From the show floor to a world record attempt at a Las Vegas nightclub, collision repair professionals found plenty to explore at SEMA this year. Shop owners, MSO executives and industry vendors gathered to see the latest tools and technologies designed to help shops work faster, capture more revenue and keep pace with increasingly complex vehicles.
Here's a look at some of the products and solutions that caught attendees' attention—from AI-powered repair planning and calibration tools to automated paint mixing and tire equipment.
Shop Owner Highlights Tire Lift, AI Tool as His SEMA 2025 Picks
John Melendez, owner of JDM Collision in Illinois, pointed out two products he found on the SEMA Show floor.
Killer Tools’ ART47 Heavy Duty Tire Lift allows technicians to remove heavy wheels on their own, including EV wheels, which “weigh a ton,” Melendez said.
The tire lift also has a bumper hitch attachment to remove truck bumpers. The strap system makes it safer than lifting the bumper, which can weigh about 200 pounds.
“It also acts a safety tool, alleviating liability risk as well,” Melendez pointed out.
At Celette’s booth, James Garibay, technical database director, showed Melendez the new AI Webtools, which integrates as a search engine with all Celette equipment, including the Cameleon universal jig system.
Technicians can use voice command, search by VIN or use photos from their phone or estimating system to look up the vehicle they are repairing. The AI system uses Celette’s repair data to generate a diagram of the points to be measured and how to build the jig for each point, along with a QR code the tech can scan to bring it up on their phone, eliminating the need to go back and forth between the computer and vehicle.
Melendez said using AI in this application helps train young technicians to work with a mechanical jig system recognized by OEMs.
“You’ve just made it so much easier for me to bring new techs up to date,” he said.
“It’s really important because kids are intimidated when they see how advanced the fixture benches are,” Melendez continued. “I even have seasoned technicians that are intimidated by this, but AI is giving you that access.”
MSO CEO Finds Value in Connection at SEMA 2025
Darren DuVall, CEO of Driving Force Collision, a Northeast-based MSO, attended the MSO Symposium on Nov. 3 and the SEMA Show on its opening day, Nov. 4.
At the MSO Symposium, DuVall said he learned a lot about where the industry is headed in 2026. He and his team also appreciated seeing their company name on a list of attending MSOs just short of a year after opening their first shop.
“To see us get a little bit of recognition, they just really made us very excited about what the future holds for us,” DuVall said. “We brought that momentum back. I think there's just an extra spring in our step this week.
“We're excited. We want to go faster, we want to go harder, I want to be better,” DuVall continued. He said the company has “very ambitious but doable” goals for where it wants to be when he returns to the MSO Symposium and SEMA in 2026.
“I'm excited to do something to serve our own people and to carve our own path in this awesome little collision world that we have,” he said.
The second day was about getting on the show floor, which he explored with his company’s COO and a vice president.
“We looked at so many different things,” DuVall said. He struck a deal with Revv to test their repair planning platform in his shops, and investigated glue pull repair equipment and truck clamps from several vendors.
DuVall said much of the value in attending was in connecting with other people, whether it was vendors his team had only spoken to over phone or video calls, colleagues they’d worked with before joining Driving Force, or other industry friends.
“I feel like the relationship piece, getting out there, was important for us,” he said.
Next year, DuVall said he hopes to be able to attend at least one more day of the SEMA Show.
“I feel like I didn't get a chance to connect with as many as I would've liked,” he said.
PPG Sets World Record While Introducing SEM Mix’n’Shake
At a customer event at Drai’s Nightclub the evening of Nov. 4, PPG set a new Guinness World Record for the most people stirring paint simultaneously while introducing its newest innovation, the SEM Mix’n’Shake automated paint-mixing solution.
Bringing together the crowd of paint-stirrers — 279 by official count — was meant to illustrate the time wasted in a body shop stirring paint by hand, said Rodolfo Ramirez, PPG’s vice president of Automotive Refinish for the Americas.
The SEM Mix’n’Shake was the next step in digital solutions PPG has been designing to make body shops more productive and efficient in the paint booth, Ramirez said, joining PPG’s LINQ production suite, which provides color matching, and MoonWalk dispensing equipment.
“Mix’n’Shake drives at least a 6% man-hour improvement in the paint shop,” Ramirez said. “It allows the painter to do what they get paid for and where they add the most value, which is painting.”
In addition, the Mix’n’Shake delivers a more homogenous and consistent product, improving quality and eliminating waste, he said.
James Wren, who owns Wren’s Collision Group, an MSO with 19 locations in Georgia, Florida and Alabama, piloted the Mix’n’Shake at one of his shops. He said he will add the technology to the other 18.
“I was skeptical at first, but I was impressed,” he said.
A former painter, Wren said he knows how much time goes into manually mixing toners to get the perfect match. “When you get in a hurry, it may affect color match,” he said.
Now, as a business owner, he appreciates the cost savings and efficiency of PPG’s digital paint solutions. He said the MoonWalk system has reduced materials costs by 11%.
Before Nov. 4, there was no world record for simultaneous paint-stirring. Michael Empric, Guiness World Record adjudicator, said when a new record is created, Guinness sets a minimum that must be achieved — in this case, 250 people. Several stewards were amongst the crowd to make sure only those properly mixing the paint were counted.
The new record is already on Guinness’ online database. Only about 45,000 of the 65,000 records in the database make it into the annual book, but if PPG’s is chosen, it would first appear in the 2027 edition, available in fall 2026.
PPG donated the 10 gallons of paint used in the record attempt to Dixie Technical College in St. George, UT.
