-mates are good enough for them ! Ofcourse they are saving money by notsending out an adjuster! This is whatI’m upset about. Before we weren’tgood enough to write a estimates now

they want us to write the estimate andsend up pictures for free! Why do theythink my time is worth nothing?

My partner and I share the officework and are out in the shop workingall day. Our time is valuable. When weare in the office our production timesuffers. The insurance companies tellme “Well, you write free estimatesdon’t you?” My answer is ‘yes, to aprospective customer that I don’t know,or my regular customers,’ but when Ihave a customer that drops his car off Iknow I have that job already. The per-son has picked my shop. Why is it theinsurance company feels that I shouldprepare the estimate for them on mydime? They are saving money by notpaying an adjuster, but I feel theyshould at least pay me some fee for mytime and not take advantage of me.Small shops cannot take that kind ofabuse and I think it’s taking an extremeadvantage of shops and the proprietors.I would like your [readers’] thoughts onhow we can combat this abuse.

Thanks, Pete Gutierrez,Pete <[email protected]>

Letter to the Editor: Why Should Insurers Get FreeEstimates When They’re Not Using Adjusters

Letters to the Editor can be sent to [email protected]. They may be edited forlength and clarity. See Facebook/autobodynews to respond via comment.

REGIONALAttorney and AASP-MN Lobbyist Kevin Walliis Minnesota’s Shop Champion . . . . . . . 1

Branson, MO, Shop Keeps EnvironmentalConcerns at Top . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Brian R. Patrone, Boardman, OH, Painter, Passes at 41 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Cape Girardeau, MO, Shop Burglarized,Valuables Taken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Career Center Collision Students KeepsSidney Police Vehicle on the Street. . . . . 4

Collision Repair Among Programs toBe Cut in Kentucky. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Farmers Drops Climate Change Lawsuitsin Chicago . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Groundbreaking for OCC Collision RepairTechnology Center in IL . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

IL Shop Owner Posts 20-min Videoof FPB for Panel Fixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Insurer-Sponsored Hail Damage Centersin Iowa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Joseph Lee Grady, 68, Passes in Lodi,Lake Wisconsin in May . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Le Mars, IA, Shop Seeks Sewer LineException. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Masters School of Autobody Management Hosts Body Shop Management Essentialsin July . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

MO Shop Porter Steals Car, JoyridesOff-Road, Posts His Fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

OH’s Three-C Body Shops Has Filed Over100 Lawsuits Against State FarmAlleging Systematic Shortpays. . . . . . . . 1

Ohio Appeals Court OK’s Line Measurementfor Dealership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Sisk - ASA-Midwest - Take Me Out tothe Ballgame!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Sisk - ASC-KY Views Shop Autonomy and Consumer Advocacy as Top Priorities . 18

Sisk - Indiana’s IABA Makes Changesfor 2014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Springfield, OH, Community BusinessesDonate Time, Money for RehabbedPolice SWAT Vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

SWCC Collision Repair Students WinIowa SkillsUSA Competition . . . . . . . . . . 9

COLUMNISTSAttanasio - How to Market to Millennials. . 36Franklin - Ding Day–A Marketing Tactic . . 37Luehr - Using an Outside Expert to Improve your Competitive Position . . . . . . . . . . 34

Yoswick - Highway to Hell, Blueprinting,Rekeying Estimates, State Farm andOEConnection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

NATIONALAftermarket Parts Sellers Hear fromCongressional Candidate With TiesTo The Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

AMI to Honor New Managers . . . . . . . . . . 17ASA-CO to Host Pinnacol Safety MeetingJuly 9 in Denver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Attanasio - Tech Turned Tool DesignerHeadlines EB-CAA May Meeting. . . . . . 32

AudaExplore Pledges $150K to SkillsUSAin Tool Grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

AutoZone Names Dornan ProductsVendor of the Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Caliber Acquires MSOs in Los Angelesand North Carolina. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

CARS This Year Is All New, ASA PromisesIt Will Be The Best Show Ever . . . . . . . 40

CARSTAR Sees Record Revenue in 2013, Plans Expansion of HQ in Leawood, KS . 39

CAWA Reports on Status of CaliforniaLegislation Impacting Industry . . . . . . . 33

CCAR and ShipMate Launch ImprovedHazmatU website. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Chrysler Airbag Recall Being Probedby Regulators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Crashes Cost Almost $1T in Costs,Loss of Life, Pain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Culpeper, VA, Man Charged afterBody Shop Standoff. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Dusty’s Collision Project Goes toCouncil in Ann Arbor, MI . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Employee, 23, Killed at Baton RougeUpholstery Shop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Fix Auto Acquires Alaska Shops . . . . . . . . 17Franklin - CAA Glendale-Foothill AndValley-Ventura Chapters MeetingJune 2, 2014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

I-CAR Gold Class and ASE-Certified ShopsRewarded at NACE | CARS . . . . . . . . . 16

I-CAR® Adds New OEM SegmentDevelopment Director, John Bosin . . . . 29

I-CAR® And National Auto Body CouncilPartner on Membership Discount,30% Off Until End of 2014 . . . . . . . . . . 40

I-Car® Conference on Future of CollisionRepair and Automotive Industry, July 30In Detroit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Interactive Advanced Steering and SuspensionSystems Damage Analysis Course. . . . 29

Letter to the Editor - Why Should InsurersGet Free Estimates When They’re NotUsing Adjusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

MERA Joins the Excitement atNACE | CARS 2014. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

New Study Says More Than 75% of AllPickup Trucks will be Aluminum-Bodiedby 2025. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Niebling Auto Body: 120 Years and StillGoing Strong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

NSF International’s Bob Frayer EarnsPrestigious ASQ Quality Leader Award . 44

Pack Brothers in Belmont NC WinsShort Pay Arbitration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

PartsTrader Integrates HollanderInterchange Codes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Quality Parts Coalition Says Five-Year Price Comparison Report Shows CertifiedAftermarket Parts Saved $80 MillionSince 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

SCC Students Receive Nebraska CustomAssociation Scholarships. . . . . . . . . . . 45

SCRS Open Board Meeting on July 28thin Detroit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

SD Shop Fire Caused by SmolderingCigarette Butts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

SEMA Garage Now Features Photo Cove. . 10Service King Collision Repair CentersFinalizes Sterling Collision CentersAcquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Several Hundred Vehicles Suffer Hail Damagein IL Storm on May 22-23, . . . . . . . . . 41

Sisk - ASA-NW’s Automotive TrainingExpo 2014. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Sisk - LaCIA Hosts Attorney Generalat May 22 Meeting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Sisk - New Auto Body Association of Texas Launches June 18, PartsTrader ProvidesImpetus, Statewide Members. . . . . . . . 30

VIN and Safety Labels from AutomotiveIDBring Vehicles Another Step Closer toPre-Loss Condition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Women’s Industry Network CelebratesExcellence In Leadership and the Formal

Transition of the ‘Most Influential Women’Program to WIN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Young Technician’s Program to Debutat CARS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43


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Police say a Hazelwood auto bodyworker decided to commute in a carstolen from his employer, CompleteAuto Body at 6041 N Lindbergh Blvd,Hazelwood, MO. Over the weekend,a coworker spotted the suspect driv-ing the 2003 Pontiac Bonnevillearound his neighborhood. His em-ployer checked surveillance, and allthe evidence was right there. Com-plete Auto Body General ManagerKurtis Barks said, “You see a vehicleparked behind our dumpster, watchthe guy strategically move the gate,and then take off with our car. Appar-ently he did this once, got away withit, so he decided he’d just keep thecar.”

Barks says not only did 41 year-old Ben Taylor take the Pontiac forthe weekend, but he documented it onsocial media: “I came to find out hewas actually putting pictures on face-book where he was kind of modelingon the vehicle, and showing off to hisfriends.”

Taylor’s boss, along with Hazel-wood Police, presented their evidenceto Taylor, but he still denied it, untilthey showed Taylor his own meal re-ceipts, left in the car.

“Eventually, he did come aroundand admit to it,” says Hazelwood Po-

lice Lt. Ron Livingston. Ultimately,police say Taylor put 78 miles on thecar, and caused $3800 worth of dam-age.

Barks said, “Apparently he de-cided to go off-roading, and the rightfront and left front of the vehicle weremessed up. We repaired all that, tookcare of it, we actually bought the carfrom the customer in order to make upfor it, so there was no damage or lossfor them.”

The Pontiac is now a rental car,and its former owner is now a regularcustomer. That’s left Taylor, whoworked as a porter and car cleaner,fired and behind bars, charged withStealing a Motor Vehicle, a Class CFelony.

Barks adds, “We’re very thank-ful to have great employees that actu-ally stood up for us, and told us, andwe had the right surveillance in placeto catch them.”

The theft happened back in No-vember, but charges were just filed.That’s because police were investi-gating a similar crime, in which Tay-lor was a suspect. However, therewas not enough evidence to chargehim in that incident.

MO Shop Porter Steals Car, Joyrides Off-Road, Posts His Fun

Students at Upper Valley Career Center inPiqua, OH, recently helped keep a policevehicle on the street. Junior and senior autocollision students at Upper Valley repairedand painted a rusted Sidney Police vehicle.

“This project was an opportunityfor students to gain experience and ex-pertise in the career field of auto body re-pair and to showcase their skills,” SidneyPolice Chief William Balling said. “Therepairs to the vehicle are very profes-sional and it gave the vehicle a wholenew look.” James Hess of J&J Enter-prises in Piqua donated the paint andsupplies needed for the repairs. Ballingsaid the department owes instructorFrank Anthony, his students and JamesHess a great deal of gratitude for the hardwork and material. Upper Valley stu-dents repainted another Sidney policevehicle in 2011, which is still in service.

Collision Students MaintainOH Police Vehicle

The Le Mars City Council approvedan industrial property tax exemptionto facilitate expansion of Total Salesand Service’s auto body shop in LeMars. The exemption has a value ofup to $6,594, over five years as a re-bate on a declining scale of 75, 60, 45,30 and 15 percent each year. The cityissues tax rebates for projects that addassessed value, buildings and jobs inLe Mars, said City AdministratorScott Langel. The real estate on whichTotal Sales is located, at 801 Hawk-eye Ave. S.W., is owned by Brown-miller Investments, of Le Mars.

Brent Brownmiller appeared be-fore the council Tuesday to requestthe exemption.

The proposed expansion includesan 80-by-80-foot building, which willbe attached to the existing body shop.

“We want to grow. We can’t fittrucks in our building,” Brownmillersaid.

Brownmiller also requested therelocation of an existing 12-inch san-itary sewer line, which travels un-derneath the proposed expansion.

At Tuesday’s council meeting,Langel said businesses usually do notbuild on top of sewer lines, but heknows of some exceptions in Le Mars.

Le Mars, IA, Shop SeeksSewer Line Exception

Branson Collision Center has been inbusiness more than eight years, butowner Jesse Lee has nearly threedecades of experience in the autobody repair business. Branson Colli-sion Center operates out of a state-of-the-art facility on Gretna Road, wherethey keep the environment in mindevery step of the way.

“We’ve got brand new down-draft pressurized and heated paintbooths to keep dust at a minimum,”Lee said. They use waterborne paintsand primers, which are more environ-mentally friendly. And they do every-thing they can to ensure they arekeeping what they can out of landfills.“Everything gets recycled,” he said.

Lee said technicians have the useof portable prep stations to make jobsgo faster, and they also have framemachines that can handle large trucks.An on-site mechanic shop is also inplace to handle other repairs. BransonCollision Center has many direct re-pair programs and works with allmajor insurance companies.

“We can do RV collision repair,watercraft collision repair and motor-cycle collision repair,” Lee said.

“All of our techs are exceeding15 years experience,” Lee said. “Theyare ASE-certified, I-CAR-certified

and PPG paint-certified.”In order to maintain those certi-

fications, Lee and his crew must con-tinually stay up-to-date on the latesttechniques and procedures and main-tain a standard of excellence. ASEcertification is considered the blueseal of excellence from the NationalInstitute for Automotive Service Ex-cellence. I-CAR, Lee explained, is theNASCAR of collision repair.

A PPG-certified shop must fulfilla number of special quality require-ments that means the body shop alwayscomplies with the highest standards.

Branson Collision Center canhandle more than collision repair.They can do RV fiberglass repair andspray-in bedliners for trucks, as wellas detailing.

“Customer satisfaction is thekey,” Lee said. “People don’t like tobe without a car, so we are going todo everything we can to help them getback on the road.” To tour the shop,visit bransoncollisioncenter.com.

Branson, MO, Shop Keeps Environmental Concerns at Top

Career Center Collision Repair ProjectKeeps Sidney Police Vehicle on the Street

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what we’ve done for several years run-ning is that we sit down usually a fewtimes per year to air out our issues andsometimes there’s a response from theinsurance companies that indicates thatmaybe we can address some of these is-sues ourselves. But in other cases, weend up saying let’s agree to disagree andarm wrestle it out at the Capitol.

Q: You’ve dealt with legislationregarding steering?KW: Yes, and we’ve had some suc-cess with legislation concerningsteering. We’ve been able to findmore clarity on the laws dealing withsteering, so that we can understandwhat steering is and provide somedirection in the law. The purpose ofthe language is obviously to protectconsumers from being steered andwe’ve had some success with that.Steering has always been an issueand it still is in many ways, so we’vedeveloped legislation to address that.We sought language a few years agoto prevent an insured or claimantfrom being required to take their ve-

hicle to a particular drive-in claimscenter and we were able to get thatchanged. We also added a sectionthat restricts an insurer from speci-fying the use of particular vendorsfor the procurement of parts or othermaterials necessary to perform a sat-isfactory repair. Now this very issueis still being contested.

Q: There’s been a battle in Min-nesota between the insurance com-panies and the body shops, becausethe insurers want the shops to usecertain parts, products and man-agement platforms, correct?KW: Yes, we had some legislationthis year that we did not succeedwith (House File 2690/Senate File2542-the Auto Repair Claims Pro-cessing Bill) that would have pre-vented insurance companies fromdictating certain business practicesat repair shops. I think there’s asense with the body shop owners inMinnesota that there are more andmore situations in which insurersare dictating what estimating sys-tems and materials they should use.And we’re concerned that it’s a slip-pery slope where the insurancecompanies will take away the au-

tonomy of the collision repair shopowner. We had some proposed leg-islation that would have restrictedinsurance companies from specify-ing or requiring that repair shopshave to utilize specific vendors,manufacturers, suppliers, businessplatforms or internal processes andwe got the bill introduced and somegreat authors for the bill both in theHouse and in the Senate. But ulti-mately, we couldn’t get movementfor the bill on the Senate side. TheChairperson there (Senator JimMetzen, who was also a co-authorof the bill) was uncomfortable withthe onslaught of input he receivedfrom the insurance industry. Someof what they had to say was legiti-mate, and some was not, but that’snot unusual. When we proposed thelegislation and it was circulating atthe Capitol, the insurance industrycame forward and said that theyhadn’t heard of this bill. They said“Hey—we’ve had this practice forseveral years of discussing legisla-tive proposals with the collision in-dustry in advance of the LegislativeSession.” They argued that theyhadn’t had such a discussion on thisproposal. In addition, this year’s

Legislative Session was shorterwith very tight deadlines for gettingbills heard, so that also played a rolein the death of the bill. But, we’regoing to bring it back in a newform, after getting some valuablefeedback from the insurance side.They said that we were trying to killthe DRP system, which was neverour intention at all. So, we have toaddress that issue and re-work someof the language the next timearound, so that it’s clear we’re nottrying to change the fundamental re-lationship that exists between bodyshops and insurance companies.

Q: I imagine you haven’t been sup-portive of programs like PartsTrader?KW:Exactly, because our concern hasalways been that if a body shop is re-quired to use a particular parts vendor,the shop doesn’t have a relationship ora history with that vendor. As a result,parts that aren’t appropriate for the ve-hicle can enter the picture, because thecommunication between the shop andthe vendor is not present. Shops spenda lot of time and effort to developedbusiness relationships with particularparts vendors and then all of this goesout the door when they are forced to

Continued from Cover

Kevin Walli


work with someone else they don’tknow anything about. In addition, wehave had an ongoing dialog with theDepartment of Commerce regardingits enforcement and there is an inves-tigation that’s open in this matter andthe Department of Commerce is con-tinually gathering information abouthow PartsTrader system is working ornot. We were hoping that the statutewould provide enough guidance forenforcement action. But now they’regathering information and studyingthe marketplace and as an industrywe’re trying to provide informationfor the Department of Commerce inthis matter.

Some time ago, we also addedlanguage to the same statute that “pro-hibits an insurer from unilaterally andarbitrarily disregarding a repair oper-ation or cost identified by an estimat-ing system…” This means, if you’reusing an estimating system that youand the insurance company have bothagreed that it’s acceptable to use, thenthey can’t deny the repair operationand cost without some clear justifica-tion. This kind of shifts the burden tothem and it’s now their responsibilityto prove the repair practice should notbe recognized.

Q: What other issues have you’vetackled on behalf of the members ofAASP-MN?KW: We had to deal with some taxprovisions in recent years. There wasa sales state tax on paint and suppliesfor shops when they were purchasedat wholesale. But, we were able toshift the point of imposition on the taxfrom the wholesale to the retail level.That way, shops are able to pass thattax onto the consumer. The repairshops were eating that tax cost before.Most of the other states were alreadydoing it this way and Minnesota waskind of an island in that regard, so thelegislation was much-needed.

Q: You have an annual LegislativeDay where shop owners can meet withtheir legislators, right?KW: We’ve been doing a Day at theCapitol on occasion, where we meetwith our members and give them anorientation of how things work at theState Capitol. Then, we ask them totalk with their Representatives andSenators and walk the halls to discussthe legislation we’re working on. Theinsurance industry is extremely well-represented and they have a lot verysmart people working for them, both

in-house people as well as consultantsthat they’ve retained. The sheer num-bers can be rather daunting at times,to be honest. So having the shop own-ers converging at the Capitol andmeeting with their Legislators puts apractical perspective on our issues–soit’s been a very positive thing. Plus, ithelps me to do a better job for theAASP-MN, because after these Sena-tors, for example, have met with oneof their constituents, we can follow upto emphasize the point made by theshop owners.

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Brian R. Patrone, 41, of Boardman,died the morning of May 31 at his res-idence. Born May 30, 1973, in Salem,OH, he was the son of Rocco Patroneand Debbie (Foley) Lewis. An autopainter by trade, Mr. Patrone workedfor area auto body shops. He graduatedfrom Crestview High School Class of1991, was a Navy veteran and Catholicby faith. Survivors include his mother,Debbie Foley Lewis and stepfather,Bill Lewis of Petersburg; his brother,Kevin (Jenn) Patrone of New Water-ford; his father, Rocco Patrone of Pe-tersburg, Ind; and grandmother, PhilFoley of East Palestine. Preceding himin death were his grandparents, PeteFoley, Rocco and Dorothy Patrone andReed and Martha Lewis.

Brian R. Patrone, Boardman,OH, Painter, Passes at 41

Cape Girardeau police are currentlyinvestigating an auto body shop bur-glary. Police say Schafer's Auto BodyShop, at 1410 South Sprigg Street,sustained garage door damage duringthe burglary and a computer process-ing unit, scanner, tools, an ATV, gen-erator and a trailer were all taken.

Cape Girardeau, MO, ShopBurglarized, Valuables Taken

This article is being republished fromthe IABA monthly newsletter withsome additional comments from theorganization.

Chapter Meeting Schedules:In the past we have scheduled chap-ter meetings on a bi-monthly basis.This has grown from a single Indi-anapolis Chapter in 2005 to seven ormore chapters now in which wehold, or plan to hold, regular meet-ings conducted by the Executive Di-rector and often includes specialguest speakers.

For this reason, beginning in 2014we will now schedule meetings in eachchapter on a quarterly basis, while stillencouraging the local chapter to meetat least each other month.

Current plans are to hold ourchapter meetings in January, April,July, and October. The days of theweek are also changing to the follow-ing:

Monday:Lunch - Terre Haute*Dinner - Evansville*

Tuesday:Lunch - New AlbanyDinner - Bloomington

Wednesday:Lunch - IN NorthDinner - Fort Wayne

Thursday:Lunch - MerrillvilleDinner - Indianapolis

Friday:Lunch - Lafayette, Kokomo, Marion,Muncie *

* Working to organize regular localmeetings in these areas.

