Local news stories affecting the auto body industry in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin
2013 marks the 40th anniversary of Nagy’s Collision Specialists in Ohio.
Dave Nagy founded the collision repair business at 12145 Whitman Rd. in Doylestown in 1973. His sons, Ron and Dan, bought the business from their father in 1995 and added multiple locations in Wooster, Wadsworth, Millersburg, Orrville, Akron and Ashland.
Nagy’s will celebrate their anniversary all year long by offering numerous prizes and giveaways to their customers via Facebook and their website.
Nagy’s offers services such as Autowatch, where customers can view their vehicles being repaired online, and e-Estimates, where customers can receive estimates at their homes or offices.
CARSTAR Auto Body Repair Experts recently added a new collision repair center to its network in Cleveland, OH. CARSTAR now operates a total of 25 collision repair facilities in Ohio.
CARSTAR’s new location, Coach & Collision CARSTAR, is independently owned by Jeremy and Theresa Orsky.
As part of CARSTAR’s network, Coach & Collision CARSTAR will have access to the company’s management system and business tools, 19 corporately-managed direct repair programs (DRPs), and 45 corporately-managed purchasing programs.
“We are excited to welcome and Jeremy and Theresa Orsky and Coach & Collision CARSTAR to the CARSTAR network,” said David Byers, CEO of CARSTAR.
“We are thrilled to expand our presence in Cleveland with this new top-notch collision repair center,” Byers added.
CARSTAR operates more than 400 collision repair locations throughout 31 U.S. states and 10 Canadian provinces.
Subaru will expand production capacity at its existing assembly plant in Indiana, rather than build a new factory, and will start making a new model there in 2016.
Yasuyuki Yoshinaga, president of Subaru-maker Fuji Heavy Industries Inc., said Subaru expects U.S. sales to climb 9% to 365,000 units in 2013.
“We'll be selling 1,000 cars every day,” he said. Global sales will rise 6% to 750,000.
Yoshinaga said he will release details of the capacity-expansion plan by March 31.
Tom Kellogg—the wholesale director for the Zeigler Automotive Group’s 13 franchises in Grandville, MI—has been using PartsTrader the past several months as one of the first test markets in State Farm’s PartsTrader program.
Kellogg has been with Zeigler since 2003 and in the industry since 1975. He says he wishes programs like PartsTrader would just go away.
“We all know that PartsTrader isn’t the greatest thing out there,” said Kellogg. “I don’t know what I am going to do to stop it, because from what I understand, it’s pretty much here to stay. We’ve got to figure out how to work around it. Not enough writing was done on it. It’s just going to be the pathway of all things in the future to come. It’s PartsTrader today, and tomorrow it’s going to parts for you, parts for them, and pretty soon there’s a plethora of third-party people involved in our business,” he said.
Recently opening a new location in Chicago, CARSTAR Auto Body Repair Experts, North America’s largest multi-shop operator network (MSO), expanded their presence in the Chicago market with the opening of West-Hill CARSTAR in Hillside, IL.
Owned by Joseph, John and Mark Esposito, West-Hill CARSTAR is located at 4907 Butterfield Road, in Hillside, IL. West-Hill CARSTAR has been family owned and operated since John Esposito founded it in 1960 and is a proud member of the Alliance of Automotive Service Providers of Illinois.
CARSTAR Auto Body Repair Experts, North America’s largest multi-shop operator network (MSO), has announced the opening of Coach & Collision CARSTAR in Cleveland, OH, bringing the total number of CARSTAR locations in Ohio to 25.
Owned by Jeremy and Theresa Orsky, Coach & Collision CARSTAR is located at 1120 Brookpark Rd. in Cleveland. They offer auto body repair, glass repair, spray on bedliners, window tinting and mechanical service.
As a member of CARSTAR, Coach & Collision CARSTAR will offer an array of services and products for collision repair, including the latest in repair technology, rental vehicles, national warranties on repairs and turnkey service for customers.
The new CARSTAR store will benefit from the CARSTAR Management System, which provides resources to improve key business metrics such as cycle time, participation in CARSTAR’s 19 corporately managed DRP programs, and improved purchasing power from 45 corporately managed purchasing programs.
ABRA Auto Body & Glass, a Minnesota–based vehicle repair company, announced Dec. 14 the acquisition of all five Collision Solutions locations in Indianapolis, IN.
The deal significantly expands ABRA’s presence in the Indiana market and increases the total number of ABRA repair centers nationwide to 132 in 14 states.
The Alliance of Automotive Service Providers of Minnesota, an association of nearly 640 independently-owned mechanical and collision repair shops and industry suppliers, works to improve the state’s automotive service industry and the success of its members’ businesses.
In 2012, AASP-MN passed legislation to increase the damage disclosure threshold for salvage title from 70% to 80% to allow for more vehicles to be repaired and fewer to be totaled. Other issues addressed this past year include: sales tax on paint and materials, “Right to Repair,” insurer steering, DRP contract provisions for parts procurement, and air quality permits.
The Northern Michigan Body Shop Association kicked-off 2012 with Mike Anderson of Collision Advice presenting two topics to collision industry professionals. The first topic, “Educate, Not Alienate” encouraged estimators and technicians to “have the facts ready” when communicating with an adjustor, insurer, and/or customer. He explained that too often in this industry, emotions run high which tends to negatively affect the situation at hand; it’s best to be prepared with the facts, data, and “bottom-line” to be knowledgeable regarding the issue when trying to make a point—you’ll get much further when you have facts to back you up.
The Automotive Service Association in Michigan began 2012 with roundtables held throughout the state for licensed repair facilities representing both collision and mechanical industries. The meetings focused on the proposed revisions and enforcement of Public Act 300 of 1974, the Motor Vehicle Service and Repair Act.
“Relatively speaking, this law has not been updated since 1974 and is in desperate need of updating,” said Ray Fisher, President of ASA Michigan. “The law was created to protect consumers and repair facilities by providing ‘ground rules’ which helped to avoid frivolous lawsuits. And we are now seeing it abused during these challenging economic times with unlicensed shops advertising on Craigslist and circumventing the law.”
“It provides an unfair advantage for those who have not ‘played by the rules’ and it provides false security to consumers; exactly the reason the law was created in the first place,” Fisher said, adding that not only are they advocating for a crackdown on abusers, but also for updating the law to make it more “user friendly” for repair facilities to use.