DataTouch’s P-Pages AI Automates Not-Included Procedures
DataTouch demonstrated its P-Pages AI solution at SEMA, which uses AI to automate the necessary not-included operations the three major estimating systems do not.
“[The estimating systems] automate included operations incredibly well, but they don’t automate not-included operations at all,” explained Pete Tagliapietra, managing director of DataTouch.
The tool uses AI to analyze estimates — either written by the shop or the insurer — to identify necessary not-included operations based on the year, make and model of the vehicle, as well as the documentation needed to demonstrate why the insurer should pay for those operations.
“We’re the first company to do that for the industry,” Tagliapietra said.
The tool helps shops improve repair planning efficiency, accuracy and revenue.
DataTouch demonstrates P-Pages AI to interested shops by analyzing a paid, settled insurance claim for missed not-included operations. One shop saw it had missed more than $1,200 on a single claim. Among the missed not-included operations was aiming the headlamps after replacing the front bumper.
The subscription price to use P-Pages AI can be recouped in the first one or two estimates it analyzes, Tagliapietra said.
Researching procedure pages manually is time consuming and often outside the experience level of repair planners who might not have many years in the industry, he said.
“This has always been an issue,” Tagliapietra said. “Go back to 1995 before ADAS even existed and you didn’t have to think about calibrations, but the issue with not-included operations still existed. It’s just gotten worse [with vehicle complexity].”
Repairify Shows Products at SEMA 2025 to Improve ADAS Calibrations
At Repairify’s SEMA booth, show attendees could check out asTech’s Connected Calibrations and Gen 3 device, and BlueDriver MAX.
Nikki VanderSchaaff, vice president of product engineering for asTech, explained how Connected Calibrations integrates with its adasThink product, which identifies necessary ADAS calibrations.
“For a while, you’d have the adasThink estimate over here, but the car-side tech that would plug in at the car didn’t understand what calibrations may be required,” VanderSchaaff said.
With Connected Calibrations, when the technician working on the vehicle plugs in a device and requests remote services through adasThink, they are informed which calibrations are needed, allowing them to allot enough time from the start of the repair.
In addition, Connected Calibrations provides a live dashboard for estimators and shop managers to see all adasThink-required calibrations and watch them move through the workflow.
The dashboard shows potential calibrations, which may be necessary based on clarifying questions about vehicle trim levels to determine which sensors are present. It also shows calibrations that are already in repair order but not yet completed.
If the car-side technician doesn’t request one of those required calibrations, it shows up under a list of missing calibrations and sends a notification that it needs to be done.
Connected Calibrations makes sure repairs are done properly, and that shops don’t leave any revenue on the table, VanderSchaaff said.
The Gen 3 device replaces the Gen 2, which has completed more than 10 million remote events worldwide since it was introduced 10 years ago.
The new device is sleeker, with no external antennae that can break off, and small enough to fit in a cup holder. It also has a touch screen.
Cole Reiken, managing director of BlueDriver, showed the BlueDriver MAX, a diagnostic scan tool used widely by dealerships and auto auctions to assess reconditioning costs of used vehicles.
“Dealerships that aren’t starting with a scanning device [at trade-in] lose between $4,000 and $12,000 a month in uncaught mechanical issues,” Reiken said, which also impacts their profitability when they resell vehicles.
BlueDriver MAX quickly generates a DTC report, recommended repair and estimated cost, allowing the dealership or auction company to figure out which parts will be needed up front, Reiken said.
That can save three to five days in the reconditioning process, which means the vehicle is back on the lot and ready for sale quicker.
“In the used car world, if you can sell a car in the first 15 days of it being on the lot, margins go up drastically,” Reiken explained.
The tool also detects fraud in the form of odometer rollbacks or check engine lights that were cleared just before trade-in, which is becoming more prevalent as people hold on to their vehicles longer.
Hunter Engineering Addresses Calibrations, Alignments, Tire Mounting
Hunter Engineering’s sprawling booth at the SEMA Show featured 33 new or updated products and services. For collision repairers, Tommy Maitz, director of marketing, highlighted equipment for ADAS calibrations, alignments and tire mounting and balancing.
The company’s Ultimate ADAS was displayed with targets for a Lexus vehicle, as the wheel aligner and calibration system recently added Toyota and Lexus to its list of approved OEM customers.
Maitz said Ultimate ADAS uses laser measurements to help techs correctly set up targets, reducing the time needed to do so with traditional string and plumb bobs from 45 minutes to seven.
The HawkEye Elite X alignment system uses the same cabinet as Ultimate ADAS, allowing shops to future-proof their business by providing the capability to do alignments now and expand into ADAS calibrations later.
The alignment system is powered by Hunter’s WinAlign software, which Maitz said features the largest spec database in the industry, as well as built-in guides for technicians.
The Revolution Walkaway tire changer and Road Force Walkaway wheel balancer can provide shops with another revenue stream by bringing those services in-house, while also giving shops more control over quality and cycle time.
The Revolution Walkaway tire changer can change the tire on any wheel in two minutes, Maitz said. “The machine makes all the hard decisions for [techs],” he said.
The Road Force Walkaway wheel balancer finishes the inflation process and then spins the wheel to balance it. It also checks the wheel for “out of round” or any bends that could be invisible in a visual check.
Both machines also feature on-board training and guidance for techs.
Because both machines are automated, techs can overlap parts of the process, or step away to complete other tasks.
“A four-tire change with a traditional tire changer and balancer could take 45 minutes,” Maitz said. “With these, you can mount and balance in 20 minutes — a 45% time savings just from adding an automated air chuck.”