We are also looking at supplementingour ability to reach more within the

State through WebCasts as well be-ginning in the second quarter.

Director Note: If you are in TerreHaute, Lafayette, Kokomo, Marion, orMuncie and would like to begin hold-ing meetings, please contact me to as-sist in getting a suitable location.

Membership Levels:In the past, we had single ($395), 2 - 3shop ($750), and 4+ ($1000) mem-bership levels. For 2014, two addi-tional membership types have beenadded. First, an additional multipleshop membership has been added forshops with two facilities in Indiana at$600.00, and an “Out of State” Mem-bership has been added for $250.00.

This change was to encourage moreinvolvement in the association.

Membership Challenge:From discussions it is obvious to ac-

complish what we need to for the In-dustry in 2014 - 2015, it will requireadditional revenue, or the associa-tion’s success will be limited.

As the Executive Director and theBoard of Directors, we need all mem-bers to embrace our 2014 challenge ...each current member commits bringtwo other shop owners or managers inyour market to join the association,and with all the vendors you have a re-lationship with, get at least one to be-come a sponsoring member in 2014and another in 2015.

This commitment by all will moveour organization forward and allow usto accomplish our goals for 2014 and2015. We all have to work together toaccomplish this, and I am sure we can!

IABA By-Law Changes:It was also noted that the By-Laws willrequire updating and after the commit-tee updates them, there will be a mem-bership vote to approve the changes.


Indiana’s IABA Makes Changes for 2014

with Chasidy Rae SiskMidwest Associations

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


Masters School of Autobody Man-agement will be hosting its BodyShop Management Essentials courseMonday, July 21 through Thursday,July 24 in Galesburg, Ill.

The three-and-a-half-day course,taught by working professional colli-sion repair shop owners and managers,the class will teach attendees the nec-essary solutions to achieve smootherpersonnel relations, effective produc-tion and profitability.

Tuition is $2,495, and lodgingand travel information is available.

To register for the event:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/body-shop-management-essen-tials-galesburg-registration-10869814909orMasters School of AutobodyManagement:https://www.masters-school.com/class_schedule.php

Masters School of AutobodyManagement Hosts Body ShopManagement Essentials in July Southwestern Community College in

Creston, IA, has announced a pair ofIowa natives have qualified for theSkillsUSA national auto collision re-pair competition.

Zach Mullen of New Market andGarrett Hogue of Lenox took homefirst place honors in the Iowa Skill-sUSA 2014 competition heldin Ankeny. The pair will nowrepresent Iowa at the upcom-ing national competition inKansas City, June 23-27.

Hogue was named goldmedalist in collision repairtechnology and Mullen wasnamed gold medalist in auto-motive refinishing technology.Hogue and Mullen both re-ceived their diplomas in colli-sion repair/refinish in June oflast year and their associate ofapplied science degree in auto colli-sion repair/refinish last month.

Hogue, a 2010 graduate of LenoxHigh School, is the son of Matt andColeen Hogue of Lenox. Mullen, a2012 graduate of Clarinda High School,is the son of Bill and Diane Mullen ofNew Market.

Southwestern is one of 11 com-munity colleges in Iowa with auto-

motive repair programs. The Crestonbased school boasts just one of twoprograms in Iowa offering studentsASE and NATEF certification.SWCC is the only program in thestate to have the I-CAR Gold Classdesignation. SWCC is one of fivecolleges in the state of Iowa to have

the I-CAR Training Alliance. Thisallows students to earn Gold Classpoints during their coursework.SWCC’s auto collision repair/refin-ish program is based on the I-CAREnhanced Delivery curriculum withvaluable hands-on experiences in theclassroom. Courses are taught byASE-certified instructors who haveplatinum level I-CAR designations.

SWCC Collision Repair Students Win IowaSkillsUSA Competition

Zach Mullen (l) and Garrett Hogue (r) are on theirway to the national SkillsUSA competition

Joseph Lee Grady, age 68, passedaway unexpectedly at his home onSaturday, May 17, 2014. He wasborn on Sept. 12, 1945, in Madison,the son of Donald Joseph and IlaMae (Lewis) Grady. Joseph lovedcar shows, tinkering in his garage,and his classic Dodge cars. Heworked for various auto bodyshops, starting at Chief Auto Bodybefore opening his own shop, JLGenterprises, in Harmony Grove, inthe early 80s. Joseph retired in2002. His greatest joy was spend-ing time with his family andfriends. Joseph had a true soft spotfor his grandchildren and a speciallove for his dogs and cats. He is sur-vived by his wife, Sandy; children,Michael (Shelley) Grady, Laura(Jeff) Veloff, Carla (Randy) Kreger,Tracy Webb, Terry (Allison) Webband Tricia (Larry) Wickham; 14grandchildren; one great-grand-child; three sisters, Amber (Bob)Fluckinger, Genieve (Carl) Syftes-tad and Karen (Jock) Pautzke; andsister-in-law, Lynne Grady. Josephwas preceded in death by his par-ents; and brother, Donovan Grady.Online condolences may be madeat www.gundersonfh.com.

Joseph Lee Grady, 68,Passes Away in Lodi in May

Follow us on Twitter:@autobodynews

Accept no Substitutes!


A site plan for Dusty’s Collision at2310 South Industrial Highway,south of Jewett, was recommendedfor approval at the Ann Arbor plan-ning commission’s June 3, 2014meeting. The proposal calls forbuilding a 30,537-square-foot, one-story auto collision repair facility ona parcel that’s currently vacant. Aprevious building at that locationwas torn down in 2013. The newbuilding would include 5,285 squarefeet for office use, a waiting area of5,227 square feet, and 20,025 squarefeet for the repair area and garage.The project is estimated to cost $2million. The site will include 106spaces of exterior parking, including24 spaces that will be deferred untilneeded, according to the staff memo.One bicycle hoop – for 2 bike park-ing spaces – will be located near thefront of the building. The recom-mendation is contingent on theowner, Whitney’s Collision West ofAnn Arbor, providing one footingdrain disconnect before the city is-sues a certificate of occupancy.

The project will be forwardedto city council for consideration.

Dusty’s Collision Project Goesto Council in Ann Arbor, MI

State and local officials attend agroundbreaking ceremony Wednes-day for a new $1.1 million Colli-sion Repair Technology Center atOlney Central College, 305 N WestSt, Olney, IL. Illinois Capital De-velopment Board (CDB) andschool officials were among thoseattending the event. The construc-tion project is being funded by Gov.Pat Quinn’s Illinois Jobs Now! con-struction program. The project willbe overseen by CDB, the state’sconstruction management agency.The new center will be just to theeast of the current Collision RepairTechnology building. According toinformation from the CDB, the8,000-square-foot Collision RepairTechnology Center will include4,400 square feet of classroom andlaboratory space for the college’sCollision Repair Technology pro-gram, as well as expanded labora-tory opportunities for theAutomotive Service Technologyand Welding programs. The con-struction project involves four con-tracts. Shores Builders, Inc. ofCentralia was the lowest of fourbidders for the general constructionwork with a quote of $711,156.

OCC Collision Repair TechCenter Breaks Ground in IL

Farmers Insurance Group has droppedlawsuits against 200 Chicago-areacommunities, reports the ChicagoTribune. The insurer claimed the com-munities did not do enough to preventwidespread flooding in the areas inApril 2013.

The class-action suits soughtto make the local governments re-imburse Farmers for claims it paidout to more than 600 propertyowners in the communities. Theinsurer argued that public agenciesshould have taken more preventa-tive measures to avert damagecaused by the record-breakingfloods, such as emptying reservoirsbefore the rains hit, says the Trib-une.

But now, less than two monthsafter the suit was filed, Farmers haswithdrawn it. “We believe our law-suit brought important issues to theattention of the respective cities andcounties, and that our policyholders’interestes will be protected by thelocal governments going forward,”says Trent Frager, a spokespersonfor Farmers, in a statement.

Frager says the company doesnot intend to refile the suits, saysthe Tribune.

Farmers Drops ClimateChange Lawsuits in Chicago

Russ Hoernis of Hoernis Auto Body inBelleville, IL, has created a 20-minutevideo and posted it on YouTube todemonstrate all of the steps in thefeather, prime and block procedure thatmust be performed to bring a repairpanel back to a new, undamaged one.

“Feather, prime and block is a re-finish operation that for years has beensnubbed by the insurance industry as ei-ther an included operation in repair times,or they have just been unwilling to com-pensate shops for the work and materi-als utilized. I have researched the CCC,Audatex and Mitchell manuals, and eachestimating system has independentlystated that feather, prime and block is anecessary operation that must be per-formed to bring a repaired part back to anew, undamaged panel. Each manualalso clearly states that published refinishtimes are for new, undamaged panels.”

After documenting the entire op-eration, Hoernis goes over the laborand materials used and ultimately cal-culates that not getting paid for this re-sults in roughly $50,000 per year inlost revenue to his shop.

Hoernis concludes the video bysaying, “I hope for whoever is watch-ing that this clarifies some of the is-sues we are up against.”

IL Shop Owner Posts 20-minVideo of FPB for Panel Fixes

Auto insurers in Sioux Falls, IA, setup catastrophe centers to streamlinethe claims process for residentswhose vehicles were damaged byhail in June 5’s damaging thunder-storms. Thousands of vehicles werebattered in what some auto insurersexpect to be one of their largest everclaims in the city. Catastrophe cen-ters analyze hail damage and adjustclaims to be turned into auto bodydealers at the time of repairs. The de-tails still were being finalized June 6.

American Family Insurancestarted assessing damage by ap-pointment at the American FamilyInsurance district office at 4004 W.49th St. starting Sunday.

Farmers Insurance set up nearABRA Auto Body & Glass at 4001W. 34th St. to see customers, also byappointment.

State Farm Insurance alsoplanned to have a catastrophe cen-ter up and running.

Insurer-Sponsored HailDamage Centers in Iowa

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Follow us on Twitter:@autobodynews


The photo cove in the SEMAGarage—Industry Innovations Cen-ter opened for business last month,as celebrity builders Pete Chapourisand Jimmy Shine of So-Cal SpeedShop utilized the studio to photo-graph a celebrated project car theyare building for rock guitarist BillyGibbons. Large enough to fit a full-size vehicle and complete with a30”x10” adjustable light box, thephoto cove will help SEMA mem-bers develop low-cost, professionalmarketing pieces for their new prod-ucts. SEMA Garage services includea training facility, an emissions-cer-tification lab and chassis dyno. “TheSEMA Garage is able to help SEMAmembers throughout the entire prod-uct development cycle,” said MikeSpagnola, SEMA VP of OEM andProduct Development Programs.Spagnola says that members canmeasure new vehicles for productsusing a portable coordinate measur-ing machine (CMM). A prototypecan then be developed from SEMA’s3D printer, before being tested in thedyno and emissions lab. “The SEMAGarage can literally cut the entireproduct development process downto six weeks,” said Spagnola.

SEMA Garage Now FeaturesPhoto Cove


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by Chasidy Rae Sisk

Whether you’ve struggled with theneed to replace automotive VIN andsafety labels or if you’ve never giventhem a second thought, the fact re-mains that federal law mandates theselabels be permanently affixed to every

vehicle, yet they’re the part leastlikely to be fixed during a repair!Manufacturers rely on both the safetycertification label and the tire-and-load label to convey important safetyinformation to drivers. These labelsare customized with the VIN andmonth/year of manufacture for each

unique vehicle, but while it’s easy tomatch these labels to a specific vehicleon the production line, manufacturersare not equipped to replace a singlecustom label after the car leaves theirplant. That’s where AutomotiveIDcomes in!

Automotive ID launched in 2007to fill this need within thecollision repair industry.One-of-a-kind VIN andsafety labels were not beingreplaced and, at best, werebeing cut out and stuffed inthe glove box. The com-pany’s sole business is theproduction of these uniqueVIN and Safety certificationlabels, and AutomotiveIDsupplies collision repair fa-

cilities in every state in the U.S. aswell as throughout Canada.

As a provider of aftermarket au-tomotive labels to the collision repairindustry, AutomotiveID produceshigh-quality labels for all makes andmodels of cars and light trucks, al-lowing their replacement to go from

nearly impossible to one of the easiestparts to replace. Beyond the simpleneed to restore a vehicle to its pre-losscondition, replacing these labels is im-perative because they instruct driverson how to handle and main-tain their vehicles, includingtire inflation recommenda-tions and load limits, both ofwhich are extremely impor-tant since ignoring these rat-ings can lead to dangerouswrecks; this is why the Na-tional Highway Transporta-tion Safety Administration(NHTSA) insists the informa-tion contained on these labelsis critical to public safety.

For collision repair facilities, thebenefits of restoring a vehicle to itspre-loss condition by using Automo-tiveID’s labels is obvious, but becauseinsurance companies also recognizethe benefit of maintaining the safetyof their customer’s vehicle and thevalue of their own insurable interest,shops can finally get paid for doingthe right thing and replacing these cus-

tom VIN and Safety certification la-bels. Besides the safety factors men-tioned, AutomotiveID’s labels alsohelp consumers maintain the value oftheir vehicles as appraisers typically

discount trade-ins with missing labelssince the absence of these labels limittheir knowledge of the vehicle.

AutomotiveID’s replacement la-bels fulfill many needs to the benefit ofall vested parties. In addition to provid-ing federal regulation compliance of re-paired vehicles, these labels preservethe value of the vehicles, provide nec-essary tracking information, and supply

VIN and Safety Labels from AutomotiveID Bring Vehicles Another StepCloser to Pre-Loss Condition

Installing a replacement Tire & Load label will ensure yourcustomers know how to maintain their vehicles and con-tribute to their overall safety

AutomotiveID’s replacement BMW certification label con-tains the same information as the manufacturer's original


the repair facility with incremental rev-enue and compensation on work forwhich they haven’t traditionally re-ceived payment. Each party in the col-lision repair industry has different, yetvalid, reasons for recognizing the im-portance of replacing vehicle labels, butthe predominant concern relates to pub-lic safety, and AutomotiveID’s servicesundeniably contribute to this factor.

AutomotiveID offers a completeline of automotive labels, includingcertification, service parts, tire andloading, emission control, paint andtrim, anti-theft and all other aftermar-ket labels that are typically difficult tofind. All of their replacement labelsmeet the standards set forth by theNHTSA, and AutomotiveID enters allinformation by hand to ensure accu-racy as part of their thorough processof quality control and independentverification procedures.

So how do you order replace-ment labels from AutomotiveID? Eas-ily because it’s all done online!Simply visit their secure website,complete the order form, and uploada photograph of the original label. Au-tomotiveID will enter the necessaryinformation and print a new labelwhich you can receive as early as the

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With their industry-leading, web-based ordering and rapid returnprocesses, AutomotiveID ensures theirreplacement labels are the “easiest partto put back on,” so what are you wait-ing for? Visit their website and restorethe vehicles in your shop to their pre-loss condition today!

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Citing a grave financial situation in theFleming County, Kentucky schools,Commissioner of Education TerryHolliday has imposed a series of dra-matic cuts to the 2014-15 school yearbudget. Holliday has proposed cuts to-taling nearly $350,000. Holliday is alsoproposing the elimination of teachingpositions in the fields of agriculture,business, family and consumer serv-ices, telemedia technology, autobody/collision repair, Spanish, physical edu-cation, and the cutting of three stipendsfor agriculture teachers.

Holliday’s letter stated that thedecision to make these cuts was nottaken lightly and was made to ensurethat the high school would continue tofunction in a “responsible manner,while addressing the needs of all stu-dents appropriately.” This statementleads one to ask just how removingteaching positions will appropriatelybenefit the needs of the student popu-lation.

The budget cuts were discussed ata standing-room only meeting held bySuperintendent Price on May 5. Manyin the crowd voiced strong oppositionto the cuts. As cited in the Ledger In-dependent, a discussion erupted be-tween teacher Bobby Pease and localbusiness owner Adam Hinton, who

both opposed the laying off of an agri-cultural teacher. They asserted thatthey would acquire the $60,000 neces-sary to keep the teacher on for the fol-lowing school year. Jim Hamm, theKentucky Department of Educationrepresentative, replied that it wouldhave to go through Holliday beforethey could accept the money. A partic-ipant in the meeting asked Hamm, “Wecan receive money from the state, butit can’t come from our own people?Why can’t we just give them themoney?”

On May 7, two days after themeeting, 400 Fleming County HighSchool students staged a walkout tooppose the cuts and firings. John John-son, a junior who led the walkout atthe school, was quoted in the Lexing-ton Herald Leader: “We feel like it’san unfair decision to remove Mr. Leet.He’s done nothing wrong. He’s donenothing but good in the school sys-tem.”

Freshman Destiny Harmon told theLedger Independent: “We are standingup to the state, because it’s not right.They can’t come in here and tell us toget rid of good teachers and a good prin-cipal.” Freshman Shayla Sparks added,“Firing our teachers is taking our life-guards.”

Collision Repair Among Ed Programs to Be Cut in KY

20 years ago in the collision repairindustry (July 1994)If the collision repair industry does notget clearly focused on what the mis-sion is, it will be doomed to dance towhatever tune the insurance industrywants. Probably something like thatold AC/DC hit, “Highway to Hell.”

Bill Clinton was elected presidentof the United States because he keptthe country focused on the economy.(His slogan, “It’s the economy, stu-pid,” became famous. To win in theirongoing economic struggle with theinsurance industry, collision repairershave to concentrate on the car owner.“It’s the car owner, stupid.”

Collision repairers are too busytripping over their own swords to re-alize that pleasing the car owner everytime is a key to survival. Instead,many are more worried about pleasingthe insurance companies. They claimthat since it’s the insurance companieswho are writing the checks, it’s the in-surance companies they should be sat-isfying. Ultimately, though, it’s the carowners who write the checks. They,after all, pay the insurance premiums.

I predict that in another 10 year,the American public is going to wakeup and realize how monstrous a finan-cial institution the insurance industryhas become.

– excerpted from editorial bySheila Loftus, editor of Hammer &Dolly published by the Washington(D.C.) Metropolitan Auto Body Asso-ciation, July 1994

15 years ago in the collision repairindustry (July 1999)CIC’s “Research and Development Com-mittee” is continuing its exploration of a”new body shop operating model” to im-prove customer service and “cycle time”– the length of time between the accidentand the time repairs are completed and theinsurance file is closed.

At the meeting in July, committeechairman Randy Stabler said the aver-age repair claims process is 10 days –including four or five days before re-pairs begin. His committee, he said, islooking into ways to reduce the ineffi-ciencies before repairs actually begin,including the current estimating process.

“All of the things that are bottle-

necks in the repair process are a de-rivative of an inaccurate estimatingsystem,” Stabler said. “The back-endrepair process is never going to be ef-ficient and accurate if we don’t startout with an accurate blueprint.”

Among his committee’s initialrecommendations are:

- Improve the estimating systems sothat they create that “blueprint for repair”in plain language easily understood bytechnicians and vehicle owners.

“If the estimate is more than justan accounting of what we’re going tocharge or pay to fix the car, I thinkwe’re going to have faster cycle times,happier consumers and lower overallcosts for everyone,” Stabler said.

- Reduce inconsistency in partsnames and labor terminology used bythe estimating systems and vehiclemanufacturers.

- Eliminate confusion and ineffi-ciencies by having insurers distributetheir pricing guidelines.

- Stop insurer “micro-manage-ment” of each individual repair charge.

“Can you imagine someone goingin for surgery, and the doctors findingsomething else that needed to be donebut not doing it because they had to stopand call for authorization?” Stabler said.“That’s not an efficient model. ‘Pull itand we’ll come back and see the dam-age after it’s pulled’ is a flawed notion.That in the long run does not save theinsurer or consumer money.”

– As reported in The GoldenEagle. It was at least five years beforethe “blueprinting” aspect of “lean pro-cessing” was being widely discussed inthe industry, and still 15 years later it isfar from universally adopted by shops.

10 years ago in the collision repairindustry (July 2004)The Collision Industry Conference(CIC) “Information Technology Com-mittee” reported that rekeying esti-mates that shops could be receivingelectronically from insurers is costingthe industry an estimated $17 millionor more each year.

