Israel Garcia did not come up through the paint booth. He started as a parts runner, moved into estimating, and co-founded Merced Auto Body in Merced, Calif., in June 2024 with two partners who had spent their careers on the technical side.
Two years in, Garcia's job is customer service and operations, not spraying cars. But running a shop built on a "quality and service" slogan has forced him to understand exactly what separates a good paint job from a bad one, and why the margin for error is so thin.
Garcia joined Cole Strandberg on The Collision Vision to talk about the operational habits behind Merced's reputation, including the equipment investments, training philosophy, and process discipline that go into consistent refinish work. Several lessons from the conversation apply to any shop wrestling with paint consistency, regardless of size.
The same process, every time, no exceptions
Merced's consistency in the paint department traces back to one rule co-founder Ricardo enforces across the team: the process does not change based on the job.
"You have to do the same thing repeatedly the same way every time," Garcia said. "Doesn't matter if it's a $100,000 car or a $2,000 car. The process must remain the same because the more you do the same thing, the better you're going to get out of it."
Key Takeaway: Process discipline, rather than talent alone, is what produces repeatable paint quality. Shops that vary their procedure based on the perceived value of the job introduce variability that eventually shows up in the finish.
Equipment only works if someone teaches you to use it
Garcia's central philosophy on technology and tools is that the equipment is never the limiting factor. The operator is.
"The equipment that you have is only as good as the operator that's handling it," Garcia said. "You can have the latest and greatest machinery or even equipment. If the person using it isn't using it correctly, it doesn't matter."
He pointed to a habit he stresses constantly with his team: read the product label before using anything, from a rattle can to a paint gun. "How do you use it? What is the correct way to use this application? Once that gets figured out, then the product will work for you."
Key Takeaway: Before blaming a product or piece of equipment for inconsistent results, shops should confirm the people using it were actually trained on it. Garcia said he has seen shops at major MSOs let expensive equipment sit unused because no one taught the staff how to run it.
A static gun solved a problem nobody had named yet
One of Merced's clearest examples of equipment closing a specific gap involved an unexpected culprit: paint adhesion.
"We kept noticing that when the painters were shooting the paint, it almost felt like the paint wasn't really wanting to adhere as well," Garcia said. "We tried to research that and we came up with a solution of using a static gun in the paint."
The fix was immediate. "He'll apply the static gun and that immediately makes everything so much better," Garcia said, describing it as the moment the shop recognized it needed to invest in a piece of technology he hadn't even known existed five years earlier.
Key Takeaway: The signal to invest in new equipment is often a specific, repeated symptom rather than a general sense that the shop needs an upgrade. Identifying what is actually holding a skilled technician back is more useful than buying based on what is new at a trade show.
Air quality is the foundation, not an afterthought
Merced's 2026 investment in a rotary screw compression system and new aluminum air lines from SATA was driven by a straightforward observation: every part of the shop depends on air, and most operators underestimate how much.
"The air system in any shop is the lifeline of the shop," Garcia said. "Everyone in the shop uses air, from the painters inside the paint booth to the bodyman or the technicians that are repairing these vehicles with air tools, and even the detailers in the back."
The upgrade's effect on paint quality was direct: "Cleaner, no water, no moisture, very minimal imperfections."
Key Takeaway: Air supply is an easy system to overlook because it doesn't sit in one visible piece of equipment, but its quality affects the paint booth, the air tools, and the detail department simultaneously. Shops chasing finish consistency should audit the air system before assuming the problem is technique or product.
Pearls and metallics expose every other shortcut
Garcia singled out metallic and pearl finishes as the clearest test of whether a shop's process and equipment are actually working, because flaws in either are immediately visible to anyone, technician or not.
"You don't need to be in the industry to know if the paint job is right or wrong," Garcia said. "If it doesn't match, it doesn't match. If the color's off, the color's off."
He described watching silver cars come out "botchy" before the shop traced the issue to the combination of paint product and spray gun, eventually adopting SATA Jet X guns. "They make night and day difference from the way they lay down the clear, the metallic, and the pearl," he said.
Key Takeaway: Metallic and pearl work is a useful diagnostic for a shop's overall paint process discipline, since these finishes have the least tolerance for inconsistency in gun technique, product, or air quality. A shop that struggles here is usually carrying a problem that shows up elsewhere, too.
Rushing the process is the most common mistake
Asked what causes recurring paint problems, Garcia and his painter co-founder Ricardo did not point to training gaps or equipment. They pointed to time pressure.
"Too many people want to rush," Garcia said. "We understand that we have deadlines that we want to meet. We want to get to things [done] as soon as possible, give their customer their car back, but you cannot rush it."
He raised UV primers and clears as a specific example of a faster technology being used in a way that defeats its own purpose. "It's way faster than your traditional stuff, but it's not going to be ready in time," he said, describing the temptation to push a same-day build regardless. "I say just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something."
Key Takeaway: Faster materials and processes do not eliminate the need for proper cure and cycle times. Shops adopting new products marketed for speed should treat that speed as capacity for better quality control, not as license to compress the schedule further.
Asking for help is a competitive advantage
Garcia attributed much of Merced's technical improvement to a willingness, on his part and Ricardo's, to call mentors and partners rather than work through problems alone.
"I think the biggest thing, and this goes across the board, is people, especially shop owners, are embarrassed to ask for help," Garcia said. "You have to surround yourself with the best people. I don't know everything, but I'm going to find someone that knows what I don't know.”
That extends to vendor relationships. Merced leans on its paint distributor for hands-on process training rather than assuming it knows the best way to use a product. "These companies paid someone a lot of money to tell us how to use it," Garcia said. "You're not going to know better than them."
Key Takeaway: Treating vendors and mentors as a working part of the shop's technical bench, rather than a sales relationship, gives shops faster access to process fixes than working the problem internally. Shop owners who are reluctant to flag paint issues to partners are leaving expertise on the table that's already paid for.
The fundamentals don’t change
Garcia's path into collision repair ran through parts and customer service, not the paint booth, but the discipline he describes is the same one any technical operator would recognize: control the process, understand the equipment, and resist the pressure to move faster than the material allows. For shops chasing consistency in metallic and pearl work, his takeaway is less about new technology and more about whether the fundamentals are actually being followed every time.
"Don't try to cut a corner," Garcia said. "Don't try to speed up a process. Don't try to reinvent the wheel."
