State Farm’s mandated use of a particular calibration identification tool — and the challenge shops face when they find conflicting information among such tools — were on the table during a panel discussion at the MSO Symposium in Las Vegas during SEMA week.
Why State Farm requires ADAS Map
Panelist Ed Mondragon, a 30-year veteran of State Farm who oversees the insurer’s Select Service program, was asked why his company requires its direct repair shops to use ADAS Map from Opus IVS.
“We’re looking for not just quality repairs, but also repairs done in an efficient and timely manner,” Mondragon said. “So we think that on the onset, as part of the blueprinting process, it’s important to identify not just what parts need to be replaced and what operations need to be performed, but if there are calibrations needed, that should be identified on the front end too. That should help set up that car for a proper repair and a timely repair. I think we’re maybe a little bit ahead of others on this, although we’re certainly not the only one out there.”
What to do when data conflicts
Panel moderator Dan Risley of CCC Intelligent Solutions asked what a Select Service shop should do if the list of calibrations identified by ADAS Map differs from another source the shop uses for such information.
“There’s going to be conflicts like that,” Mondragon acknowledged. “The reality is not all systems will decode [the VIN] all the way to the 17th digit. There’s a lot of variables involved. The older the model vehicle, maybe the less accurate the systems might be. But anytime you have a conflict like that, those are all going to be handled on a case-by-case basis. The most important thing to do is to stop and do some more research. I think it’s important that you have access to resources to do that additional research. But to answer your question, it’s all case by case, bringing in all the variables and making a decision that works for the car.”
When tools disagree on calibrations
But it’s not just Select Service shops that may be using multiple calibration identification tools and thus finding conflicting information about which calibrations will be required for a particular vehicle. Other panelists also addressed the issue.
“The reality is that the car is the true north, and that’s what we follow,” said Jake Rodenroth of Quality Collision Group, which operates more than 90 OEM-certified shops. “We use our friends over at Revv, and if we’ve got something that’s conflicting, we’re going to look at the [automaker] service manual. What some people may not know is that in the service manual, it’ll give you a location map of where the components that are responsible for ADAS live in the car. So you can look at the point of impact, and you can say, well, it was hit in the side and it took out the mirror and there’s a camera that lives there on this trim level. On the cheaper trim level, there’s not a camera there. So it gives us a way of physically looking at that.”
Rodenroth also said an MSO like his company can use internal expertise.
“We have a repair support hotline internally where all of our shops can ask a group of people in our company any technical question about any car ever,” he said. “There’s no way we can know it all. So I think being able to ask teammates and find resources is key. We have over 455 certifications across 95 stores. We may have another store in another state that has knowledge on that vehicle, and we can leverage that.”
How ADAS Map handles reports
Panelist Brian Herron of Opus IVS, the company behind ADAS Map, also responded to questions about conflicts between that product and what a shop is seeing based on the vehicle or information from another source.
“We have a ‘Report’ button, and when you run a [VIN] scrub, anytime there’s an error in it and you send a report, our technical team researches it,” Herron said. “So on a weekly basis, we do about 250,000 scrubs, and we get between 100 and 200 reports in a week. Sometimes it’s a training error, sometimes it’s a data error. We’re constantly updating. But the percentage of reports is quite low compared to the overall data. But the build data in the vehicle is not always perfect. I can make a recommendation if the vehicle has an ADAS system, but you still have to go look and see if that camera exists.”
Herron said his company works closely with MSOs.
“We’ve listened to our MSO partners about what they need inside of the reports to efficiently scale up,” he said. “And so that’s really where ADAS Map was grounded: integrations, MSO partnerships, and then the OEM work that Opus does. And we do look at OEM data. When we build ADAS Map, we have technicians read the data and interpret it. So we’re trying to simplify the recommendations for the repair technicians.”
Will State Farm reconsider?
Mondragon was asked whether State Farm will change its ADAS Map requirement to allow for the use of other calibration identification systems.
“We’ll see — I don’t know,” Mondragon said. “That’s a great question. I think my history with State Farm [has shown] we’re always about looking. We think competition is good for the marketplace. So no decisions have been made on that at this point, but we’re always open to whatever’s out there.”
John Yoswick