Based on a survey of 44 shop own-ers at a previous CIC meeting, the com-mittee believes that about 28 percent ofthe 9 million auto claims require rekey-ing of estimates, which takes an average

of 21 to 33 minutes per estimate. As-suming a wage of $20 per hour for theshop employees rekeying the estimates,“that basically says there are 2.52 mil-lion estimates that are rekeyed each yearby body shops, costing a minimum of$17.64 million,” Cindy Schnier, co-chairman of the committee, said.

–As reported in Autobody News,July 2004. In 2013, CCC InformationServices and Mitchell Internationallaunched services that enable a partici-pating insurer to enable shops not on thatinsurer’s DRP to download the insurer’sprepared estimate, eliminating the needfor the shop to rekey the initial estimate.

5 years ago in the collision repair in-dustry (July 2009)Shop owner response was mixed lastweek to the announcement by StateFarm that it was no longer requiringits Select Service shops in Californiaand Indiana to use OEConnection forelectronic parts ordering.

Debbie Moore of Diamond Colli-sion Services in Avon, Ind., said thatdespite some glitches with the systemover the past year, it has eventuallyworked well for the shop.

“We’ve been using it on all our or-ders, not just State Farm jobs, and willcontinue to do so at least for now,” shesaid.

But a Southern California shopowner who asked not to be identifiedsaid State Farm’s decision came at anideal time; his shop’s server had justcrashed and he now wouldn’t have to re-load the OEConnection parts orderingsoftware on the replacement computer.

“It’s kind of been a pain, andsome of my dealers really didn’t wantto mess with it,” he said of the partsordering system. “You almost alwayshad to do follow-up phone calls (to thedealer) with it, so if I have to do thatanyway, I can do without it.”

State Farm’s George Avery said al-


Highway to Hell, Blueprinting, Rekeying Estimates, State Farm and OEConnection

with John YoswickHistorical Snapshot

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

See Historical Snapshot, Page 34



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NACE | CARS, held at COBO Centerin Detroit July 30-Aug. 2, will offerspecial recognition to attendees whohave a proven commitment to collisionrepair training demonstrated through

achievement of I-CAR Gold Classrecognition or ASE Blue Seal certifica-tion. Collision and Service Repair fa-cility personnel that belong to an I-CARGold Class business or hold the ASEBlue Seal certification will receive a 50percent discount on the training andconference sessions at NACE | CARS

2014. In addition, any individual that iscurrently I-CAR Platinum or an ASEMaster Technician will be entitled to thesame 50 percent discount. This discountincludes individual sessions through theSuper Pass that covers sessions duringthe entire conference.

“We want those who have achievedthe highest levels of industry-recognizedtraining and certification to be rewardedfor their achievements,” stated Dan Ris-ley, ASA president and executive direc-tor. “This is a great way to highlight anelite group and to encourage their on-going technical and business educa-tion.”

“As technology advancements dic-tate a necessary evolution in repairabil-ity, more collision repair businessesthan ever are adopting a learning cul-ture to ensure that they are able to per-

form safe and quality repairs,” stressedJohn Van Alstyne, I-CAR CEO andpresident. “I applaud NACE and CARSfor recognizing this commitment to ed-ucation and knowledge by giving backto the businesses and individuals whotrain.”

“ASE’s relationship with NACEand CARS goes back to the very begin-ning of the event, and we are pleased toonce again be a part of this significanteducational opportunity for the indus-try,” said Tony Molla, ASE vice presi-

dent of communications. “We also salutethe efforts to encourage professionalismwith this generous discount program forour ASE certified professionals and thebusinesses that employ them.”

Registration is now open forNACE | CARS and hotel reservationscan be made via the Travel section ofthe website, www.NACEexpo.com orwww.CARSevent.com for the week ofJuly 27 and all events taking place dur-ing “Industry Week” in Detroit.

Now in its 32nd year, NACE|CARSwill feature numerous opportunities fortechnical training, business education,demonstrations, networking and technol-ogy showcases for stakeholders, owners,managers and technicians in the collisionand service repair industries.

I-CAR Gold Class and ASE-Certified Shops Rewarded at NACE | CARS

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The Motor Equipment RemanufacturersAssociation (MERA) has joined a grow-ing coalition of leading organizationssupporting NACE | CARS 2014 IndustryWeek in Detroit this summer. MERAwill host a Remanufacturing TechnologyExpo on Thursday, July 31, from 10:00am-4:00 pm in the Ambassador Ball-

room in the COBO Convention Center.Dan Risley, ASA president and ex-

ecutive director, stated, “We are excitedto have MERA join us in Detroit. This isa very important organization in the au-tomotive market and their participation,content, and attendance is beneficial toIndustry Week. The overriding purpose

of the event is to bring the industry to-gether, and MERA’s involvement furthersolidifies our goal of deeper market cov-erage.”

“Remanufactured parts offer like-new quality and real value that techniciansand end users can trust,” said John Chali-foux, president and COO, MERA. “Dur-

ing the MERA Remanufacturing Tech-nology Expo, members will showcase theadvanced methods they use to restore corecomponents to original—or better—con-dition and performance.”

Registration information and theagenda is available at MERA.org/tech-expo.

MERA Joins the Excitement at NACE | CARS 2014


Fix Auto Acquires Alaska ShopsFix Auto USA continues expansion inthe Western United States with the in-troduction of five locations in Alaska,bringing the total number of Fix Autofranchises to 59. This marks the firsttime Fix Auto has ventured into theAlaskan market.

“We’re ecstatic to join this eliteand exclusive brand of high caliberoperators as we adapt to shifting mar-ket dynamics,” said Tony Stanley,who along with his wife Mel are theowners of the Fix Auto Alaskan fran-chise group, formerly Driven AutoBody.

AMI to Honor New ManagersThe Automotive Management Insti-tute (AMI) will honor its 20th classof Accredited Automotive Managers(AAMs) with a formal cap and gownceremony on Aug. 1 during the newIndustry Week 2014 July 28-Aug. 2at the COBO Center in Detroit. TheAAM designation is awarded afterthey successfully complete course-work and earn 120 credits of man-agement education. More than 1,700individuals have earned the AAMdesignation and approximately 100new graduates are added each year.For more go to www.AMIonline.org.

The prestigious Most InfluentialWomen in Collision Repair (MIW)Awards were presented to three womenduring a celebratory dinner in SanDiego during the Women’s IndustryNetwork (WIN) Conference. The MIWAwards recognize women who haveenriched the collision repair industrywith their leadership, vision, and com-mitment to excellence. Doug Holm-berg, representing AkzoNobel,formally transitioned the MIW pro-gram to Margaret Knell, Chair ofWIN, by giving WIN a framed issue ofAkzoNobel’s Profit Magazine with acommemorative note officially mark-ing the transition. Profit Magazine hashighlighted Most Influential Womenhonorees since inception of the award.This year’s honorees were FredericaCarter, President of F. Carter Events,LLC; Jordan Hendler, Executive Di-rector of the Washington MetropolitanAuto Body Association; and LeanneJefferies, Director of Collision Pro-grams at AIA Canada. Each honoreewas introduced by an industry peer andformer MIW who nominated them forthe award. In a welcome message,Knell thanked those being honored aswell as award recipients from prioryears, “for your visibility and ongoing

example of most influential women inthe collision repair industry by yourleadership, vision, and commitment toexcellence—both in your professionsand in your communities.” She thenrecognized AkzoNobel for their vision

and elevation of the societal issue of theadvancement of women in the collisionrepair industry. The recognition pro-gram's charter aligns with WIN’s mis-sion to ‘enhance the role of women inthe industry’ and has recognized morethan 75 women for their professionalaccomplishments and for going beyondrequirements of their positions to giveback to their communities. Honoreeshave held positions in every facet of thecollision repair industry, as shop own-ers, body and paint technicians, man-

agers, wholesalers, lobbyists, suppliers,insurance adjusters, consultants, edu-cators, editors and writers, and indus-try association directors. Established in1999 by AkzoNobel, WIN assumedmanagement of the MIW program in2013. The Most Influential Womenprogram has supported the industry byfunding scholarships for prospectivefemale students interested in pursuinga career in collision repair.

“The Women’s Industry Networkhas, in a very short period of time, be-come a pillar association within theNorth American collision repair mar-ket,” said Doug Holmberg, Director ofVehicle Refinishes for AkzoNobel Au-tomotive & Aerospace Coatings NorthAmerica. “It was both a pleasure andhonor for AkzoNobel to be part of the2014 WIN Conference and formallytransition the Most Influential Womenin the Collision Repair Industry pro-gram from our stewardship to WIN fortheir continued mentoring. WIN willbe able to advance MIW and createsustainable resources to the full benefitof the entire collision repair industry.”To learn more about WIN and the MIWAwards, or to see a list of past recipi-ents, visit http://thewomensindus-trynetwork.ning.com.

Women’s Industry Network Celebrates Excellence In Leadership andthe Formal Transition of the ‘Most Influential Women’ Program to WIN

Margaret Knell and Doug Holmberg

One of the overarching problems in themodern collision repair industry is theinterference from third party entitiesand how this infringes on the rights ofboth collision repair facilities and theconsumers. Trade associations acrossthe country are taking a stand againstthese attempts, and the AutomotiveService Council of Kentucky (ASC-KY) is no different. Ron Stamm, Pres-

ident of ASC-KY and owner of FortMitchell Garage in Park Hills, a familyowned and operated shop for four gen-erations, explains why this is such aconcern and shares how the associationhopes to aid in the fight against theseproblems.

ASC-KY was founded in 1961 asan affiliate member of the IndependentGarage Owners Association (IGOA),an association comprised of shops from11 Midwestern states which was estab-lished in Joplin, MO in 1954. IGOA in-cluded members from all facets of theautomotive repair industry, includingcollision, mechanical, glass and frameshops as well as towing companies.Eventually, IGOA changed their nameto the Automotive Service Council(ASC), and the Kentucky affiliate fol-lowed suit, becoming ASC-KY.

According to Stamm, the associ-ation’s original missions were “totrain, test and register automotivetechnicians, to promote a code ofethics to better serve the consumer,and to bring a higher level of profes-sionalism to the automotive repair in-dustry. Since then, other entities likeASE and I-CAR have evolved to fillthe training and certification roles,[but] the overarching mission is stillthe same: to protect the consumer by

adhering to the Code of Ethics.”Those interested in joining ASC-

KY must read and agree to their Codeof Ethics before becoming a memberof the association. There are two com-ponents to the Code, one directed to-wards the consumer and the othertoward the industry at-large. ASC-KYmembers promise their customers thatthey will do the following: uphold the

highest standards in the profes-sional diagnosis, service and re-pair of vehicles by employing thebest professional personnel andusing state-of-the-art equipment;offer valid written estimates andkeep the customer aware of anychanges in the repair process;confirm to all applicable state andlocal laws; maintain a sense ofpersonal obligation to their cus-tomers; and maintain methods toresolve any customer complaints.The association’s promises to theautomotive industry include up-

holding the highest standards of theindustry, attempting to correct abuseswithin the automotive community,being aware and proactive in responseto changing technology and legisla-tion, and upholding the integrity of allASC members.

ASC-KY believes consumer ad-vocacy is a very important part of theirrole because “individual consumersincreasingly bear the safety risks andeconomic burden arising from adverseevents with vehicles. Consumers fre-quently suffer from the devaluation oftheir vehicle caused by damage, theft,warranty issues and other events, evenin circumstances where they were notresponsible for the condition decreas-ing the value.”

A large problem with this is thatmany consumers are unaware of theminimal amount of laws regulating re-pair standards; in particular, the stateof KY has no requirements dictatingthat shops be licensed or mandating aminimum level of training, educationor certification for technicians. Be-cause of this, many shops feel com-pelled by insurer dictates on repairtechniques and standards. As such,ASC-KY collaborates with nationalassociations to train and educate KYshop owners, and they implore their

members to uphold the highest repairstandards and to invest in the most up-to-date equipment and technology thatis available.

As part of this initiative, ASC-KYhas a section of their website devotedto explaining consumer rights, such asthe right to choose the collision repairfacility where their vehicle is restored,as well as how estimates work. Be-cause “all the members of the Auto-motive Services Council of Kentuckywould like to provide the general pub-lic with as much information as possi-ble to educate our visitors aboutcommon questions that occur when anautomobile accident happens,” theirFAQ section also offers educationalvalue on the topics of aftermarket partscompared to manufacturer parts, totalloss settlements, and diminished valueclaims. The association aids con-sumers by explaining the proper stepsto take if they find themselves in an ac-cident, and their information about fil-

ing complaints culminates with a linkto the KY Department of Insurancewhere such complaints can be filed.

In addition to consumer advo-cacy, ASC-KY also places a lot of em-phasis on supporting the autonomy ofcollision repair facilities, reflected intheir current goals which Stamm ex-plains as “to fight the insurance in-dustry’s attempts to implement theirown parts procurement plans [and] topromote the rights of every shop tooperate as an autonomous entity with-out outside interference.” For exam-ple, the association views PartsTraderas “another attack on the autonomyand profitability of collision repairshops.”

Currently, ASC-KY is workingon several major issues impacting thecollision repair industry, and thoughthey cannot discuss the specifics ofany legislative initiatives at this time,ASC-KY “believes that legislation is


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Ron Stamm, President of ASC-KY, conducts a meetingof ther association, focusing on the importance ofshop autonomy and consumer advocacy


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a $10,000 estimate on a car valued at$11,000 and the insurer’s adjuster es-timates $4000 in damages, the shophas to perform many additional stepsas part of the process of writing a thor-ough estimate. Moving the disabledvehicle, disassembly, taking inventoryof parts, recycling hazardous waste,and performing a comprehensivesafety check to test for damages arejust a few of the many steps needed inorder to document the car as a totalloss; however, when the adjuster re-turns to discuss the estimate and de-clares the vehicles to be a total loss,State Farm only wants to pay the costof storage and a few minimal charges,though all of these processes are re-quired. Other processes which Juniperfeels shops should be aware that theycan charge for include suspensionchecks, rough access, preparing thepack-totaled vehicle, glass clean-up,and labor.

Meanwhile, Three-C has timeassociated with the estimate forwhich they expect (and deserve) tobe compensated since they’ve losttime being involved with a job theyaren’t being paid for, yet StateFarm wants to pay only the mini-mum charges. Juniper explains,“our charges are necessary to offsetour lost opportunity. When we’reworking on these total losses, that’stime we can’t work on jobs wherewe could make money, but the in-surer does not want to understandthat—that’s why we have to suethem. Other shops also have to per-form these steps, and they shouldask why they’re not getting paid forall of their time and hard work!”

Over the past three decades, Ju-niper has been an active voice in theindustry, speaking out against insurersand their attempts to exert control overthe repair process. “Insurers have beenbeating on body shops for many years.They used to just pay the bill, but overthe years, they’ve decided that theydon’t want to pay the labor times andrates. Instead, they want to argueabout which steps are necessary be-

cause they are trying to control the re-pair itself. This industry has been beatdown so far that many shops are goingout of business; insurers have foundthe bottom on pricing and can’t pushanymore because there’s nothing left.We have to charge them for our timebecause we can’t afford to work forfree!”

Though Juniper admits that hisrelationship with State Farm is cur-rently less than perfect due to thepending lawsuits, he hopes that will

change after matters are settled. Healso believes that he is taking a neces-sary step towards preventing short-pays in the future. “Nationally, thereare over 70 body shops with pendingshortpay lawsuits right now, and weneed to win these battles to changethings. With enough victories, maybethe insurers will change their behav-ior.”

Three-C Body Shops asks theircustomers to sign documents, such asthe Authorization to Repair and As-signment of Proceeds, to enable themto pursue proper compensation whenthe need arises. Juniper explains thatthey “involve the vehicle owner in-stead of dealing with the insurancecompany directly because the insureris bound by a contract with the in-sured, but the problem is that manyconsumers don’t know the laws. Someare savvy, but others don’t understandor want to be involved; that’s what theinsurers take advantage of and the rea-son that lawsuits are necessary… It’snot convenient, but this still has tohappen. I don’t see any other alterna-tive.”

A family-owned business sinceopening in 1956, Three-C BodyShops works on around 250 vehi-

cles monthly, yielding $700,000 to$800,000 in sales. They have neverparticipated in DRPs because whenthe insurers introduced these pro-grams in the early 1990s, Juniperforesaw the negative aspects associ-ated with them, predicting that theywould start off good and get worseover time. Though he spoke outagainst DRPs, the industry movedforward, and he believes “most DRPshops now wish they’d never gotteninvolved, but we weren’t loudenough with our objections. DRPshave caused many body shops to goout of business. Once you’re de-pendent on them, you can’t afford tolose them—you’re unable to walkaway because you’ve become re-liant on the insurance companies.”

Now, Juniper fears that insurersare using parts procurement systems,such as PartsTrader, to exert evenmore control over repairs, and he wor-ries that insurers will take over partsdistribution also, leaving shops aslabor providers only and inhibitingthem from supplementing their in-comes with the price of parts. Becauseof this, many shops will be unable topay some of their personnel, such asoffice staff, customer service teams

and detailers, whose salaries aren’tpaid by the estimates but by partsprofits. “If the insurers absorb this dis-count, we won’t be able to affordthese employees, so customer servicewill decline, and that will be the be-ginning of the next big problem forour industry,” Juniper predicts.

Juniper notes that the industry didnot stand up for themselves whenDRPs were developed and they havesince regretted it; he believes the in-dustry will really regret it if they donot step up to inhibit parts procure-ment as it will lead to poor customerservice in the collision repair industry,forcing repairers into a position wherethey are not making any money andmay be unable to pay their bills. Heasks “when and where does the colli-sion industry say no? Because it’stime!”

A State Farm spokesman was in-vited to comment but declined due tounfamiliarity with the specifics of thecases. Autobody News will continueto invite comment on this story for fu-ture issues.



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by Ed Attanasio

If a body shop is in existence for morethan 30 years, people view it as a suc-cessful business and justifiably so.But, if a shop has been in continuousoperation for more than 120 years—well, now it’s more like a landmarkand a big part of automotive history.And that’s why folks in Missouri and

throughout the country know ofNiebling Auto Body, because it’s beena household name since 1892, when aGerman wagon maker opened his ownwagon shop in St. Louis, MO.

It all began when Louis Nieblingimmigrated to the U.S. and moved toWest St Louis in 1887. Horses, wagonsand carriages ( and good old walking)were the mainstays of transportationback then, as the industrial revolutionshifted into high gear. Gasoline-pow-ered vehicles were only for the rich andeccentric in the late 1800’s, just like theTeslas or Bentleys of today. Sure, auto-

mobiles were only for aselect few back then, butthe times were a-changingand pretty soon everyonewanted one of these noisy,cantankerous and expen-sive machines.At the beginning, the

shop was busy and flour-ishing, but then a tornadohit hard and completelydestroyed Niebling’sbusiness in 1895. But, itdidn’t faze him one iota,and pretty soon Niebling

started up again, building a new two-story shop. A decade later, Niebling’sshop was building truck bodies forMack’s five-ton capacity trucks, inwhich the driver sat over the engine,

and pretty soon wagons and carriageswere no longer a business focus forNiebling and his crew.

A year later, the city had its own carmanufacturer when the St. Louis CarCompany started producing the Ameri-can Mors under license from a Frenchcompany. Soon, Louis Niebling Car-riage and Wagon Manufacturing wasconstructing car bodies for the Mors.At a time when the average salary wasaround $40 a month, the Mors cost be-tween $3,000 and $6,000. The Morsline was eventually discontinued, butNiebling kept moving forward andlooking for another dependable sourceof revenue.

By re-inventing his businessmodel once again in 1918, Nielblingbegan manufacturing wooden truckbodies while his shop grew to 13 em-ployees. These wooden trucks werebuilt to order in the days before cus-tomization was prevalent. Customersbrought in a bare chassis with a dash-board and a hood and Niebling builtthe body based on the owner’s speci-fications. On the shop’s ground floor,there was a carpentry shop, black-smith shop and assembly area. Each

completed body was sent to the sec-ond floor by a hand-operated elevator.There, the trim shop made cloth topsand upholstery as well as completingthe necessary painting.

