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Diary of a Bad Collision Repair Part II
It has been almost a year since I wrote “Diary of a Bad Repair” in the November 2010 issue of BodyShop Business, and it’s still business as usual as for some of the body shops in my area as far as cranking out unsafe hack jobs. And yes, the majority are still coming from new-car dealerships, both DRPs and non-DRPs, large independent chain DRPs and the wanna-be DRP shops.
Managers and estimators at new-car dealerships and large chain independent shops are writing poor estimates. The problem is that the majority of these shop managers and estimators are simply serving a public relations purpose.
All the I-CAR training and OEM repair information in the world isn’t worth a penny without real, hands-on working experience and proper training. Would you fly in an airplane knowing that the pilot’s only training was using a flight simulator? Would you trust a nurse to perform a heart 
transplant on you after he or she worked alongside the surgeon to see how it was done?
For this very reason, these shop managers and estimators should not be in the collision repair industry – until they can do the same job as the body tech first. It’s only then that they can estimate the repair cost of a damaged vehicle, whether it’s in my state of North Carolina or other states.
I’m also still seeing shops working off insurance adjusters’ poorly written damage appraisals and not writing their own estimates. Have you not heard that the jury in the Progressive vs. North State Custom case found that the insurance adjuster’s estimate is irrelevant?
Another reason for unsafe or butchered vehicles is that shop managers don’t have real quality control systems implemented. They’re more concerned about cycle time. Also, the body techs cut corners in order to turn labor hours for a big payday. Sadly, the body techs know better, but instead of bucking the boss, they do what they’re told in order to keep bread on the table for their families.
Before I share with you photos and information on two hacked vehicles, I have to ask you, “How should we stop this madness?” Here’s what I propose:
1. Require the vehicle body and structural engineers to repair several of their designs so they can feel your frustrations, then chastise them for designing vehicles the way they do.
2. Require shop managers and estimators to have at least five years of hands-on repair experience so they can write a proper and thorough repair estimate and toss out the irrelevant insurance adjuster’s estimate.
3. Do away with cycle time.
4. Do away with labor hours turned commission pay and pay the repair techs an hourly wage or salary based on their repair skills along with a bonus for quality repairs.
5. License shops, managers, estimators and techs throughout the country and impose hefty fines on them for poorly prepared estimates and allowing unsafe or butchered vehicles back into the vehicle owners’ hands.
I know many states have laws in place to avoid some of these problems, but many are seldom enforced. So other than shooting the vehicle engineers who are designing and placing this chaos on the collision repair industry, the remedy may be in my questions and what it takes to turn things around so that there will be fewer unsafe vehicles being delivered to vehicle owners.
Subaru Impreza
There is the Right Way and the Wrong Way in Auto Body Work
We came upon this picture and thought we would share it. Albeit not the proper way of fixing a car’s body, we did find it imaginative. So we thought we would share it. The other alternative is still affordable, and it includes a window.
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Paint Touch Up And Go 
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