When you're running more than 650 collision repair locations, small variables in the paint booth add up fast. A painter in Phoenix sets up differently than a painter in Chicago. One prefers a gun they've used for 20 years. Another picked up something off a tool truck because a colleague swore by it. None of the equipment is necessarily bad, but when every location is doing it a little differently, the results start to drift.
That was the challenge facing Crash Champions, the only founder-led MSO in the country. With more than 11,000 employees and a footprint stretching coast to coast, the organization needed the same quality of finish on every vehicle coming out of the booth, whether the shop was in Seattle or Miami.
"Consistency is one of the key deliverables that we want in all of our locations from coast to coast," said Dustin Harrier, vice president of training and technology at Crash Champions. "Really looking at how we brought that together from both a process and a tooling and equipment standpoint is incredibly important."
Every Painter Had a Favorite Gun, and That Was the Problem
The inconsistency wasn't about talent. Crash Champions employs experienced painters, many of them with decades in the booth. But experienced painters develop preferences, and across hundreds of locations, those preferences created a patchwork of equipment that made training to a single standard nearly impossible.
"One variable that you see inevitably in our industry is the equipment that the painters are using in the booth," Harrier said. "It's always difficult to train, and to ensure that what's coming out of each gun can be consistently produced over and over again over hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year."
A Business Review Put the 3M™ PSG 2 on the Table
Crash Champions painters reported better metallic and pearl lay-down, reduced mottling, and closer-to-factory color match after switching to the PSG 2.The 3M™ Performance Spray Gun 2 (PSG2) didn't come from a cold sales pitch. It surfaced during a broader business review between Crash Champions and 3M, where the two organizations were evaluating opportunities across fillers, sealers, topcoats, and equipment.
"The PSG 2 was something that was presented to us by them as a solution to an issue that we were having around consistency, around base coat consumption, and how they could bring that to market to solve that for us," Harrier said.
What caught Crash Champions' attention was the PSG 2's injection-molded construction. Unlike milled-finish guns, which can vary slightly from unit to unit, every PSG 2 comes off the line the same way. For an MSO trying to eliminate variables, that consistency in the tool itself mattered.
Skeptics in Phoenix Became Believers
Crash Champions rolled out the PSG 2 market by market, starting in Phoenix. The choice was deliberate: the hot, dry climate would push the gun to its limits. The initial reception from painters was predictable.
"The initial reaction was a little bit skeptical in the paint shop," Harrier said. "A lot of guys just understand, ‘this is the brand of gun that I learned on. This is what I've always used.’"
That skepticism didn't last. Once painters had the PSG 2 in hand and were walked through the setup, the results spoke for themselves. Seasoned painters with more than 20 years of experience came back impressed.
The finish quality hit the marks Crash Champions was after: better metallic and pearl lay-down, less mottling, and color match that got closer to factory appearance. But the real surprise was material usage.
"We saw double-digit decreases in base coat usage on same panel, same car, with just gun A versus the PSG 2," Harrier said. "That was really an a-ha moment for us where we looked at those results and said, this is something that is really special. It solves a huge problem for us when you look at that scale and the amount of liquid that goes through the gun onto vehicles every single day."
Color Changes in Seconds, Not Minutes
The PSG 2 system helped Crash Champions cut base coat usage by double digits on same-panel, same-car comparisons against the guns painters were already using.The gains went beyond what was happening at the tip of the gun. With PPS cups and removable tips, color changes that used to eat into booth time now took seconds with the PSG 2.
"It makes cleanup and the changing from the silver to the red color happen within seconds," Harrier said. "There are definitely some overall process synergies that you gain just by moving to PSG 2."
What Crash Champions Would Tell Other Operators
For shops dealing with consistency problems, rework, or material waste in the paint department, Harrier sees the PSG 2 as a practical answer at any scale.
"If you're a shop that is struggling with consistency, is having rework, is looking at how much waste you have in material in the paint shop, I think the PSG 2 offers answers to a lot of those obstacles that we face," Harrier said. "It's definitely something that I think would fit in most all shops' paint process."