At about the same time, LouisNiebling’s son, Erwin, joined the busi-ness and subsequently focused more onmechanical repair. The wagon-makingbusiness dwindled rapidly and Erwindecided to move the shop to a moreresidential neighborhood in 1927. Histwo sons, Warren and Ray had grownup in that shop and then joined him inthe business at the end of World War II.When Erwin retired, the sons remainedpartners and expanded by opening abody shop operation under Warren’s


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Niebling Auto Body: 120 Years and Still Going Strong in Missouri

Niebling Auto Body opens its doors back in 1892 in St. Louis, MO

Dave Dolphus has been running NieblingAuto Body since 2008

management in 1968.Warren and Ray both had sons

and like their fathers and grandfathers,they grew up in the family business -Jim with Warren in the body shop andTom with Ray in the mechanical shop.When Warren and Ray retired in 1986,Tom and Jim became the managingpartners. Jim passed away in 2010 andhis cousin, Dave Dolphus (who hasworked at Niebling Auto Body since1985), now manages the operation.

Dolphus, 59, is what they call a“lifer” in the collision repair industry.He’s been running the show at Nieblingfor the past five years after workingthere for 30 years. Today, he manages14 people as they fix 65-80 carsmonthly. Dolphus has a Masters Degreein Public Policy and Administration, sohis career plan surely didn’t involvecollision repair, at least at the outset.

“Getting involved in this indus-try was the furthest thing from mymind,” Dolphus said. “But one day,my cousin asked me to come in andhelp and I guess I wasn’t paying atten-tion, because I just kept staying here.At first, I was doing paperwork andhandling supplements and to be hon-est I was looking for the door. But,eventually I learned the business side

of auto repair and realized that this wasgoing to be my job for the long-term.”

Dolphus has seen the collisiongame change several times during thethree decades he’s been in it, he said.“Back in the 1980’s, we could makegood money by just opening our doors,but no longer. We have a lot of competi-tion now and everyone is vying for thesecars. To make it today, you have to con-

centrate on things like training, certifica-tions, the technology, marketing andcommunity involvement, for example.”

The relationships with insurancecompanies have changed over the yearsas well, according to Dolphus. “Wework with several insurance companiesand DRPs and it makes up around 40%of our workload, which is still too much

as far as we’re concerned. We’re al-ways looking outside the DRPs for cus-tomers that are ours, instead of theirs.DRPs changed several years ago re-quiring discounts on parts and paintcaps and at that point we decided to cutthem back to a certain degree.”

After 120 years, Niebling AutoBody is still a fixture in St. Louis andthere are no plans to alter their formula

for uninterrupted success,Dolphus explained. “We’renot going anywhere anytimesoon. We have a few man-agers here that are excep-tional and when the time isright for me to step back, Iam pretty confident that theycan take the reins and dovery well. There have beennumerous changes in this in-dustry, especially within thelast 15-20 years, but we’ve

been able to adapt to them and benefit-ted from many of them. Things likepersonal computers, aluminum in thesenewer cars and other innovations haveimpacted this business. But in the end,it’s still about doing a good, honest jobfor our customers. Those types ofthings are timeless and they will neverchange.”


Today, Niebling Auto Body is still a fixture in St. Louis, MO

AutoZone, Inc., a leading distributorof auto parts and accessories, recog-nized Dorman Products, Inc. as itsVendor of the Year during the com-pany’s annual AutoZone VendorSummit held in Memphis, Ten-nessee. “Dorman exemplifies an in-dustry-leading vendor. The Dormanorganization is dedicated to innova-tion, collaboration and speed to mar-ket,” said Bill Rhodes, President andCEO of AutoZone. AutoZone alsorecognized a group of suppliers withthe company’s Extra Miler Award.

AutoZone Names Dornan Prod-ucts Vendor of the Year

Ohio Appeals Court OK’s LineMeasurement for DealershipAn Ohio appeals court on June 12upheld a lower court’s ruling in a dis-pute between two Nissan Motor Co.Ltd. dealerships contesting theproper method of measuring the dis-tance between an established dealer-ship and a proposed one, saying itcan be calculated by measuring astraight line between the two spots.

The three-judge panel affirmedthe trial court’s judgment in favor ofM6 Motors Inc., owner of Nissan ofMiddleburg Heights.

On Tuesday, June 10, the SpringfieldChapter of ASA-Midwest held theirAnnual Industry Night at the Ballparkwith over 30 association members andtheir families visiting Hammons Fieldto root for the Springfield Cardinals.The evening of baseball included a net-working picnic at the ballpark, gametickets and a Springfield Cardinalsbaseball cap. Sheri Hamilton, Execu-tive Director of the association, notes“ASA-Midwest was very pleased withthe outcome of the event. We had animpressive turnout, our members had agreat time, and the home team won!”

Hamilton explains “we organizethe baseball outings to bring the auto-motive service community togetherfor a fun night out. There is time fornetworking, but it is also a setting con-ducive to a relaxed, enjoyable eveningfor shop owners, employees and theirfamilies. We had a great response tothis event with positive feedback fromthose who attended. This event has be-

come an annual outing for the Spring-field Chapter, and we look forward tocontinuing it in coming years.”

Other chapters of ASA-Midwesthave followed suit and begun holdingsimilar events. Their St. Louis Chapterheld their own Industry Night at the Ball-

park on June 2nd when they cheered onthe St. Louis Cardinals, and the DesMoines Chapter will also be holding asimilar event, their first Ballpark Night,on July 12th in order to enjoy an evening

of strikes and hopefully a few homerunsat the Iowa Cubs’ stadium.

Hamilton believes that hosting funevents for association members isnearly as important as providing edu-cation to the industry. “In addition tobringing our members great training

opportunities, we place a high impor-tance on networking and bringing theautomotive service community to-gether for fun and interactive activitiesoutside of their shop. This not only

gives our members the opportunity tomeet other professionals in their area,but it also allows for idea swapping, re-lationship building and a time to relaxwith their team. We believe these typesof events are important to the strengthof our membership and organization –plus we always have a great time!”

ASA-Midwest recently launchedseveral new chapters throughout theMidwest, including Tulsa OK, Okla-homa City OK, Little Rock AR andLincoln NE. Hamilton states “we arevery excited for this new growth andthe opportunity to reach new mem-bers. We will be releasing a newschedule of events for all our ASA-Midwest chapters for the Fall whichwill include engaging training and nu-merous networking opportunities forour members.”

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Service King Collision Repair Centershas announced that it has finalized theacquisition of Sterling Collision Cen-ters. Service King now operates 175locations across 20 states.

The company says that the acqui-sition supports Service King’s robustgrowth strategy and further strength-ens its position as the premier providerof high-quality collision repair backedwith exceptional customer service.

“Acquiring a company like Ster-ling Collision Centers is about morethan expanding our network withbricks and mortar. The strength of ourorganization lies within our people andwe are extremely excited to welcomethe very talented Sterling team to theService King family,” said Chris Abra-ham, CEO of Service King. “ServiceKing has offered consumers a superiorcollision repair experience for morethan 38 years and we are well posi-tioned to grow that legacy with what Ibelieve is the most capable and expe-rienced team in the industry.”

Sterling’s 62 locations will beginoperating as Service King immediately

and the rebranding of Sterling storesacross the country commences June 3,2014.

“Service King has built a strongreputation in the communities wherewe do business. We recognize thatcollision repair is not just about thecar, but it’s about the care and thelives we touch every day. This acqui-sition allows us to expand our foot-print and offer more consumers anunparalleled, personal repair experi-ence,” said Jeff McFadden, Presidentof Service King.

Service King now employs morethan 3,800 technicians and support teammembers and offers collision repairservices in the following states: Arizona,Arkansas, California, Colorado, Geor-gia, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Michi-gan, Mississippi, Nevada, New York,Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, SouthCarolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah andVirginia.

For a full list of locations by cityand state or any additional informa-tion on Service King, visit www.ser-viceking.com.

Service King Collision Repair Centers FinalizesSterling Collision Centers Acquisition


dees at the ABPA event that havinggrown up in her parent’s BatonRouge business, Felder’s CollisionParts, she has a good understandingof the issues facing the non-OEMparts industry.

“This industry hasn’t had a realfriend in Congress,” Felder said. “Formany of you who have been to thelegislature, who’ve been up there try-ing to get some of these bills passed,fighting against some of the thingsthat affect you, there aren’t a lot ofreal friends to the industry there, not alot of people there who really under-stand this industry. And so it’s reallyimportant for you to pay attention tothis race, and I’m asking for your sup-port in this race.”

One of the issues Felder men-tioned she would go to Congress un-derstanding is the “PARTS Act,” anABPA-supported bill that would slashautomaker design patent protectionfrom 14 years to just 30 months.

Felder also discussed the “devas-tating” impact that automaker partsprice-matching programs have had onher parent’s business and others in thenon-OEM parts industry. She said shedrafted the lawsuit that Felder’s Colli-sion Parts filed in 2012 against GeneralMotors, alleging that General Motor’s“Bump the Competition” price-match-ing program was an illegal predatorypricing scheme designed to drive non-OEM parts distributors out of business.(A U.S. District Court judge dismissedthe case in April, but Felder’s CollisionParts has filed an appeal of that deci-sion. See Autobody News June 2014issue.)

Felder asked ABPA members tosupport her campaign to representLouisiana’s 6th Congressional Dis-trict. She is seeking financial contri-butions (www.cassiefelder.com) bothfrom individuals and through businesspolitical action committees.

“Obviously there are a lot of is-sues that are going to be affecting mydistrict,” Felder said. “But this industryhas been so important to me and myfamily, that this was absolutely one of

the industries I wanted to target.”

State Legislation DiscussedState legislation related to non-OEMparts was also the focus of anotherpresentation at the ABPA conventionin Austin. Ray Colas, director of gov-ernment affairs for LKQ Corporation,told the non-OEM parts suppliers thatthe body shop industry seems reinvig-orated.

“PartsTrader is something thathas motivated them, not only throughlegislation but also litigation,” Colassaid. “With that momentum, they’rethrowing us under the bus as well.”

In the past, Colas said, most ofthe legislative challenges to aftermar-ket parts came from automakers.

“But the body shops have reallytaken it over,” he said. “Now the au-tomakers are supporting the body shopassociation initiatives.”

Colas talked about a number ofbills his company successfully lobbiedagainst, including one introduced inMaryland last year that would haveprohibited the manufacture, sale or in-stallation of a counterfeit or substan-dard airbag.

“Some of you may wonder: Whyare we concerned about airbags?There are no aftermarket airbags,”Colas said. “Well, that’s true today.That doesn’t mean that in the futurethey may not exist. So we want to pro-tect that market today in case in the fu-ture there is an opportunity for that. Wedon’t want to be restricted from sellingany alternative part.”

Colas said after a “long, drawn-out fight” and “a very, very close call,”aftermarket parts supporters were ableto convince Maryland lawmakers thisyear not to pass a bill that would re-quire insurers to pay for new OEMparts for repairs to vehicles manufac-tured within the previous three years.

“Jordan Hendler (executive di-rector of the Washington MetropolitanAuto Body Association, which backedthe Maryland legislation) has done agreat job educating these legislators,meeting with them year after year,”Colas said. “It’s something we reallywant to keep an eye on.”

A lawmaker in Iowa also neededto be “re-educated” about the after-

market parts industry, Colas said, afterhe introduced at the behest of bodyshops a bill that included a provisionsimilar to the one in Maryland. Colassaid that lawmaker’s district includesan LKQ facility.

“We got there and told him, ‘Hey,you’re really going to affect our busi-ness,’ ” Colas said. “This is how manyjobs we have in your district.”

Colas said the Iowa bill also in-cluded provisions prohibiting an insurerfrom recommending a shop withoutalso telling the customer they aren’t re-quired to use a recommended shop, andfrom requiring a shop “to use a specificvendor or process for the procurementof parts or other materials.” Colas saidthose provisions will likely be includedin a future piece of legislation.

“There will be a bill that’s rein-troduced, but it will not include the af-termarket parts restriction,” Colas said.

PartsTrader addresses questionsKen Weiss, director of business de-velopment for PartsTrader, also spokeat the ABPA convention, just daysafter his company completed nationalroll-out of its system, now reportedlyused by more than 7,500 body shopsand 8.500 parts suppliers. Weiss said

that by the end of this past April, partslists from more than 700,000 esti-mates had been put out for quotethrough PartsTrader, and more than

1.25 million or-ders totaling morethan $450 millionhad been placedthrough the sys-tem.

Weiss said al-though State Farm“is a little bit re-

strictive with regard to aftermarketparts,” he expects non-OEM parts or-ders through the system to increase asshops use PartsTrader for non-StateFarm jobs.

He cited a number of benefits thatPartsTrader offers suppliers, including“increased sales opportunities and fewerparts returns.” However not everyone atthe ABPA convention agreed with Weisson this last point.

“We have not noticed a lower re-turn rate on (parts ordered through)PartsTrader versus phone calls versusfaxes versus anything,” Bob Petty ofCollins Collision Products in Love-land, CO, told Weiss. “Our return rateis higher than it’s ever been in the his-tory of the company.”


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Petty also asked if returned partsare taken into account in the fees Part-sTrader charges to suppliers, whichare based on average monthly sales.Weiss said they are, provided thatparts purchased through the Part-sTrader system are also returnedthough the system.

“We all know the games todaywhere repairers will buy multipleparts, sometimes just to get a receiptthat they can show somebody else,and then return the part,” Weiss said.“With the PartsTrader system, you canonly buy a part once unless you returnit. Then you can buy the part againfrom another supplier. So we thinkthat will avoid some of the games andwill help bring down the returns.”

Weiss was asked if there’s a wayfor a shop to bypass the system to re-turn a part.

“Only if you let them,” Weisstold the parts distributors. “If theywant to return a part, you need to tellthem, ‘You bought this through Part-sTrader; you need to return it throughthe system,’ so you get credit for thereturn.’ If they don’t want to return itthrough the system, then, I hate to sayit, but they are probably up to nogood.”


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I-CAR® announced that its new inter-active Advanced Steering and Suspen-sion Systems Damage Analysis(DAM15) course is now available. Thiscourse provides detailed informationon the considerations for inspectingsteering and suspension systems andprovides knowledge that can lead to in-creased efficiency and a positive cus-tomer experience.

Josh McFarlin, I-CAR Director ofCurriculum & Product Developmentstated, “Advanced steering and sus-pension systems are common intoday’s vehicles and if not repairedproperly, other vehicle systems can be

compromised.” He continued, “Repair-ers can apply knowledge learned in thiscourse throughout the repair process.”

The course features a series of in-teractive classroom activities and prob-lem-solving scenarios designed toengage the student and enrich theirlearning experience in order to furtherprepare them to apply their knowledgeon the job. Toward the end of thecourse, the student will engage in a“damage discovery” activity wherehe/she will simulate the estimatingprocess.

This instructor-led, Live 3-credithour course meets training require-

ments for Estimators, Auto PhysicalDamage Appraisers and Electrical/Me-chanical Technicians in I-CAR’s Pro-fessional Development Program™(PDP). DAM15 has replaced Electron-ically Controlled Steering and Suspen-sion Systems (STE05). If STE05 hasbeen completed, training credit earnedwill not be lost.

To register for Advanced Steeringand Suspension Systems DamageAnalysis (DAM15), visit the I-CARwebsite at www.i-car.com or contact I-CAR Customer Care at 1-800-I-CAR-USA (800-422-7872). Classes arebeing added to the schedule regularly.

Interactive Advanced Steering and Suspension Systems Damage Analysis Course

I-CAR® Adds New OEM Segment Development Director, John BosinI-CAR® announced that John Bosinhas joined I-CAR in the role of Direc-tor, Segment Development– OEM.John will oversee all business devel-opment and strategic activity for I-CAR in the OEM segment includingrefinement of strategies to better servethe OEM segment, as well as I-CARactivity with OEMs related to Colli-sion Repair Network (CRN) programsthat rely on I-CAR’s training and GoldClass program, I-CAR® WeldingTraining & Certification™ initiatives,

and contract training. He will alsowork closely with I-CAR’s IndustryTechnical Relations team to advanceI-CAR’s Reparability Technical Sup-port (RTS) program as I-CAR worksto develop and mature the portfolio ofRTS services for the benefit of OEMsand the Inter-Industry. John Van Al-styne, I-CAR CEO & President stated,“Segment focused sales and market-ing, and strategic alignment, havebeen key to I-CAR’s progress over thepast three years. John Bosin is a great

addition to our team, and with his join-ing, I-CAR is more firmly positionedto create more positive impact in theOEM segment and across the board.”

Bosin joins I-CAR with signifi-cant experience in the OEM segmentthrough his extensive and diverseroles in the Collision Repair industry.Most recently, John was with Ak-zoNobel as OEM Aftermarket Man-ager, and earlier with Fix Auto USA,ICI Autocolor and DuPont. John isalso a Lean Six Sigma Sensei.

The newly formed Auto Body Associ-ation of Texas (ABAT) will be holdingtheir Inaugural Meeting on June 18that the Henderson Civic Center withguest speaker Barrett Smith, Presidentand Founder of Auto Damage ExpertsInc. Burl Richards, Acting Presidentof ABAT, took some time to explainhow the association is getting startedand what they hope to achieve throughits development.

Several months ago, a local job-ber, Chad Neal of Paint Works inTyler TX, held an educational seminaron estimating which included a num-ber of Eastern TX shop owners. Nealand Richards had previously dis-cussed the need for a trade associationin their area, but when Richards triedto organize an association meeting ayear earlier, he garnered little interestand participation.

Thus, when Neal held the estimatingseminar earlier this year, they saw it as

the perfect opportunity to present theiridea for a new association. Richards be-lieves that a contributing factor to the

positive receptionthey received thistime around was“the fact that Part-sTrader had begunto be implemented,and these localshops were trulybeginning to seethat we had betterjoin together or theinsurance compa-nies were going to

continue to control more and more ofour businesses… [Neal and I] basicallycapitalized on the opportunity that pre-sented itself with shops from all overEast Texas being present.”

For the past three months,Richards has been working with hislocal attorney to set up the Corporate

Filings for the new association, yet ahandful of shop owners have con-tributed to organizing ABAT.

“This would not be happening ifnot for the enthusiasm and excitementshared throughout our region. Everyonehas been more than willing to assist andcontribute when asked. It’s really beenmore about spreading the word, andonce others hear about what is happen-ing, they know that they are not aloneand begin to realize that together wecan truly take back our business for thebest interest of our customers and theindustry as a whole,” Richards states.

Richards and those involved withorganizing ABAT are also grateful toJohn Mosley of Clinton Body Shopand Doug White of Capitol AutoBody for donating their personal timeand funds to travel from MS to TX toaddress shops about the benefits of anorganized auto body association in asecond meeting held to gauge interest

in ABAT. According to Richards,“their presence, being from an outsidearea, really motivated others to get in-volved.”

Though ABAT was originallygoing to be called the East Texas AutoBody Association, they were unable toobtain the name, opting instead forABAT which Richards feels “was justmeant to be… [it has been] fitting aswe have received interest from shopsand vendors throughout the state. Wewelcome members from all overTexas.”

While ABAT is still in develop-ment, Richards notes that their maingoal thus far is to “take back our shops.We repair vehicles, and insurance com-panies sell insurance; it’s that simple!Who knows better and is more qualifiedto make these repairs than us? We workfor the customer, so it is our responsi-bility to properly repair and restore theirvehicle to pre-accident condition.”


necessary to regulate the insurance in-dustry’s negligence in failing to com-pensate consumers for the properparts and procedure to maintain theirfactory warranty and restore the safetyof their vehicle after a collision.”Stamm adds, “consumer protection isa top priority.”

One of the challenges the associa-tion faces is obtaining the resources nec-essary to fund their legislative efforts.This is due, in part, to a decrease in re-cent years from over 100 members totheir current membership of 32 mem-bers and affiliates throughout the stateof KY. ASC-KY provides a plethora ofbenefits to members, including dis-counted health and liability insuranceplans, training and education, legal sup-port, and the opportunity to networkwith a group of their peers to resolve theproblems they share in common. Mem-bers also receive a listing on the associ-ation’s website, a subscription to theirquarterly newsletters, and a weekly faxcontaining motivational tips and indus-try news.

As ASC-KY focuses on becom-ing more politically active and en-hancing member benefits in order toincrease their membership, they urgetheir members to commit to the goalsthat will help them become a strongerstate association. This emphasis isplaced on image, training and politics.By striving to raise awareness of theabilities of skilled automotive serviceprofessionals, they hope to promote aprofessional image of the industrywhile also providing training opportu-nities for continued technical educa-tion and development of managementand leadership skills in addition tosupport I-CAR and ASE. Concerninglegislation, ASC-KY plans to continueinvestigating lobbying opportunitiesthat promote communication withstate level political leaders to establisha recognized voice which will aid topreserve and enhance the future of theindustry.

