John Yoswick is a freelance automotive writer based in Portland, Oregon, who has been writing about the collision industry since 1988. He is the editor of the weekly CRASH Network (for a free 4-week trial subscription, visit www.CrashNetwork.com).
He can be contacted at john@crashnetwork.com
A Collison Industry Conference (CIC) committee presentation earlier this year confirmed parts supply chain issues continue to plague collision repairers.
Nick Dominato, a senior vice president at asTech, said he believes collision repairers should be prepared for automakers to broaden their ADAS calibration requirements.
A national survey of collision repairers in the final two months of 2021 found well over half of shops (58%) expected their full-year sales to outpace 2020, with nearly one in five shops predicting they would end 2021 with a year over year increase of 20% or more.
A panel during the Collision Industry Conference (CIC) in November included representatives of two automakers and two insurance companies addressing a topic that repairers and others discussed at a previous CIC: can an auto body shop participate both in direct repair and OE certification programs, and meet the requirements of both?
A panel discussion at the Collision Industry Conference (CIC) in Las Vegas in November included representatives from a number of technology companies touting the potential benefits---for auto body shops and insurers---of artificial intelligence (AI) estimating, but also acknowledging some of its current limitations.
Disconnecting and later reconnecting a vehicle’s battery during collision repair work is no longer the simple operation it used to be---and auto body shops are increasingly understanding the need to research the OEM procedures for doing so, and seeking to be paid for the labor entailed.
Longtime industry consultant Sean Carey of SCG Management Consultants is the latest observer to predict a forthcoming decline in the U.S. auto body shop population.
A panel of representatives from a number of multi-shop collision repair operations at the MSO Symposium in Las Vegas in November discussed how disruptions in the parts supply chain are impacting their business.
Collision repairers sometimes grouse about the auto body shop training programs at schools in their area. But Justin Clubb didn’t just complain. He did something about it.
Vincent Romans of The Romans Group consulting firm has been monitoring the growth of multi-shop operations (MSO) in the collision repair industry for more than 15 years, and at the MSO Symposium held Nov. 1 in Las Vegas, he said even the pandemic didn’t halt consolidation within the industry.
Collision repairers need to be aware the aluminum fenders on the 2022 Acura MDX, released this past summer, and the 2021 Acura TLX, released about a year ago, require the use of specific insulation clips.
Despite the growth in online recruiting sites and tools over a number of years, auto body repair shops continue to find word-of-mouth and referrals as their best source of new employees.
Lawmakers in multiple states have taken action in recent weeks on legislation impacting auto body shops, including new regulations related to labor rates, non-OEM parts and public disclosure of regulatory citations against shops.
The impact for collision repairers of artificial intelligence (AI) and changes in automotive finishes were among the topics discussed by presenters at the Collision Industry Electronic Commerce Association (CIECA) conference held in September in Nashville.