If you’re not thoroughly assessing vehicle damage, a lot of money is being left on the table and you are not doing your job. You are in business to repair damaged vehicles, however, many shop owners and estimators leave a good portion of the damage untouched, unpaid for, and perhaps jeopardizing your customers.

Not noticing the “induced and secondary” damage that may be related to the primary impact is careless and irresponsible not to mention costing money and exposing yourself to future loses via comebacks and or lawsuits.

Vehicle design is unforgiving

Welding dissimilar metals properly is a science in itself. Certified welders may not even know how to properly weld the complex metals of the vehicles needing repair. Electronic components on the vehicles are another specialized field. Fiber optic cabling, high voltage batteries and a host of other electronics can boggle the minds of many engineers. And keep in mind the “energy management” we must rebuild into the vehicle structures.

Energy absorbing structures must be reengineered in the body shop for proper energy management and ai bag timing. An airbag deploying just a fraction of a second off can potentially cause more occupant injury than the crash energy itself.

Knowledge of this technology is powerful and enables one to estimate damage thoroughly and sets a standard for the techs to repair the vehicle completely. And of course, the knowledge enables you to charge for everything required to properly repair the vehicle to manufacturer’s standards and procedures. I-CAR has an excellent compilation of all the manufactures that offer technical repair procedures online (www.i-car.com).

Need new skill sets

Properly identifying all the damage requires a new set of skills that need to be honed and taken seriously.

It’s a prodigious task that can make you or break you. However, this presents an opportunity to take your shop to another level of expertise which, with a keen eye and the proper use of new tools available in the industry, you can do a complete analysis of the damage the first time around. This is a good argument for taking advanced classes to know all about the new technologies now being used on vehicles.

Measure before estimating

Primary damage is easy to identify. It’s the secondary and inertia damage that is a bit tricky. The right tool can make it a breeze. And with the right tools you can document the damage, document the repair, repair to the +- 1 mm required by many of today’s vehicle manufacturers, and reduce the amount of time spent replacing suspension components until you have it right.

Oh, by the way, an acceptable wheel alignment does not mean you have the structure corrected dimensionally nor structurally sound. Measuring the vehicle to assess damage is a simple four step process:

        1. Lift vehicle onto a two-post lift.

        2. Measure the entire vehicle front to back with an electronic measuring system (Car-O-Tronic, Velocity just to mention two of the most popular).

        3. Digitally photograph the vehicle damage.

        4. Print your findings and write a complete estimate.