ASC-KYWhitaker Bank Building305 Ann St. Suite 201Frankfort, KY 40601502-352-2987www.ascky.org

Continued from Page 18

Shop Autonomy

New Auto Body Association of Texas Launches June 18, PartsTrader ProvidesImpetus, Statewide Members Invited to Join

with Chasidy Rae SiskSouthwest Associations


Barrett Smith ofADE will be thefeatured guest

speaker at ABAT’sInaugural Meeting

on June 18

ABAT will also strive to providemore education, both from a technicalstandpoint and as it pertains to shops’rights without solely relying on whatinsurers mandate. Along with that,ABAT plans to investigate legislationthat will promote beneficial changefor the consumer, rather than the in-surance companies whose focus is onsaving money. Richards add, “we willaddress more concerns legislatively aswe progress as an association andbegin identifying specific issues. Forexample, profit margins have de-creased over the years, and we mustbecome more profitable in order toprovide the training and equipmentnecessary to perform repairs to theever-changing technological advance-ments on today’s vehicles – and thatcan honestly be accomplished bybeing compensated for all repairs andprocesses that must be performed (notjust the hand-picked operations thatinsurers want to pay for).”

Since their initial meeting earlythis year, Richards has been verypleased with the number of repair pro-fessionals who have expressed inter-est in ABAT. “The response that wehave received has been more than Icould have imagined. Going back to

just six months ago, I felt like I wason an island by myself, and now Ihave more faith and excitement aboutthe future of our industry than ever.We will put the customer first, andeverything else will take care of itself;good things are about to happen!”

Smith also took time to speakabout the upcoming meeting, and heis excited to speak at ABAT’s meetingwith the “intent to generate excite-ment and to enlighten and edify Texasrepairers in several areas.” Smithplans to discuss three main topics, in-cluding Federal Antitrust Laws, Pro-cedures and Labor Rate Surveys. Tobegin with, he explains that o FederalAntitrust Laws “are fairly simple, yetoften misunderstood, and have beenused in the past to stifle conversationbetween repairers out of fear of pun-ishment. I will be giving a layman’soverview of the true nature of thelaws, why they exist and how to avoidbreaching them regarding what canand cannot be discussed. Federal an-titrust laws exist to promote and pro-tect competition. They are to governthe activities of businesses in ourcountry and are designed to be safe-guards against activities that may beharmful to the consumer, business

competition and the economy.”“Procedures are also an important

topic because many required repairprocesses and necessary materials gounpaid, and these overlooked andoften omitted processes and createsignificant liability issues for the re-pairer that need not occur.” Smithplans to highlight these important as-pects of the business operation andhow to avoid these unnecessary liabil-ities. He will also be introducing theVariable Rate Survey (VRS) programoffered by the National AutoBody Re-search, Inc. which “provides a viableand labor rate survey to show repair-ers, consumers and insurers the rangeof labor rates based upon the individ-ual rates and allowances of participat-ing repairers in a given area. Rangesof labor rates from an area comprisedof repairers within mere miles to par-ticipating repairers across the country.The VRS not only provides partici-pants the labor rates of repairerswithin various markets, the programshows them in real-time and canchange based upon a repairer’s changein rates, training, certifications, equip-ment and such. This defeats those so-called surveys which lump allrepairers together and provides the

same labor rates for the best of theworst to the worst of the best!”

As the President and Founder ofAuto Damage Experts, Inc., Smith be-lieves that one of the most valuableservices his company offers is Re-pairer Consulting and Coaching forthose who offer high quality work-manship and services. He states, “re-gardless of their size, all ADEconsulting/coaching clients have thesame fundamental characteristics incommon: integrity and the courageand conviction to do the right thing forthe right reasons. What we do is tohelp them to step outside the box thatis often built around them by ‘inter-ested third-parties’ and to see things ina more common sensical and prag-matic manner. This enables them tomodify their business acumen andmethods of conducting businesswhich is found to be much more prof-itable and enjoyable.” Smith hopes toshare his experience in this area atABAT’s meeting in order to aid thisdeveloping association and its mem-bers.


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Francesco’s Italian Restaurant in Oak-land, CA was the place to be on May20, especially if you were a member ofthe East Bay Chapter of the CaliforniaAutobody Association (EB-CAA). Itwas the association’s spring dinnermeeting and featured a program withthree speakers discussing three distinctsegments of the collision industry. TimBrusher from Honda’s ProFirst Pro-gram discussed the importance of OEcertifications in today’s collision indus-try while reviewing Assured Perform-ance Network’s Certification Program;Karl Kirschenman from Alldata madea presentation entitled “Creating Cus-tomers for Life” and Tim Gerhards, aformer body tech turned tool designerpresented his line of collision repair

tools during a presentation he called“Tool Time with Tim.” More than 30collision professionals attended themeeting as they dined on Italian cuisineand networked with fellow body shopowners, local vendors and prospectiveEB-CAA members.

Gerhards’ story will resonate withanyone looking to make a bettermousetrap, or in this case, an improvedway of skinning a car door. Many greatinventors started out the same way asGerhards did. In fact, Thomas Edisonwas a salesman before inventing thephonograph and the light bulb andHenry Ford was a machinist before hefounded Ford Motor Co. Both saw a

burning need and found solutions byinventing tools that can make our liveseasier. And that’s why Tim Gerhardsembarked on a journey that eventuallyled this collision repair veteran to hisfirst invention and six other tools thathe subsequently designed—all ofwhich are currently being used for awide range of applications worldwide.

It all began one day when Ger-hards was skinning a door whileworking at B & J Body Shop in Ran-cho Cordova, CA back in 2001, he ex-plained. “This procedure normallyrequires lots of hammering and dolly-ing and walking around the entiredoor frame and beating this metal overand over until you get what you need.It puts a ton of wear and tear on yourhands and it’s time consuming. I keptasking myself ‘how does the factorydo this?’ and I just began experiment-ing with a better way of doing it.”

So one day Gerhards picked up apiece of wood and shaped it into a crudetool that would enable him to bend thedoor’s flange over and flatten it out at thesame time. After testing it and tweakingit a little, Gerhards realized that it workedand named it the Skin Zipper. “I realizedwow—I need to patent this thing,” hesaid. “This tool takes a two-hour repairand cuts it down to about 10 minuteswith a hammer, so I thought shops aregoing to love this thing.”

After more than 40 months, Ger-hards received his patent and jumpedinto the inventor’s world with bothfeet. “I immediately joined a local in-ventors’ group and was advised tomarket the tool at a trade show. So Iwent to NACE in 2009 and showedthe Skin Zipper to everyone I couldfind. Steck Manufacturing called meback after NACE was over andshowed some interest in manufactur-ing and distributing the tool. It was agreat moment, because all of the workI had done on designing it and devel-oping it were finally paying off.”

Since inventing the Skin Zipper,Gerhards and Steck Manufacturing inDayton, OH started working togetheron more tools, he explained. “The peo-ple at Steck must have been pleasedwith the Skin Zipper, because theywere interested in pursuing patents foranything else I could think of, Ger-

hards said. “Those products include aMIG Light, Panel Shaper, WorkstandClamp, E-Z II Strip Molding Tool anda Handipull Kit that consists of a se-ries of eyebolts that screw into welded-on nuts to allow for light pulls allaround a vehicle. Once I get into thatinventor’s mindset, the ideas just keptcoming. As a tech, I was encounteringdifficulties all the time during repairs,so I started asking myself, how can Imake a tool to solve these problems?”

Gerhards’ success with Steck hasinspired him to create his own company,TG Products, to manufacture and mar-ket other inventions on his own. TG’sfirst product is The Rail Saver, a systemthat repairs damaged side members andframe rails. Last year, Gerhards was ableto finally step away from his job as abody tech to pursue his dreams as a tooldesigner and inventor full-time. Hestrongly believes that the collision repairindustry is primed for new excitingtools, to be made by people who actu-

ally make the repairs, just like him.“Many collision repairers have the

skill sets to build their own prototypes,because they already know how to weld,shape metal and build prototypes,” hesaid. “In this business, we’re all con-stantly encountering situations wherethere is no tool. So, I know I’m not thefirst person to ever rig something to getthe job done and I surely won’t be thelast. One of the biggest problems is thatpeople are reluctant to show their in-ventions to anyone, because they’reafraid of them getting stolen. Or theythink it’s worth more than it really is andthink they’re going to be millionairesovernight, which is totally unrealistic.”

Gerhards advises aspiring inven-tors not to go to invention submissioncompanies. Instead, he says they shouldjoin a local inventor’s organization atthe United Inventors Association orwww.uiausa.org. For more informationabout any of his tools, visit his web siteat: www.therailsaver.com.


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Tim Gerhards, a former body tech turned tooldesigner presented his line of collision repairtools during a presentation at the East BayChapter of the California Autobody Associa-tion’s May dinner meeting

with Ed AttanasioWestern Associations

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

As the California Legislature comes tothe middle of its legislative session,CAWA’s Legislative team reports thestatus of three legislative proposalsimpacting the automotive aftermarketindustry and CAWA members specif-ically.

CAWA is currently tracking ap-proximately 40 legislative proposalsthat could have an impact on the af-termarket industry, however the fol-lowing bills have been the mainpriority of the association and its gov-ernment affairs team.

AB 1735 (Hall) – Nitrous Oxide:Dispensing and DistributingCAWA POSITION: OPPOSE UN-LESS AMENDEDThis bill would make it a misde-meanor to dispense or distribute ni-trous oxide to a person, knowing orhaving reason to believe that the per-son is going to use the nitrous oxidewith the intent to breathe, inhale, oringest for the purpose of causing in-toxication, euphoria, dizziness, etc.and that person proximately causesgreat bodily injury or death to himself,herself, or another person, punishable

by imprisonment in a county jail notto exceed 6 months, or by a fine not toexceed $1,000, or by both that fineand imprisonment. Additionally, thebill would require any person who dis-penses or distributes nitrous oxide torecord each transaction in a written orelectronic document and would re-quire the person to make the docu-ment available for inspection, uponpresentation of a duly authorizedsearch warrant, to the California StateBoard of Pharmacy or other law en-forcement agencies. The bill would re-quire the purchaser to sign thedocument and provide a government-issued photo identification and resi-dential address.Status: Currently working with au-thor’s office to craft amendments toremove impact on CAWA membersthat sell or distribute nitrous oxide.

SB 916 (Correa) – Biosynthetic Lu-bricants: Procurement/SaleCAWA POSITION: OPPOSEEffective January 1, 2016, this billwould have required state agenciesand state contractors to purchase lu-bricating oil that meets minimal stan-

dards and certifications, and bans thesale of lubricating oil in Californiaafter January 1, 2017 unless it meetsthese minimal standards for biosyn-thetic lubricants.Status: Died in Committee

SB 994 (Monning) – Telematics Leg-islationCAWA POSITION: NEUTRALSB 994 would have created the Con-sumer Car Information and ChoiceAct by requiring manufacturers thatgenerate or collect vehicle informa-tion through telematics technology tomake disclosures to the owner aboutthat information, provide the ownerwith access to the information fortransmission to a 3rd party, and wouldprohibit a manufacturer from limitingor restricting the owner from access-ing their vehicle information.Status: Died in Committee

“CAWA is at the forefront of protect-ing its members from legislation andgovernment regulations that adverselyimpact the automotive aftermarket in-dustry each year. This California leg-islative session proves to be a busyyear for us as we are defending the af-termarket from a number of attacks onour ability to provide parts and serv-ice to motorists”, stated Rodney K.Pierini, CAWA President & CEO.

In addition, CAWA in its effort topromote the National Be Car CareAware Campaign was successful in se-curing a California Senate Resolutionrecognizing April 2014 as “National

Car Care Month” in California. Themeasure, SCR 112 by Senator TomBerryhill, urges all California residentsto be “Car Care Aware” and inspectand perform all maintenance necessaryto ensure their vehicle is operating in asafe, efficient and clean manner.

“CAWA remains committed toprotecting the business and industry in-terests of its members in the three stateswe represent, Arizona, Nevada, andCalifornia”, continued Pierini. “Whilewe waited with great anticipation thetelematics legislation that was intro-duced by AAA, CAWA took a neutralposition on the measure due to a num-ber of concerns that were not resolvedin the bill. CAWA commits to contin-uing to engage in constructive dialoguewith AAA to add the aftermarket per-spective should AAA decide to take thebill up again next year.”

CAWA is a regional automotiveaftermarket trade association, whichrepresents auto parts jobbers, ware-house distributors, retailers, manufac-turers, manufacturer representativesand program groups. The Associationprovides education, legislative, regu-latory and business support to the in-dustry and its membership. It is one ofthe largest trade associations of its kindin the United States and recognized asa leader in the automotive aftermarketindustry.

For more information about theCalifornia Legislative session contactCalifornia Legislative Advocate GaryConover at [email protected] or916-233-9655.

CAWA Reports on Status of California Legislation Impacting Industry


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Watertown Fire Rescue responded to afire at Auto Body Solutions, 1500 10thAve SE, in Watertown, SD, the nightof May 20.

Drawing a big crowd of specta-tors, radio traffic indicated that therewere no injuries. At 7:45 p.m., crewsreported having the blaze knockeddown to hot spots and areas in therafters.

Chip Premus, Watertown FireRescue Fire Investigator, issued anews release as to the cause of thefire.

According to Premus: ‘The firestarted on the outside of the structurein the area of a smoking receptacleused for discarded cigarette butts. Thefire service has seen an increase infires that start on the outside of abuilding from plastic smoking recep-tacles and plants with potting soil in

plastic pots. This type of fire smoldersfor a long period of time. If you walkby and notice smoke coming from cig-arette butt receptacles or potted plants,please help out and notify the businessowner.’

‘This is a public safety messageto all businesses and residents of Wa-tertown that any smoking pole,bucket, or container made of plasticused for discarded cigarettes should bereplaced with an all metal or concretecontainer.’

SD Shop Fire Caused by Smoldering Cigarette Butts

I received a call last month from adear friend of mine on the West Coast.I’ll call him Paul here, but that’s nothis real name. His voice was shakyand he was clearly upset. Paul told methat one of the big MSOs had recentlyacquired a shop just down the streetfrom him and at first he wasn’t tooconcerned, but now he was extremelyconcerned. My friend has always ran avery good shop, so I asked him whathe was so worried about to which hereplied, “I hate to admit it, but theseguys are better than I thought and I amlosing business to them!” You seePaul’s biggest DRP provider put hisnew big MSO neighbor on the sameprogram even though they are only ablock apart! What’s more, Paul wastold by his DRP coordinator that un-less his shop improved its KPIs, hisnew neighbor was going to be receiv-ing the lion’s share of the business.

Paul’s story is not an isolatedone. Knowing Paul, he will figure out

a way to compete and win, but he isgoing to need some help.

Everyone in the collision repairindustry knows how challenging it hasbecome. DRPs are demanding more,Consolidators are growing faster thanever, and profits are shrinking. Theshops that are serious about compet-ing in this game need to quickly im-prove their position in the marketplaceby performing at unprecedented lev-els. This document is intended toshow the reader that many of the ad-vantages provided to large MSOs canbe afforded to any shop serious abouttransforming their business throughusing an outside firm to provide manyof the services.

Organizations like Service King,ABRA, Boyd Group, etc. have sys-tems in place that give them a verystrong presence in many major mar-kets in this country. These systemsallow for consistent and predictableresults in quality and customer serv-

ice. These systems when combinedwith the footprint of the consolidators,gives them a very lucrative “seat at thetable” with all major insurance carri-ers.

While each MSO is slightly dif-ferent in their approach to centralizedresources, this is a generalized list ofadvantages that large MSOs have overthe rest of us…■ Assurance of DRP affiliation whenopening new locations■ Centralized Human Resource De-partments■ Centralized Accounting ■ Centralized Customer Call Center■ Centralized Load Leveling ■ Centralized Management of I-CARGold Class ■ On-line training, Learning Manage-ment Systems, and testing■ Self-managed DRP with centralizedaudit teams■ Marketing Teams■ Safety and Environmental Compli-

ance Teams■ Proven workflow systems and ac-countability to make them work■ Mass advertising and name recog-nition■ Ability for employees to help otherlocations when needed■ Stability and benefits are attractiveto potential new-hires■ Buying power

Most small collision repair busi-nesses must attempt to perform manyof these functions, but are rarely ableto perform all of them well, if at all.To remain profitable typical shopowner/managers must perform manyof the functions that shop managers atlarge MSOs don’t have to deal with.The time that a typical shop managerwould spend performing many ofthese functions is spared to the largeMSO shop manager thereby provid-ing them time to ensure that processesare being followed, quality and cycletime standards are being met and in


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with David LuehrLean Operations

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

Using an Outside Expert to Improve your Competitive Position

though the insurer was “suspending” therequirement to use electronic parts or-dering and had no plans to roll such a

program out nationally, State Farm sawthe test as valuable because it demon-strated electronic parts ordering “hasvalue.” He noted the Select Serviceagreement still gives the insurer theright to require electronic parts ordering.

“We encourage the repairers touse it if they would like,” he said. “Itworks. It has advantages. Now thatthe test is done, we know moving for-ward that we have already tested thatfunctionality.”

State Farm began the test of elec-tronic parts ordering in two markets in2007, with a half dozen automakersoffering the insurer parts discountsthrough the program. The programwas rolled-out in 2008 to all SelectService shops in the two states, but thenumber of automakers offering dis-counts continued to decline until StateFarm halted the discount portion ofthe test earlier this year.

– As reported in CRASH Net-work (www.CrashNetwork.com), July20, 2009. State Farm subsequentlysaid it seemed inappropriate to seekOEM parts discounts at a time whenautomakers were struggling econom-ically and in some cases filing bank-ruptcy. But it saw enough potentialbenefits to electronic parts orderingthat it sough proposals from compa-nies to develop an electronic parts or-dering system – which led to thelaunch of State Farm’s mandated useof PartsTrader in 2012.

Cindy Schnier, co-chairman of the CIC Infor-mation Technology Committee in 1999, saidher committee’s research indicated thatrekeying of insurer estimates by shops wascosting the industry more than $17 million ayear in wasted labor


Historical Snapshot

many ways acts as an “auditor.” Withthese disciplines in place, it becomesvery difficult to compete with theseguys.

In order to perform all these func-tions that are required, you wouldneed to hire people that are experts inInsurance DRP Relations, HR, Ac-counting, Customer Relations, I-CARGold Class, Marketing and Advertis-ing, Safety and Environmental Com-pliance, Admin Workflow Systems,Change Management, Lean, etc., etc.,etc. I would bet in most collision re-pair businesses, at least one or morehighly paid people would need to behired to perform all of these functionswhich are currently not being per-formed well or at all. That couldequate to $5,000 - $15,000 a month,plus benefits to hire who is needed toget all this stuff done! This of coursewould be considerably more if youhave multiple locations needing theseservices.

Solutions can be provided by anoutside firm at a substantially lowerprice and be performed by experts thatwill ensure these functions are per-formed precisely. So in other words,you could get many of these functionsat your shop performed both better

and cheaper than trying to do it your-self in-house.

A look at ROIIs it actually costing you money bynot using an outside firm? In manycases, yes! Training & Coaching hasbeen proven to increase a shop’s KeyPerformance Indicators substantially.Coaching and Training provided byqualified outside sources can have animmediate positive impact on bothKPIs and return on financial invest-ment. Even a modest 5% increase inproductivity at a shop producing$100,000 in revenue can yield an ad-ditional $2,000 in gross revenuewhich in many cases is enough to payfor the outside services. There aremany cases of shops experiencing sig-nificant gains in productivity and prof-itability that never would have beenpossible with the assistance of outsideexperts. Don’t expect quality outsideservices to be cheap, but look at it asan investment with a favorable ROI.

Do your homework when hiringa business coach or any kind of out-side service, these folks in many waysbecome a reflection of your businessand will have an impact either positiveor negative. You must be able to trust

them much as you would a new em-ployee, so don’t feel you need to hirethe first one that comes along.

The old saying that the “Defini-tion of Insanity is doing the samething over and over and expecting adifferent result” is exactly what manyshop leaders continually do. It doesn’thave to be this way. Quality of life forstakeholders at body shops doesn’thave to be so bad. We all need help,and there are resources available toprovide support.

Resources Available:Business Coaching & Consultants● General Business Consulting● Admin Workflow Processes & Im-plementation● Learning Management System● Leadership Coaching● Training Clinics

Online Human Resources● Hiring Programs● Performance Evaluation Process● Employee corrective action● Legal Advice

Data Management● CSI● Centralized Call Center

● KPI Management & ReportingSafety & Environmental Compli-anceMarketing & Advertising SolutionsI-CAR Gold Class ManagementAssociations, Buying Groups &Networks

If you would like more information,or a referral to a capable service inyour area, feel free to contact me [email protected]


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We’ve all heard the term but what ex-actly is a Millennial? Born between1981 and 1996, Millennials are repre-sented by 86 million people, whichmeans they’ve outpopulated the BabyBoomer generation by seven percent.There are more 22-year-olds than 53-year-olds on the planet right now andby 2018 it is estimated that the Mil-lennials will be outspending the BabyBoomers by a large margin.

My stepdaughter is staying withus this summer, so I am getting a first-hand view of how these Millennialslive. One thing I noticed is that theyeat a lot and text a lot and ignore mewith a passion. They’re also very intune with all of the latest technologyand social media and are extremelyadept at rolling their eyes and sayingthings like “whatever” and “it is whatit is.”

Some find them to be entitled anddownright rude, but no matter whatyour opinion of them is, Millennialsare a very significant segment of themarket, and that’s why any consumerbusiness should be at least remotelyinterested in what they’re up to. So,why should the collision industry careabout this age group? Because theyhave money, they drive nice cars andjust like everyone else—they get intoaccidents.

After years of studying Millenni-als, marketers and ad agencies all overthe world know full well that the Mil-lennial generation isn’t just a bunch ofentitled kids with smart phones snap-ping selfies and chasing down the lat-est Groupon deal. In fact, businessesthat aren’t pursuing Millennials willsoon be missing out on a major con-sumer opportunity from a generationwith an expected $2.45 trillion annualspending power by 2015. Body shopsshould be marketing to Millennialsright now, because they’re the con-sumers of the world’s, both today andtomorrow.

The problem is that most ownersof leading ad agencies and market-ing/pr companies are in their 40s and50s and they’re still trying to use tech-niques that worked back in the Mad-men days. But, in order to cater to theMillennials, the powers-that-be haveto re-invent themselves once again

and devise ways to appeal to these 20-somethings. I recently took a two-dayseminar about social media and mostof it was dedicated to advertising andmarketing to Millennials. The classwas taught by a Millennial, so the in-formation was both pertinent and use-ful.

More and more companies arerecognizing the value of marketing toMillennials. By using these five tips tore-calibrate your marketing, public re-lations and advertising efforts, you’llbe able to tap into this increasinglypowerful generation.

1. Don’t Talk Down to ThemI was talking to a Millennial one dayabout a world without personal com-puters or the Internet and he looked atme like I had just emerged from acave. As the most educated and savvyconsumer group in the world, Millen-nials know what they want and arevery skilled at finding it all by them-selves. Now, collision repair is obvi-ously not an impulse buy and theMillennials will treat it as an unneces-sary expense, like Obamacare or park-ing tickets. But, in the end they don’tlike to be corralled into doing some-thing, so branding and advertising tothis group may be more importantthan ever. They’re not the type that isgoing to just blindly pick one bodyshop from the list their insurance com-pany shows them. They will want todo their due diligence and ask around,as well as referring to the shop’s website, Yelp page and other assorted so-cial media.

2. Don’t Camouflage Your Message“Be real,” is something the Millenni-als want to tell their parents and thenew word I keep seeing everywhere is“transparency.” (Back in the old days,if you called somebody “transparent,”it meant they were not genuine, butnow I guess it means exactly the op-posite.) My stepdaughter has seen themedia change and evolve and has beenbombarded by literally millions of adsduring her 20 years on the planet, soshe can’t be fooled, cajoled or directedby advertising. The Millennials wantthe facts now and don’t want to sitthrough your long descriptions or

veiled messages. Their time is limitedand they’re juggling 1,500 things si-multaneously and that’s why studiesshow that Millennials will value hon-esty and a straightforward approachwhen it comes to advertising.

3. Strengthen Your Presence OnlineMillennials are comfortable buyingthings online and that’s why brick andmortar businesses are moving towardthe Internet more all the time. Unfor-tunately, you can’t get a fender benderrepaired via the computer, but muchof the groundwork can likely happenthere. And that’s why it is important tohave a good web site and some pres-ence on Facebook and Instagram, forexample, because these Millennialscare about it and may use one or moreto make their buying decisions.

4. Millennials Communicate All the Time…with Each OtherThis generation is more connected

than any group in history, becausethey have so many ways to do it. Theyalso rarely live alone and have numer-ous roommates in many cases, soword-of-mouth (or text or video orphoto bomb) is more valuable to ad-vertisers who understand this. The olddays of creating a “buzz” is alwaysbeneficial, but now it’s more concen-trated and it all moves so much morequickly. Come up with a shorter, moreconcise message, so that the Millenni-als can grasp it fast and disseminate itto their friends and associates seam-lessly. It’s called “going viral” and ifyou can get achieve it, you’ll be a suc-cess—Millennially speaking.

5. Quality is Still King (or Queen)With today’s technology, bad serviceand poor quality can’t be swept underthe carpet anymore. Anyone can findyour competitors online within mil-liseconds and we all know that bad

How to Market to Millennials

with Ed Attanasio

Social Media for Shops

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


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See Millennials, Page 37

Shop owners with a shop in a metro-politan area see many vehicles withminor dings, dents, scratches andmore, all around the city. Many ofthese drivers have tolerated these im-perfections on their vehicle for weeks,months and possibly even years. Whyhaven’t they done something aboutthese eyesores? Maybe the discomfortof driving around with these flawssimply hasn’t been great enough tomotivate them to fix them. Or maybethey imagine the cost, not only interms of money, but also in consider-ing the inconvenience of being with-out the vehicle while it’s being fixed,is too great to bother.

If a shop mainly relies on insur-ance or dealerships for work, this maynot be an interesting marketing move.But if a shop seeks to bring in newcustomers and add to a database ofmarketing targets, this could be a realopportunity to increase the shop’s vol-ume and potential volume of business.

In general advertising a collision re-pair shop is mainly done to make ashop’s name, location and reputationbroadly known. When viewers of thead may not have an accident for threeor more years in the future, getting animmediate response is only a periph-eral intent of the ad. But the advertis-ing campaign I’m proposing here,aimed at a great many drivers withminor body damage, could produce animmediate volume of responses ifhandled right.

The proposed ad should offer a“Ding Day Special.” The two vital as-pects of the ad must be that it will below cost, and with very little timecommitment. For the bold shop owner,the ad could also offer “No risk—yourmoney back if not completely satis-fied.” Some owners might hesitate onthis one, but statistically the no riskoffer increases responses significantly.An additional attraction to be offeredby the tech-savvy shop would be an

on-line inquiry and approximate esti-mate for potential customers. Theprospective customer simply uploadsa photo of the damage and the shopgets back to him or her with an ap-proximate repair time and cost.

To make the “Ding Day” routinework well, a shop must commit sig-nificant resources to getting vehiclescompleted and out quickly at reason-able cost. The real profit should not bein the limited scope of the minor re-pair. Instead it should be viewed as asales opportunity. This is a chance tocollect many customer informationforms filled in with vital marketing in-formation. It has to collect informa-tion on all vehicles owned by thecustomer’s family and employer andany other vehicles in need of repair. Itshould have his or her insurance agentand possibly organizations the cus-tomer belongs to that could be mar-keting targets. Filling in of the formcan’t be simply handing it to the vehi-cle owner, leaving him or her to omitmany important marketing bits of in-formation. The estimator or a well-trained front desk person should makecertain most of the requested informa-tion is captured. And this is just stepone in capturing this vital sales op-portunity.

While it may be possible to talkthe prospect into bringing in anothervehicle that needs repair right thenand there, this could be shortsighted.In order to keep the turn-around timeshort, it could be better to solicitwork on other vehicles with follow-up calls. If the customer was pleased

with a quick turn-around, the esti-mator should get a welcome re-sponse when making the follow-upcall. This call would also be an ap-propriate time to ask for permissionto call the customer’s business andsocial organization connections tomake the shop known to them. Thistactic has worked well with Amwayand Avon solicitors and builds anever-expanding network of relatedindividuals for marketing purposes.When there is reluctance to passalong phone numbers, these daysasking for an e-mail address or evenFacebook connection could get aneasier response.

Perhaps the greatest difficultygetting this tactic to work is the prob-lem of where to advertise and how toreach the greatest number of prospec-tive customers. Today print ads havelimited value as people turn awayfrom printed newspapers and get theirnews on-line. TV ads are generally tooexpensive, but radio ads could be areal possibility in some areas. On-lineads are essential.The ad has to be di-rect and simple. It should start withthe key question: “Are you tired of liv-ing with that ugly dent, ding or scratchon your vehicle? For a limited time weare offering a very low-cost, fast turn-around repair to restore your vehicleto its original beauty. And we’re lo-cated close enough for you to dropyour vehicle off in the morning andpick it up, possibly as early as noon.Call us or e-mail a quick photo of yourdamage and we’ll give you an ap-proximate estimate immediately.”


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news travels faster than good news.Companies that take the time to pro-vide convenient, Millennial-friendlyservices and quality products will becontinually rewarded with positiverecommendations, via the spokenword, smartphones or laptops. Eitherway, Millennials are demanding bet-ter service and higher quality whilepossessing the power to influence oth-ers, so listen to what they’re sayingand start concentrating on this demo-

graphic more. Whether you’re enam-ored or not with their attitudes or be-havior, they’re a huge market and youcan’t deny it any longer.

Ding Day–A Marketing Tactic

On Creative Marketingwith Thomas Franklin

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


Millennials


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On Thursday, May 22, the LouisianaCollision Industry Association (LaCIA)held a meeting at the Hilton Garden Innto update members on the direction theassociation is taking and their upcom-ing plans. Featured speakers includedAttorney General Buddy Caldwell andhis assistant AG, Randy Ishee, who up-dated attendees on their efforts. Execu-tive Director Alysia Hanks notes,“overall, the meeting and turnout wasexcellent, and I think the Attorney Gen-eral is on top of things! He was presentwith some of his other attorneys whoare working on our issues, and they hadsome great updates to share with us. Idon’t think I’m alone when I say this,but Mr. Caldwell very much exceededmy expectations with what he and hisstaff of lawyers have accomplished sofar. I heard the comment ‘blown away’when I asked others to describe themeeting. Mr. Caldwell and four otherattorneys are now working non-stop onour issues.”

The meeting began with ChairmanLynn Lejeune welcoming attendees andleading the group in prayer, followed byVice Chairman Derek Stubbs who in-troduced LaCIA’s Board of Directorsand discussed some of the association’sgoals and accomplishments.

When Caldwell was introduced, heassured the group that he and his teamare working diligently on resolving thecollision repair industry’s is-sues, and he provided an up-date on their progress thus far.Because State Farm is thelargest insurance company inLA and all other insurers fol-low their lead, he first set hissights on this insurance giant,learning that they did put upthe money for PartsTrader. Hisoffice has also begun a CivilInvestigation Demand wherethe Attorney General ordersthe insurance companies toproduce documents which they wouldnot ordinarily produce in a regular dep-osition, such as surveys and internalpolicies; he also pointed out his findingthat insurers aren’t even attempting tohide the fact that they are steering theircustomers to DRP facilities!

Although his office is still in thediscovery stages of the process, the

Attorney General’s influence in itselfis beneficial to legislative initiativessince politicians are less apt to ignoretheir pleas for help. They also plan toproduce some ad campaigns to advise

consumers to read their insurancepolicies and encourage them to un-derstand their rights during the repairprocess. Attorney Stacy noted that theAttorney General’s office may alsolook into possible tax evasion on thepart of the insurance companies. De-spite this progress, Hanks cautions “itwill take a while to get this situationwe find ourselves in today resolved,or even to see any movement on it.We did not get into this situationovernight, and it won’t go away thatfast either. We need to have patience.”

Next, Ishee updated attendees onseveral matters, beginning with thefact that he cannot comprehend why

any repair facility would willingly joina DRP since he can find nothing inthose agreements that benefits theshops whatsoever; his feelings aboutPartsTrader are the same. He notedthat by signing those agreements, itwas like relinquishing ownership ofthe shop to the insurance company.Furthermore, Ishee emphasized that

the repair professionals are responsi-ble for properly fixing their customers’vehicles, plus if a shop has a signedwork authorization from the customerand the insurer sends their vehicle to

another facility, that is a breach of con-tract for which they can be sued.

The Louisiana Attorney Gen-eral’s office is working with severalother Attorneys General throughoutthe South, and they have also reachedout to their state’s Insurance Commis-

sioner’s office to inform them thatthey will be pursuing State Farm, withor without the Commissioner’s sup-port. Hanks recalls, “they wanted tomake it clear what their main objec-tives were, and that was to attempt toget rid of DRPs, to get things changedthrough legislation, and to make sureeveryone knows the law on both sides.They want insurers to stick to whatthey do, which is writing policies, andlet the body shops do what they do,which is fixing cars. They believe theinsurers shouldn’t have their hands inour businesses.”

After the Attorney General’s pres-entation concluded, several additionalspeakers provided updates on some in-dustry trends. Abel Cantrell of Advan-tage Collision Center in Houma, LA,spoke about who really owns yourshop, you or the insurance company,and he also distributed instructions on“How to Use Twitter” so no one has anexcuse not to get connected to other


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LaCIA Hosted Louisiana Attorney General at May 22 Meeting

with Chasidy Rae SiskSouthwest Associations


Executive Director Alysia Hanks (l) with Attorney Gen-eral Buddy Caldwell (m) and Asst. AG Randy Ishee (r)from the LA Dept of Justice

LaCIA’s Board of Directors meet with their guests (l to r): Chris Medine, Randy McLachlin, AlysiaHanks, Derek Stubbs, AG Buddy Caldwell, Lynn Lejuene, Asst. AG Randy Ishee & Pat Graham

shops. Ray Gunder of Gunder’s AutoRepair in Lakeland FL discussed howinsurers pushed him to the edge andwhy he started suing them to get thingsdone, nothing he has not lost a case be-cause “right is right!” Next, MikeParker of Parker Auto Body in WestMonroe, LA, shared the measures hehas taken to maintain control of hisbusiness which includes installingvideo and audio surveillance in andaround his shop as well as a module torecord every call made to or from hisbusiness.

LaCIA’s Board of Directors isvery grateful to all of their guests whospoke at the meeting. Vice ChairmanDerek Stubbs said “we have to beexcited about the turnout and have tokeep the momentum we are estab-lishing going in a positive directionand not let it slip away.” Board mem-ber Pat Graham believes the Attor-ney General and his staff “had a verypositive vibe that I think was felt byeveryone.” All in all, Hanks believesthe meeting “was an incredible suc-cess! We are taking back the industryladies and gentlemen!”

LaCIA will hold their next meet-ing on July 8 in Lafayette.

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CARSTAR Sees Record Revenue in 2013, Plans Expansionof HQ in Leawood, KSCARSTAR brought in a companyrecord $641 million in revenue in2013, an increase from its $603 mil-lion in revenue in 2012. CEO DavidByers said the company's 2013same-store sales were up by 17 per-cent from 2012 and Carstar added 45more locations to its multishop oper-ator network in the United States andCanada. Byers said the unusuallypoor winter weather, which lastedwell into 2014, and the increasingcomplexity and cost of repairs to au-tomobiles buoyed the company in2013. He expects the company'sstrong same-store sales to drive thecompany to record revenue and storeadditions in 2014.

“We expect to break the recordsfrom last year again in 2014,” Byerssaid. “Based on the fact that we'reseeing that 17 percent same-storesales number, that's an indication thatthe business and the industry is per-forming extremely well and we haveno reason to believe that that is goingto subside in the second half of theyear.”

With increased revenue, Carstaris looking to add new senior staff.Byers said the company is recruitinga new chief information officer and a

new vice president of business de-velopment. It is also looking to addnew technical resources at its newheadquarters at the Pinnacle IVbuilding in Leawood. It relocatedfrom Overland Park in December2013. Byers said Carstar chose to lo-cate its call center in existing Cana-dian operation instead of building anew call center in the Kansas Cityarea. Byers said the continuing con-solidation of the collision repair in-dustry positions his company wellfor long-term growth. Over the lastdecade, Byers said, the number of in-dependently-owned collision repaircenters dropped to 35,000 from80,000. He said the flow of privateequity money—Carstar is owned bySan Francisco-based private equitymanagement firm Champlain CapitalPartners LP—encourages independ-ent shops to sell or join a larger fran-chising company. “(Independentshops) have two choices: they cansell to one of the consolidators or ...they can join a franchise network likeus. Those are really the only twochoices they have,” Byers said. “Wefind we're in a very good growth po-sition because, as the industry con-tinues to contract and consolidate.”

CCAR, the Coordinating Committeefor Automotive Repair, and Ship-Mate, Inc. announced the launch oftheir new website, www.hazmatu.org.This intuitive new site is specificallydesigned to be easier to use and eas-ier to access for all HazMatU train-ing and resources. CCAR providestailored information and resourcesfor OEM dealers, collision repaircenters, schools and mechanicalservice centers. The new websitecommunicates updated news, eventsand services to HazmatU customersin an easier, faster and more user-friendly layout. ShipMate, Inc.works with clients to help resolvetheir most demanding dangerousgoods transportation, environmentalmanagement and safety issues.ShipMate provides creative ideasand cost effective solutions to re-solve and manage their many com-pliance challenges.

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This year’s CARS will be held July 30-Aug. 2 in Detroit and for the first time,the focus will be on younger techs.

There will be a two-day, intensiveprogram called the “Young Technician’sSymposium.” Donny Seyfer, chairman-elect of the Automotive Service Associ-ation, which sponsors CARS, reports theprogram will be “powered” by Bosch.“It’s the brainchild of Bob Pattengale,”said Seyfer, “and will feature cutting-edge learning techniques and thoroughintroductions to the electronic systemsthat control modern cars. Targeting thetwo- to three-year tech, Bosch’s trainerswill use hands-on techniques mixed withclassroom training to move young techsfrom maintenance service and light re-pair to adding routine diagnostic skillsto their toolbox.”

Each program at CARS this yearhas been handpicked with an eye to-

ward making your shop better, saidSeyfer. Management sessions will belimited so that the “meeting after themeeting” networking opportunitieswill be enhanced.

Seyfer said the “crown jewel” ofthe CARS lineup will be Friday’sTelematics & Technology Forum spon-sored by the Alliance of AutomobileManufacturers. “We will bring youface-to-face with the future,” saidSeyfer. “Learn about what cars aredoing today and tomorrow from theengineers who build them. How doesthe independent repair shop fit into thisworld? You will only know if you at-tend CARS and attend this session.”

Business has changed, said Seyfer,“and things that were effective a fewyears ago are no longer working.” Tohelp bring attendees up-to-date, ASA isenlisting the aid of notables such as Vin

Waterhouse, Rissy Sutherland, DannySanchez and Margie Seyfer, all expertsin their respective fields.

Always a concern are employeeissues, including successfully integrat-ing new employees into the business.Bill Haas, industry consultant andtrainer, has a new class that will provideshop owners the tools they need to helpnew employees fit right in.

On the technical side, since CARS2014 will be in the Motor City, repre-sentatives from Chrysler, Ford and Gen-eral Motors will all be presentingclasses. Pete Meier will help you bringthose lab scopes back out to aid you indiagnosis for a new generation of cars.

“Speaking of diagnosis,” saidSeyfer, “we are going to push the bound-aries of your diagnostic techniques andunderstanding with presentations byMark Warren and Chris Chesney— both

technical wizards. They will bring newprograms that will take your diagnosti-cians to areas many of them will findcompletely new.”

Seyfer said ASA’s board of direc-tors and members of the association’sMechanical Operations Committee“are excited” to present a different ap-proach to training at CARS this year.“We surveyed members, asking whattheir biggest challenges were in run-ning their business and repairing cars,and we took the dominant responsesand sought out trainers to provide in-sight and new skills to solve thoseproblems.” Said Seyfer, CARS is builtfor shop owners. “It’s built for yourtechnicians and it is built for your salesstaff,” he said. “ASA puts on a few‘must attend’ programs each year. Thisyear, CARS will be at the top of thatlist. See you in detroit!”

CARS This Year Is All New, ASA Promises It Will Be The Best Show Ever

I-CAR®, in partnership with the NationalAuto Body Council (NABC), has an-nounced it will pilot a membership dis-count program for I-CAR Gold Class®

businesses. The promotional offer in-cludes a 30 percent discount towardNABC Bronze Membership throughDecember 31, 2014.

“I-CAR and NABC have compli-mentary goals of encouraging profes-sionalism and promoting a positiveimage of our industry,” explained JeffPeevy, I-CAR Senior Director of FieldOperations and Segment Development.“I believe all of us within the collisionrepair industry have an obligation topromote a positive image of it. And oneof the best ways to achieve this is tosupport and enable the growth of an or-ganization designed for this purpose.”

NABC membership provides busi-nesses with an array of opportunities formembers to reinforce their leadershiprole within the industry and community,and foster goodwill throughout thosecommunities. The NABC also imple-ments community-based programs likeRecycled Rides, Distracted Driving Ini-tiative and First Responders EmergencyExtrication, while recognizing those inour industry who epitomize the funda-mental goodness which exists in the col-lision repair world.

Recycled Rides is a widely-knownand unique program in which insurers,collision repairers, paint suppliers, parts

vendors and others collaborate to repairand donate vehicles to deserving indi-viduals and service organizations in localcommunities throughout the country.

NABC Executive Director, ChuckSulkala explained, “In addition to help-ing make a difference in someone’s life,participation in NABC initiatives such asRecycled Rides, provides many intangi-ble benefits. Within a business, it createsrewarding experiences, excitement andpride in and for your team, plus has avery positive impact on the community.The enhanced recognition of our mem-ber’s businesses in their community as aresult of gifting a Recycled Rides vehicleis an added benefit of membership.”

Over 800 vehicles worth in ex-cess of $10 million have been donatedthrough the NABC’s Recycled Ridesprogram since its inception in 2007.

“Collaborating with an industrypowerhouse like I-CAR really helps theNABC to enroll our industry to evan-gelize about just how good it is for oth-ers to rub elbows with all of us,” saidNick Notte, NABC president. “We atthe NABC are delighted that I-CAR hasembraced our vision and is so willing tohelp NABC reach out to even morequality individuals and businesses.”

Gold Class businesses are en-couraged to take advantage of this spe-cial promotion. To learn more aboutthe NABC or Recycled Rides, visitnationalautobodycouncil.org.

I-CAR® And National Auto Body Council Partner onMembership Discount, 30% Off Until End of 2014

ASA-CO to Host Pinnacol Safety Meeting July 9 in DenverOn Wednesday, July 9, ASA-CO willhost a Pinnacol Safety meeting enti-tled “Managing Safety Through GoodHiring Practices” at Pinnacol Assur-ance, located at 7501 E. Lowry Blvdin Denver, CO. The event will takeplace from 11:30AM until 1:00PM

and includes lunch.ASA-CO is hosting this event for

all ASA Safety Group Members, to-taling around 50 policyholders, andthey expect around 15 to 20 attendees.For more information, call 303-202-5231 or go to www.asacolorado.org




The combined chapter meeting washeld at the Odyssey Restaurant inGranada Hills, CA. The speaker wasMichael Anderson, whose Collision-Advice.com organization and Team of

Advisors providesfree Forms & Toolsfor the industry.Mike speaks morethan 300 days ayear and is muchsought after for hispresentations andseminars. He was

introduced by Glendale-Foothill Chap-ter president, Daniel Panduro, who alsoworks closely with Mike. Danny notedthat this is Part Two of a series of Chap-ter meetings focusing on putting allnecessary repair operations on everyestimate and getting paid for them! Themeeting was sponsored by Finishmas-ter, arranged by Danard Cook.

Mike’s theme for the eveningwas “Educate, Don’t Alienate” – the

proven method to successfully nego-tiate for required and necessary repairoperation compensation. Mike notedthat all elements and examples arebased on standard economic princi-ples, not price (that would be in vio-lation of anti-trust law). Mike said toget paid for what you do, it must meetfour criteria:1. That it is necessary and required torestore a vehicle to pre-accident con-dition. OEM documents specify muchof what is needed to prove this.2. That it is not included in any otheroperation. The not-included informa-tion in the estimating systems is agood start. Mike provides much more.3. That there is a pre-determined timespecified for the operation. Beyondthe estimating systems, All-Data,SCRS, DEG and others reference timestudies for proof, but Mike has actu-ally proven some of the times himself.4. That the operation has real worthfor the repair of the vehicle and its

owner. Even just one question, “Is it asafe repair,” if answered affirmatively,proves worth for the customer.

Mike stresses that each of thesemust be proved, not just opinion. Hestresses that when an adjuster says“No,” he or she actually means, “Idon’t KNOW enough to say Yes.”And it’s the shop negotiator’s respon-sibility to educate the adjuster to pointof knowing enough to say “Yes.” Hesays the smart shop negotiator doesn’twait until the time of the negotiationto document the proof. This, he says,will give the adjuster time to think ofways to say “No.” A common com-plaint is it takes too long to researchthe proof to substantiate each chal-lenged operation. But Mike demon-strates with clear examples that even again of .1 (point one) for an operation,when accepted, can grow to a .2 and a.4 and be gradually accepted as alwaysnecessary.

Mike’s list of reference materialsprovides adequate ammunition for anyshop negotiator to win the day, butMike notes that many shop estimatorsare little more than sign-up clerks.Only a hand-full of shops has astuteestimator-negotiators who know howto document necessary operations andget paid for them. But the materials todo so are readily available. As noted,much of the time the estimating sys-tems’ indication of “not-includeditems” is a good start. ASA’s “not-in-cluded chart” is updated annually.OEM bulletins cover much of what isneeded and All-Data as an excellent

source can be integrated into ADP,CCC and Mitchell estimating systems.Other resources include SCRS’s“Guide to Complete Repair Planning”and DEGWEB.org. And after drawingon these resources, one can still createa pdf file of the estimate and take it toestimatescrubber.com to get a list ofwhat may have been missed. AndMike’s own CollisionAdvice.comprovides twelve free negotiating toolsto give a shop a real negotiating edge.

As his talk proceeded, it becameobvious Mike has a deep, passionatelove for these processes. He spent sev-eral thousand dollars of his own moneyvideotaping challenged operations(there is an ABRN video on YouTube).He worked to get feather prime andblock and final sand and polish prop-erly paid for. He helped publicize theBlend Ruler (now available in manyforms) and he personally demonstratedthe true cost of cover car. Now he iscreating an annual 200-question surveyof operations to find out how manyshops (1) always charge, (2) sometimescharge, (3) never charge, and (4) neverask.

Throughout the talk, Mike re-ferred members of the audience to goto his CollisionAdvice.com site forforms and tools. This site contains de-tailed information on all the estimat-ing platforms, all the paint companymemos, and all vehicle OEM manu-facturers’ technical bulletins -- a vir-tual encyclopedia of whatever shoppersonnel need to get the job done.Mike can be reached at 301-535-3333.


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CAA Glendale-Foothill And Valley-Ventura Chapters Meeting June 2, 2014

Western Associationswith Thomas Franklin

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

Mike Anderson

At Tuscola Auto Body on Parke Streetin Tuscola, IL, people stood in line allmorning to get their estimates. Me-chanics looked over pockmarkedtrucks and sedans, many with brokenwindshields, seeing rather large dentson almost all panels of the vehicles,said Beverly Obrecht, who co-ownsthe shop with her husband.

She took time to advise localconsumers about how to handle aclaim and the repair.

“We expect to be busy. I think

the whole area will be busy,” shesaid. A late-day storm on May 22dumped hail the size of pingpongballs and grapefruit throughout thearea, with Douglas County hit espe-cially hard.

“Since I walked in this morning,I’ve been taking phone calls frompeople. More of the calls are for cars,although there’s also reports of dam-age to roofs, siding and some win-dows,” said Todd Edmundson, an

Several Hundred Vehicles Suffer Hail Damagein IL Storm on May 22-23, Shop Gives Advice

See Hail Damage, Page 42


A new report released May 29, 2014revealed a dramatic price gap betweenoriginal equipment manufacturer(OEM) and aftermarket or alternativeversions of the top 20 most commonlysold certified auto collision repairparts from 2009-2014.

The study, compiled by the Qual-ity Parts Coalition (QPC), found thatthe top 20 aftermarket parts that weretested by the Certified AutomotiveParts Association were priced up to 50percent less than OEM versions of theparts. Aftermarket versions of all of thetop 20 were priced lower than theOEM versions; the average was 29 per-cent less expensive. These price differ-

ences have led to more than $80 mil-lion in consumer savings since 2009.

“This report reinforces the im-portance of consumers having achoice when making collision re-pairs to their cars,” said Ed Salamy,Executive Director of the QPC.“Without competition, auto manu-facturers would be free to charge in-flated prices, and consumers wouldhave no other options.”

In recent years, automakers havebegun exploiting a loophole in designpatent law to limit access to alterna-tive collision repair parts, forcing con-sumers to pay car companies more tofix their vehicles.

Bipartisan legislation has beenintroduced in both the U.S. House andSenate that would fix this loopholeand safeguard consumers against pricegouging. The Promoting AutomotiveRepair, Trade, and Sales (PARTS) Actof 2013 (H.R. 1663 and S. 780) wouldensure consumer choice for auto col-lision repair parts is preserved andprotect 60 years of competition thathas existed in the auto repair partsmarket.

“It is simply not fair to saddleconsumers with higher repair and in-surance costs as a result of car compa-nies seeking to eliminate competitionand charge monopolistic prices,” said

Jack Gillis, director of public affairsfor the Consumer Federation of Amer-ica. “This report highlights the ex-traordinary consumer savings inherentin a competitive marketplace and theneed for Congress to pass the PARTSAct without delay. Consumers need tomake their voices heard to ensure thathappens.”

The QPC says it is leading agrassroots effort to build support forpassage of the PARTS Act at support-partsact.com. QPC is providing infor-mation about the bill, including a2-minute whiteboard video that at-tempts to explain its side of the issuein a clear and fast way.

Quality Parts Coalition Says Five-Year Price Comparison Report Shows CertifiedAftermarket Parts Saved $80 Million Since 2009

On March 21 through 23, ASA-North-west held their 6th Annual AutomotiveTraining Expo (ATE) at the DoubletreeHilton in Seattle, WA. With over 600attendees and 83 exhibitors, the 2014ATE marked the first year the eventhas been sold out. The goal of theevent was to provide training for theautomotive industry, including owners,managers and technicians, and ATE2014 really delivered with 62 trainingsessions, six of which were I-CARcourses, taught by industry-leadingprofessionals.

Attendees raved about ATE 2014,and some of the feedback that ASA-Northwest has received so far in-cluded the following: “2014 was thebest ATE ever; my production team allbrought back valuable informationthey could use the first day back towork, and my service advisors madesubtle changes in how they functionand brought up ARO and GP the firstweek back. If this improvement con-

tinues, we will pay the entire invest-ment of sending six people to ATEback in three months just off of that,not including what the Techs learned!”“This was a premier event that al-lowed my team and I to increase ourknowledge in all facets of our busi-ness as well as an amazing team build-ing experience. It’s a no-brainer thatwe will be back next year, and I thinkevery shop should attend.” “ATEteaches you to be better at your job.”“ATE is a great way for Automotiveeducators to get updated on current re-pair information. Attending is alwaysa positive experience.”

Jeff Lovell, President and Execu-tive Director of ASA-Northwest, notes“this year, our sixth year, was sold outand exceeded our expectations. Wehave grown this event from the firstyear of 173 attendees to over 600 at-tendees going to training classes with12,430 hours of training. We also had83 exhibitors participate in our expo,

both Friday and Saturday evening. Theexpo floor was sold out three monthsin advance!”

On Thursday, the National Auto-motive Service Task Force (NASTF)joined ATE to host their Spring 2014General Meeting, and over 100 partic-ipants attended to discuss the topic ofJ-2534 Reprogramming. At breakfaston Saturday, renowned trainer GarySmith presented “Success or Strug-gle,” and during lunch, Bryan Dodgetaught attendees “How to Have YourBest Year Ever.” Throughout the event,ATE offered an impressive trade expowith exhibitors displaying automotiveparts, repair equipment, shop manage-ment services, and specialty products.ATE attendees also had the chance towin a variety of door prizes which weredistributed throughout the weekend.

Lovell believes these types of as-sociation-sponsored events are impor-tant for members and the industrybecause it “brings our membership to-

gether to discuss issues affecting ourindustry, such as getting new techni-cians into the industry, environmentalissues, legislative issues and network-ing. It is so gratifying to have ATEgrow each year and that it has estab-lished itself as the West Coast’s pre-mier training event. Our staff andvolunteers help make this an excep-tional event that provides qualitytraining to all levels of the service andrepair industry.

In addition to ASA-Northwest,sponsors for ATE included the North-west Tire Dealers Association, AutoShop Solutions (the official socialmedia sponsor), and “Parts & PeopleNorthwest” who was the officialmedia sponsor of the event. ATE2015 will be held on March 20-22ndat the Doubletree Hilton in Seattle,WA.

www.asanorthwest.com253-473-6970

ASA-NW’s Automotive Training Expo 2014

with Chasidy Rae SiskNorthwest Associations


insurance agent with Country Finan-cial in Tuscola.

“Taking pictures or video ofthe damage is key,” said KathySweedler, a consumer economicseducator with University of Illinois

Extension.“Take notes, write down the date

and time, who you talked to and whatwere your instructions,” she said. “Ifyou’re stressed out, you can easily for-get the company asked you to sendsomething. You don’t want to delay aprocess because you forgot a step.”

How the cars will be repaired (viaconventional body repair or other tech-

niques) and for how long will varybased on the extent of the damage, sheadvised consumers.

“These are not day jobs,” Obrechtsaid. Hail repairs can take a coupledays to one to two weeks, possiblymore, she said.

The Illinois Insurance Associationoperates a consumer hotline, at (800)444-3338, and if someone is upset

about how an adjuster is conductingthe claim, the association can explainthe process and offer tips on dealingwith agents or adjusters.

State Farm says Illinois residentsfiled 26,000 claims due to damagefrom wind and hail in 2013. That wassecond-most nationally—behind Texas(42,000) and ahead of No. 3 Georgia(25,000).


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That includes $277 billion in actual cost,and an estimated $594 billion in “harmfrom the loss of life and the pain and de-creased quality of life due to injuries,” anew U.S. Department of Transporta-tion’s National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration report said.

Studying crashes in the U.S. in2010, NHTSA counted up 32,999 fa-talities, 3.9 million non-fatal injuriesand 24 million damaged vehicles in“The Economic and Societal Impactof Motor Vehicle Crashes 2010.”

The sweeping report takes in a lotof ground, particularly in calculatingthe “quality of life” losses. Among thefactors considered in the direct lossesof $277 billion, the report said, were$93 billion in lost productivity, $76billion in property damage, $35 billionin medical expenses, and $28 billionin the costs of traffic-related conges-tion—like traffic jams and increasedair pollution.

The report concluded that drunkdriving, speeding and “distraction”were key contributors.

Drunk driving alone, the reportsaid, accounted for 18% of the total eco-nomic loss from motor vehicle crashes,costing the economy as much as $199billion in direct and quality-of-life losses.

Crashes Cost Almost $1T inCosts, Loss of Life, Pain

On Monday, July 28th, the Society ofCollision Repair Specialists (SCRS)will hold an open board meeting from3:00–5:00pm in Detroit. The meeting,held at the Marriott Renaissance Cen-ter located at 400 Renaissance Dr.West, Detroit, will be open to anyonewishing to learn more about the cur-rent state of the association's activitiesand pressing industry topics. The twohour meeting will include updatesfrom SCRS staff and committees out-lining current and future work initia-tives each group has undertaken onbehalf of the membership. It will in-clude a presentation from the SCRSEducation Committee who will be pro-viding a detailed presentation sur-rounding aluminum repair approaches,techniques and considerations.

Attendees are not required to bea member of SCRS to participate inthis meeting. Anyone interested inlearning more about the association,the work it does on behalf of the col-lision repair industry or interactingwith the SCRS Board of Directors isencouraged to attend. Pre-registrationis not required.

For more information aboutSCRS, or to join as a member, visitour website at www.scrs.com.

SCRS Open Board Meetingon July 28th in Detroit

Automotive service and repair shopowners will want their young techni-cians to attend this unique symposiumat this year’s Congress of AutomotiveService and Repair (CARS), which willbe held in Detroit July 30-Aug. 2. Itwas designed specifically for youngtechnicians who shop owners believehave the skills to be all-star technicians.The Young Technician’s Symposium isa first time event at CARS and will bepowered by Bosch. Targeting the two-to three-year technician, Bosch trainerswill use interactive teaching methods tomove young technicians to electricaland driveability diagnosis with confi-dence and speed. ASA is working withBob Pattengale, training manager forRobert Bosch, to address the challengesyoung technicians face. Donny Seyfer,chairman-elect of the ASA, whichsponsors CARS, said Bosch recentlyconducted a trial training program withmembers of ASA-CO. Out of that camea two-day, four-session program thatwould teach techs with two or moreyears’ experience real-world diagnosticskills in basic electronics, gas anddiesel engine management, sensors andactuators, and electronic brake man-agement, including ABS and vehiclestability systems.

Young Technician’s Programto Debut at CARS

AudaExplore has pledged a three-year commitment of $75,000 in toolgrants that will be awarded to all highschool and post-secondary collisionrepair and refinishing students com-peting at the national SkillsUSA con-test. By working together withindustry companies and their studentproduct discounts, the retail value ofthese tools will exceed $150,000.

The tool grants are meant torecognize the students’ outstandingefforts in qualifying to compete at thenational SkillsUSA event and helpprepare them for careers within thecollision industry. “This donationaligns well with our LIFT charitablegiving program, which focuses onhelping those in need to build sus-tainable roots for lasting change,”said Rick Tuuri, vice president of in-dustry relations, AudaExplore.

“The U.S. Department of Laborprojected the employment growth ofthe automotive body segment to be13 percent from 2012 to 2022. Skill-sUSA and the Collision Repair Edu-cation Foundation have done afantastic job enhancing career op-portunities for students to take ad-vantage of this growth, and we areproud to be a part of it.”

AudaExplore Pledges $150Kto SkillsUSA in Tool Grants


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NSF International’s Bob Frayer EarnsPrestigious ASQ Quality Leader AwardThe Automotive Division of ASQ(American Society for Quality) re-cently awarded Bob Frayer of NSFInternational its prestigious QualityLeader of the Year Award for hisleadership and NSF International’s

commitment totesting and cer-tifying aftermar-ket automotiveparts. The ASQ-Automotive Di-vision QualityLeader of theYear Award rec-ognizes leaders

in the automotive industry who ex-emplify outstanding dedication toquality.

Over the past four years, Frayer(NSF International Global ManagingDirector Automotive) has signifi-cantly increased the number of certi-fied automotive collision replacementparts available in the market, nowcovering more than 20,000 vehicleapplications including models fromall major auto companies. As back-ground, NSF International is a globalorganization with 70 years of certifi-cation and testing experience.

Frayer oversees NSF Interna-

tional’s Automotive Collision Certi-fication Program, which includesparts certification through which heand other NSF engineers independ-ently evaluate and compare theform, fit and function of aftermarketparts to original equipment (OE)parts. The program helps ensure thatcollision parts meet quality, safetyand performance standards throughrigorous facility audits and partstesting. He also oversees the Auto-motive Collision Parts DistributorCertification Program which certi-fies distributors who sell automotivecollision parts.

“We are honored to recognizethe achievements of Bob Frayer andNSF International for their dedicationto continually advance the quality andsafety of the aftermarket automotiveparts industry,” said Jd Marhevko,ASQ Fellow and ASQ AutomotiveDivision council member.

“It is an honor to receive thisaward on behalf of NSF Interna-tional from the ASQ. NSF Interna-tional and ASQ are committed toquality improvement and standards,and to helping ensure that the safetyand performance of auto parts con-tributes to that mission,” said Frayer.

Bob Frayer

Chrysler Airbag Recall Being Probed by RegulatorsThe automaker says 6 fixed SUVsfrom 2012 recall had inadvertentairbag deployments. Chrysler Groupmay be facing a recall do-over afterthe fix it initiated to stop inadvertentairbag deployments in older JeepLibertys and Grand Cherokees failedin at least six instances to fix theproblem, says a report in AutomotiveNews. The National Highway TrafficSafety Administration said in docu-ments filed on Monday that it hadopened a query into the 2012 recall744,822 Jeep Liberty SUVs frommodel years 2002 and 2003, and JeepGrand Cherokee SUVs from modelyears 2002 through 2004. NHTSAsaid it plans to study the effectivenessof the nearly 2-year-old recall, whichChrysler launched on Nov. 7, 2012.

Chrysler acknowledged in astatement that it had notified NHTSAof a half-dozen instances in which theSUV’s airbags deployed inadver-tently while the vehicles were in op-eration after they had allegedly beenfixed.

“Chrysler Group LLC advisedthe National Highway Traffic Ad-

ministration of the six reports and, inaccordance with the company’s long-standing practice, is cooperating fullywith the resulting investigation. Cus-tomer safety is paramount at ChryslerGroup,” the company said in a writ-ten statement.

In 2012, Chrysler addressed theproblem by installing an in-linejumper harness with an integratedelectrical filter to eliminate electricalspikes that the company believedwere causing the problem, accordingto the NHTSA documents. The safetyagency had previously opened an in-vestigation of the issue in October2011 and three months later upgradedthe probe.

In the latest six cases in theNHTSA documents, no crashes werereported, but injuries consisting ofcuts and burns were alleged. At thetime of the recall in 2012, another174,723 SUVs were affected inCanada, Mexico and outside of NorthAmerica. The probe found 215 casesof inadvertent airbag deploymentsthat resulted in 81 minor injuries inthe United States but no crashes.

PartsTrader Integrates Hollander Interchange CodesPartsTrader announced that it has in-tegrated Hollander Interchange codeswithin the PartsTrader application toassist suppliers when they are quot-ing recycled parts.

The Hollander Interchange is a75-year old numbering system thatindexes which parts are interchange-able among vehicles. For example,the timing cover for a 1976 GMCTruck also fits a 1969 Corvette. Hol-lander Interchange Manuals covermost foreign and domestic cars andlight trucks from the 1920s to thepresent. The manuals cover morethan 150 mechanical and body partsand assemblies.

For information on how to usethe Interchange, go to http://hollan-derinterchange.net/How_To_In-structions.pdf.

In the PartsTrader system a col-lision repair estimator will be asked,when appropriate, clarifying vehicleoption questions prior to sending outa quote request for their specific partneeds. The estimator’s answers tothese questions will trigger Part-sTrader to display the appropriateHollander code to the quoting recy-

cler whenever that code is availablefor the parts or assemblies required.

The new functionality has beenpreviewed in Illinois and New Jer-sey, and is now available to Part-sTrader users nationwide.

“The repairers and recyclerswho have been using this feature inour preview areas have been pleasedwith the efficiencies it has deliveredto them,” said Dale Sailer, Part-sTrader’s vice president of businessdevelopment. “Our developmentteam has worked diligently on ask-ing the right questions of repairers,and to display the Hollander codesin an easy-to-use manner for anysupplier quoting recycled parts.PartsTrader’s goal is to continuallyimprove our solution so that it re-duces the risk of getting the wrongparts and creates efficiencies forboth the repairer and the supplier.”

Said Rob Cooper, CEO of Part-sTrader, “In meeting with recyclersacross the country, we’ve heard theneed for integration with HollanderInterchange loud and clear, and it’s ex-citing to be able to respond to the mar-ket’s needs in such a positive way.”

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and Dave Maute with Allstate Insur-ance all donated more than $100,000

in parts, labor and cash to transformthe old Brinks truck into a rescue ve-hicle for the Special OperationsTeam.

Maine said the teamwork andcollaboration among the Spring-

field and Clark County businessesmade the finished product so spec-tacular.

“Anyone that we talked to that weneeded something, when I went andasked, they gave,” Maine said. “TheSpecial Operations Team is workingconstantly trying to get equipment anddo the things they need to do and so(helping with the truck) just madesense.”

Police and the Special OperationsTeam began looking into an armoredvehicle after Clark County Sheriff’sDeputy Suzanne Hopper was killedby a gunman as she was responding toa shots fired call at Enon Beach camp-ground in 2011. It was then that thelaw enforcement community realizedit needed special equipment to helpprotect officers responding to danger-ous situations, said Springfield PoliceChief Stephen Moody.

Sgt. Joe Tedeschi with the Spring-field police researched a programwhere Brinks of Dayton sold old ar-mored transportation vehicles to someorganizations for a discounted price.Police bought their Brinks truck forjust $10.

Once the truck was in Spring-field, police consulted Maine, whohad helped the Police Division withsome repairs to another vehicle theyhad purchased in the past. Maine andhis business partner John Hawke Jr.worked on the truck and continuallythought of new security measures toadd to the SWAT vehicle, said Sgt.

Brian Peabody, commander of theSpecial Operations team.

“It was a rough Brinks truck,”Maine said. Upon research, the groupthat helped remodel the vehicle dis-covered the truck was actually builtat Navistar in Clark County in the1980s.

Maine and Hawke added a steelgrate to the front of the vehicle that candemolish ammunition fired from high-powered machine guns, Maine said.They also added retractable steps thatSOT members can utilize to ride on theside of the truck. The entire truck wasoutfitted with extra armor to make itbulletproof.

With the help of Mike Willis, JasonBarlow and Bob Thaxton from Navistarand the UAW Local 402, replacementparts for the truck’s old suspension sys-tem and brakes were donated. Navistaralso donated its time to install the newparts.

When the project was complete,just more than $2,000 of money fromthe city’s budget was put into thetruck, Moody said. The way localbusiness joined to help complete theproject shows how the idea of com-munity policing comes together, headded.

“We all know that no matterwhat our vocation, that we can reachout to the members of the businesscommunity, law enforcement andmanufacturers and put our heads to-gether to solve the problem,” Moodysaid.


Springfield SWAT


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One current and two future SoutheastCommunity College students receivedscholarships from the Nebraska Rod &Custom Association. Conner Mogul ofYork, a third-quarter Automotive Tech-nology student at SCC’s Milford Cam-pus, received a $1,000 scholarship,along with Ben Nissen of Inland andKurtis Siebert of Benedict. Nissen at-tends Adams Central High School inHastings and plans to study both Auto-motive Technology and Auto CollisionRepair Technology at SCC-Milford be-ginning in July. Siebert, who attendsYork High School, plans to study AutoCollision Repair Technology at SCC-Milford beginning in January.

Tyler Arends of Ord, who attendsCentral Community College, also re-ceived a $1,000 scholarship from theNRCA. He works part-time at ValleyThunder Rods & Restoration in Ord.

Mogul plans to pursue a bache-lor’s degree in business administrationwhen he completes his studies at SCC.

He has worked for his father,who is a mechanic and owner ofMogul’s Transmission & Towing inYork. Nissen has been working part-time at Snyder Street Rods in Hast-

ings. His scholarship is funded by Tri-City Street Rods.

Siebert has worked with his fatherand grandfather at Siebert CustomPaint & Body in Bradshaw. He also hasworked at C&L Machine & EngineWorks. In order to be eligible for thescholarship, students must be in theirsecond year of college or be a 2014high school graduating senior who willenroll in an automotive program in oneof Nebraska’s technical and/or com-munity colleges. Other criteria for thescholarship includes holding a mini-mum 2.5 grade-point average in highschool or college, demonstrating re-sponsibility and willingness to work to-ward vocational achievement andbeing enrolled in a minimum of 12credit hours. The NRCA ScholarshipCommittee reviews all of the applica-tion materials, including the quality of

a 250-word personal statement. Sixstudents were interviewed.

The NRCA is a special-interestgroup with approximately 1,400members in Nebraska whose focus ison vintage and classic cars. Each yearthe organization awards scholarshipsto students in or entering an automo-tive-related field of study.

For 10 years NRCA has workedand found ways to raise money tofund scholarships for students attend-ing one of Nebraska’s six communitycolleges and studying automotivetechnology, auto body or any other au-tomotive-related curriculum. A smallportion of each members’ dues is ear-marked for this rewarding effort of theassociation. The NRCA also uses theproceeds from the sale of merchan-dise, work it has completed for others,and direct donations.

SCC Students Receive Nebraska Custom Association Scholarships

Perry Siebert congratulates his son, KurtisSiebert, who attends York High School andplans to study Auto Collision Repair Technol-ogy at SCC-Milford beginning in January, onreceiving a $1,000 scholarship from NRCAScholarships


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I-Car® Conference on Future of Collision Repair andAutomotive Industry, July 30 In DetroitI-CAR® announced that registration isnow open for the 2014 I-CAR Con-ference, which will be held on July30, 2014 at Cobo Center in Detroit.

This year’s Conference picks upI-CAR’s technology advancementdiscussion started at the company’s2013 Conference and will provideexecutives and leaders across the in-dustry further insight into the chal-lenges and opportunities surroundingthe Technical Tsunami.

John McElroy, host of AutolineDaily and Autoline This Week, will re-turn to moderate this year’s I-CARConference. The Conference will fea-ture an expanded lineup of speakersfrom Ford Motor Company, Oak RidgeNational Laboratory, Steel Market De-velopment Institute, Alcoa, Universityof Michigan, Robert Bosch LLC andmore. Key topics will include:• Ford: A high impact sessioncovering OEM strategies related toCAFE, details on the new aluminumF-150, and Ford’s enhanced Colli-sion Repair Service Strategy• Lightweighting: Advancementsand trends in Carbon Fiber, AdvancedSteels, Aluminum• The Changing DNA of the Ve-

hicle: Reinventing the Automobile• Advanced Electronics, Com-munications and Safety: VehicleWide Driver Safety Systems: V2XDeployment, and how Vehicle Datawill reshape our industry

I-CAR has also announced new,reduced pricing for this year’s Con-ference to encourage more of the in-dustry to attend and hear about theimportant challenges being faced. Theadmission price is now just $250 forEarly Bird registration—a promotionthat is running from now through June14.

As an added bonus, all I-CARConference attendees will receive aFREE pass to the NACE/CARS expo,also being held at the Cobo Center onJuly 31 and August 1.

In addition to insightful andthought-provoking presentations andpanel discussions, the I-CAR Confer-ence also offers numerous networkingopportunities, including an eveningreception celebrating I-CAR’s 35thAnniversary, complete with live en-tertainment.

For more information and detailson how to register, please visit: http://i-car.cvent.com/2014Conference.

Marketing research firm DuckerWorldwide is predicting that once the2015 Ford F-150 debuts and worksout the bugs with dealerships and theauto repair industry, other truckmak-ers will likely to follow suit. A studyconducted by Ducker Worldwide forthe Aluminum Association’s Alu-minum Transportation Group (ATG),projects that, by 2025, more than 75percent of all new pickup trucks pro-duced in North America will be alu-minum-bodied.

The study surveyed all major au-tomakers and reports Ford, GeneralMotors and Fiat Chrysler will becomethe biggest users of aluminum sheetin the next decade. It also forecaststhat the number of vehicles with com-plete aluminum body structures willreach 18 percent of North Americanproduction, from less than one per-cent today. Vehicle segments revealedas emerging aluminum content lead-ers are pickup trucks, sport-utility ve-hicles (SUVs) and both mid-sized andfull-size sedans.

The study finds that every lead-ing automaker will have numerousaluminum body and closure programsby 2025. As the material mix for bodyand closure parts continues to changedramatically in the years to come, use

of aluminum sheet for vehicle bodieswill increase to 4 billion pounds by2025, from 200 million pounds in2012.

“The numbers tell a powerfulstory of aluminum’s explosive growthacross the automotive sector,” saidTom Boney, chairman of the Alu-minum Association’s AluminumTransportation Group and vice presi-dent and general manager of automo-tive for Novelis in North America.“Within the next ten years, seven outof 10 new pickups produced in NorthAmerica will be aluminum-bodied,and so too will be more than 20 per-cent of SUVs and full–sized sedans.”

The ATG commissioned globalconsulting and research firm DuckerWorldwide to conduct the 2015 NorthAmerican Light Vehicle AluminumContent Study. Through detailed in-person interviews with automotiveoriginal equipment manufacturers(OEMs), component suppliers andregulators, Ducker Worldwide main-tains a comprehensive material usedatabase to track material and mass ofindividual components for every ve-hicle model manufactured in NorthAmerica. The findings were compiledusing data updated and verified be-tween October 2013 and April 2014.

“Aluminum-bodied cars andtrucks are coming in a big way, andsoon. Consumers won’t visibly noticea different metal under the paint, butthey’ll see greater savings at the gaspump and experience better perform-ance and handling at the wheel,”added Boney.

Additional findings from thestudy include:

For 2015, pickup trucks willcontain the most aluminum at 548.9lbs. per vehicle, followed closely byE segment sedans at 546.9 lbs., SUVsat 410.3 lbs. and minivans at 396.5lbs.

The average aluminum contentin 2015 will be up 44 pounds per ve-hicle or 13% over 2012.

Total North American light vehi-cle aluminum consumption will in-crease 28% in 2015 over 2012.

Tesla, Mercedes, BMW and Fordwill all exceed the average aluminumcontent and the average aluminumshare of curb weight for 2015.

By 2025, 26.6% of all the bodyand closure parts for light vehicles inNorth America will be made of alu-minum.

Total North American aluminumcontent in 2025 will be 10 billionpounds.

Aluminum hood penetration willreach 85% and doors will reach 46%;complete bodies will reach 18%, fromless than one percent today.

Globally, light vehicle aluminumcontent will approach 35 billionpounds by 2025 making light vehiclesthe most important global market foraluminum.

In a separate analysis, Bank na-lyst John Murphy said that Ford’saluminum F-150 will determinewhether consumers are willing to paya premium for a larger-but-lighter ve-hicle. The 2015 F-150 could be effi-cient enough to meet future U.S. fueleconomy standards without requiringFord to offset its performance by sell-ing more small cars, he said.

If Detroit auto makers can suc-ceed at slashing weight from theirlarge SUVs and pickups, Murphysaid, “you could see an environmentwhere [their sales] perform reallywell.” Heavy-duty pickups and SUVsare big moneymakers for Detroit automakers and efforts to make themmore fuel efficient would keep theprofits flowing.

New Study Says More Than 75% of All Pickup Trucks will be Aluminum-Bodied by 2025



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Pack Brothers Collision Center inBelmont, N.C., has won a short-payarbitration case in a North Carolinacourt against Allstate.

On May 27, a Lincoln Countyjudge ruled in favor of awarding a PackBrothers customer $891.72, which wasowed to the body shop for collision re-pairs that the insurer refused to pay afterthe insured’s car was fixed. The short-pay litigation was filed by Ronnie Pack,owner of Pack Brothers, on behalf ofhis customer using a Power of Attorney.

According to the insured cus-tomer’s policy, Allstate is obligatedto pay for necessary and proper re-pairs of his vehicle. The total amountcharged for repair of the vehicle was$3,445.27, but the insurer only paid$2,503.55 for the damages.

The customer is entitled to thefull amount of $891.72 owed to PackBrothers plus interest accrued sincehis accident, attorney fees and anyother punitive damages.

Pack Brothers in Belmont NCWins Short Pay Arbitration

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A talented young automotive audiotech was gunned down the night ofJune 1 at the auto body shop wherehe worked on Greenwell SpringsRoad, leaving friends, family anddetectives searching for answers.Nicholas Brumfield, 23, was shotand killed about 10 p.m. at Red’sAuto Upholstery, where he installedcar audio systems. Baton Rouge po-lice found Brumfield inside thebusiness. He had been shot multi-ple times, said Cpl. Don Coppola.Police do not have a motive or sus-pect in the shooting, Coppola said.Coppola said he could not disclosehow many times Brumfield wasshot, but friends and co-workersstanding outside the business saidBrumfield had been shot aboutseven times, including severaltimes in the head. The owner ofRed’s Auto Upholstery, who did notprovide his name, said he alongwith a few other people were at theshop when Brumfield was shot, buthe was in the back of the buildingand Brumfield was in the frontwhen the shooting occurred. BatonRouge Police have asked the publicto contact them with information at225-389-3948.

Employee, 23, Killed at BatonRouge Upholstery Shop Caliber has acquired two multiple col-

lision repair shop operators with a totalof nine locations—four in Los Angelesand five in Raleigh, NC. The NorthCarolina acquisition is the first locationfor Caliber in the eastern U.S.

Caliber Collision Centers an-nounced that it acquired Classic Colli-sion Center, Inc., with four locations ingreater Los Angeles: (Los Angeles,Pasadena, Tujunga, and La Crescenta),and Haddock Collision, a dominant re-pairer with five locations in the Raleigh,North Carolina market (Raleigh, Wake-field, Cary-Crossroads, Cary-Maynard,and Fuquay-Varina.)

Classic Collision was founded in1980 and Haddock in 1972.

Caliber Collision CentersSteveGrimshaw, Caliber Collision Chief Ex-ecutive Officer commented, “Our acqui-sition of Classic Collision Center, Inc.continues to offer more customer choicesin the Southern California market. Afterspending time with Classic Collision’smanagement team, it was obvious thatClassic Collision aligns perfectly withCaliber by delivering industry-leadingcustomer satisfaction across all four LosAngeles locations.”

“We are proud that Classic Colli-sion Center is now a part of the nation’sleading collision repair provider,” saidMajic Berenji, Classic Collision Presi-dent. “This combination will allow thecompany to continue to grow, while

providing Classic Collision’s cus-tomers with even higher standards ofquality and personal service that hasbecome our trademark. It will also pro-vide Classic Collision’s staff and theirfamilies’ new advancement opportuni-ties and a secure future in the dynamiccollision repair industry.”

“Our acquisition of HaddockCollision Centers in North Carolinarepresents our first of many acquisi-tions to come in the eastern U.S. I amvery excited to have Todd McGowan,and the entire Haddock Collision or-ganization, join forces with Caliber,”said Grimshaw.

With these acquisitions Calibernow operates 177 collision repair facil-ities in Arizona, California, Colorado,Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina,Oklahoma, and Texas.

Caliber Acquires MSOs in Los Angeles and North Carolina

A Culpeper man involved in a stand-off at a Madison County auto bodyshop was taken into custody on May28 and is now facing charges.

According to police, a standoffstarted shortly after 7:30 a.m. whenDavid Allen Cole, described as an “ac-tive shooter,” entered Skyline Restora-tion, an auto body shop on Route 29 inMadison. Someone working at the shopcalled police.

“According to the caller, one shothad already been fired and a secondshot was fired while the caller was onthe phone with dispatch,” said ErikWeaver, Madison County Sheriff.

Cole, 42, stayed inside the shopfrom 7:30 a.m. until his arrest shortlyafter 10 a.m. When law enforcementfirst arrived the employees had al-ready left the shop safely and Colewas the only one inside.

“After several minutes the sus-pect came to the door displaying thefirearm. The deputies challenged thesuspect at which time he pointed thefirearm to his throat,” said Weaver.

Police say Cole had a semiauto-matic 9 mm gun to his throat the en-tire time. Authorities also say a totalof five empty casings were found on

the property. After about two hours ofnegotiations, Cole surrendered.

Cole, who was an employee atSkyline Restoration, has beencharged with reckless use of afirearm. He is currently being evalu-ated under an emergency custodyorder. Police say no one was injuredduring the standoff, including the sus-pect. Those involved credit the team-work of a number of law enforcementagencies for that.

“It was amazing to see nearly 20organizations come together in a mat-ter of minutes,” said Ernie Hoch,Madison County administrator. Madi-son County Schools, located half amile from the scene, were put onlockdown while the standoff tookplace but the lockdown has now beenlifted. Police say no students were in-volved in the standoff.

Police were also forced to shutdown Route 29 in Madison in both di-rections while trying to get the sus-pect in custody.

“The establishment was alsovery close to Route 29. We did notwant a stray bullet leaving the vicin-ity and striking vehicles going up anddown Route 29,” said Weaver.

Culpeper, VA, Man Charged after Body Shop Standoff



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