april 2013 western edition

The Nevada Legislature proposes to re-vise the charges for storage of motorvehicles that are imposed by bodyshops. It referred SB170 to its Com-mittee on Transportation on Feb. 19and the law is scheduled to take effectJuly 1, 2013.

Existing law provides that a bodyshop may charge for storage of a motorvehicle if the owner or insurer of themotor vehicle elects to take possessionof the motor vehicle instead of author-izing certain repairs and fails to takepossession within 24 hours after thatelection.

Section 2 of this bill authorizes a

body shop, under certain circum-stances, to impose a charge for storageof a motor vehicle that is in the pos-session of the body shop: (1) before thebody shop receives authorization to re-pair the vehicle; and (2) not less than24 hours after the person authorizingthe repairs has been notified that the re-pairs are complete.

Section 2 also provides that anysuch charge for storage of a motor ve-hicle must not exceed an amount thatis one and one-half times the averageprevailing rate for storage charged bybody shops in the same geographic

Vermont State Rep. Bill Botzow (D-1) introduced House Bill 362, a billthat regulates the use of aftermarketparts in automobile repairs covered byinsurance. The bill has been referredto Vermont’s House Committee onCommerce and Economic Develop-ment. The language of the bill in-cludes the following provisions:● No insurer shall require the use ofaftermarket parts in the repair of anautomobile unless the aftermarket part

is at least equal in like kind and qual-ity to the original part in terms of fit,quality and performance. An insurerthat requires the use of aftermarketparts shall consider and be liable forthe cost of any modifications that maybecome necessary when making a re-pair.● All aftermarket parts manufacturedafter Jan. 1, 2014, shall carry suffi-cient permanent identification so as to

Vermont Bill Regulates Use of Aftermarket Parts

Nevada Legislature Proposes New Regulationsfor Vehicle Storage Fees

See Vermont Bill, Page 23

See Nevada Storage Fees, Page 4

PAINT AND REFINISH TECHNOLOGIESPAINT AND REFINISH TECHNOLOGIESFirst of 2 IssuesFirst of 2 IssuesFirst of 2 Issues

• Custom Painter Stories, p. 20, 23, 42, 50, 54, 58• Companies Talk Tech p. 13, 22, 29• Tips and Tricks p. 46, 47• Training and News, p. 18, 28, 37

Orange County CAA Presents Got a Good Lawyer?for Body Shop Managers, OwnersThe Orange County California Auto-body Association Chapter held its firstmeeting of the new year on Tuesday,March 19, at the Tustin Ranch GolfClub, 12442 Tustin Ranch Road inTustin, CA. The presentation titled Gota Good Lawyer? was designed for shopmanagers and owners only as the meet-ing discussed the risks shops face beingsued by employees, OSHA or the labordepartment. Body shop managers andowners received free legal advise andanswers to labor law questions, as wellas learning about changes for 2013.

Featured speaker was Cory J.King, partner of the San Diego office ofFine, Boggs & Perkins, LLP. His em-ployment law practice focuses on boththe “prevention side” of employmentclaims, as well as litigating all types ofemployment matters.

The speaker provided legal insightinto the following areas of auto bodyshop practices, including:1. Wage and hours laws and updates2. Employee rights on overtime andmeal time hours3. Preparing auto repair shops for the

employee free choice act4. Sexual harassment5. Slip and fall employee handbook

King represents employers in awide range of industries, including fi-nancial institutions, high-tech compa-nies, manufacturing companies, andconstruction companies, but has devel-oped a special expertise in representingautomobile dealerships, collision repaircenters, and motorcycle dealerships.King’s experience in the industry as asalesperson and sales manager providesa unique and valuable dimension whenrepresenting automobile dealers. Kingalso serves as labor and employmentcounsel for the California Autobody As-sociation (CAA) and the California Mo-torcycle Dealers Association (CMDA).He also is active in the national Colli-sion Industry Conference (CIC) and iscurrently serving his second term as theChair of its Human Resource Commit-tee.

For more information about CAAcontact Cindy Shillito, CAA SouthernRepresentative at: 714-944-4028 or [email protected].

Maryland Legislation Would Block Insurer-Mandated Parts Procurement, WMABA: Yes Maryland Delegate Mark N. Fisher(R-27B) has introduced House Bill1375 regarding replacement parts fordamaged vehicles. The bill wouldprevent insurers from requiring a“specific vendor or process for partsprocurement”—in effect it wouldblock requirements like State Farm’sPartsTrader initiative in the state. Thislegislation is one of the first attemptsto address recent insurer initiativesrelative to parts procurement.

The bill language prohibits anadjuster, appraiser, insurance pro-ducer or employee of an insurer fromrequiring a motor vehicle repair facil-ity to use a specific vendor or process

for parts procurement or other neces-sary material for vehicle repair.

The legislation requires an in-surer to authorize repairs to be madeusing genuine crash parts, prohibitingan insurer from requiring repairs to bemade using aftermarket crash partsduring the five years after the vehicleis manufactured. The insured mayconsent to the use of aftermarket crashparts in writing at the time of repair.

The Automotive Service Associ-ation (ASA) and its Collision DivisionOperations Committee have con-ducted educational meetings aroundthe country, met with insurer repre-

See Maryland Legislation, Page 44

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WesternEdition

VOL. 31 ISSUE 4APRIL 2013

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2 APRIL 2013 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

Contents

Publisher & Editor: Jeremy HayhurstGeneral Manager: Barbara DaviesAssistant Editor: Melanie AndersonContributing Writers: Tom Franklin, David Brown,John Yoswick, Rich Evans, Janet Chaney,Toby Chess, Ed Attanasio, Chasidy SiskAdvertising Sales: Joe Momber, Sean Hartman,Jay Lukes (800) 699-8251Sales Assistant: Louise TedescoArt Director: Rodolfo Garcia

Serving California, Nevada and Arizona, Autobody Newsis a monthly publication for the autobody industry. Per-mission to reproduce in any form the material publishedin Autobody News must be obtained in writing from thepublisher. ©2013 Adamantine Media LLC.

Autobody NewsP.O. Box 1516, Carlsbad, CA 92018(800) 699-8251 (760) 721-0253 Faxwww.autobodynews.comEmail: [email protected]

Anderson Artworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Audi Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . .44Automotive ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16Autowest Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram .27Axalta Coating Systems . . . . . . . . . . .5BASF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7Bill Luke Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge . . . .12Bill Luke Fiat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12BMW Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . .49Bob Smith BMW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29Bob Smith MINI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29BSFco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28Buerge Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge . . . . .31Car-Part Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35CCC Information Services . . . . . . . .11Chief Automotive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62Downtown Motors of LA(Audi, VW, Porsche) . . . . . . . . . . .41

Drew Hyundai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36East Bay BMW-MINI . . . . . . . . . . . . .22Elk Grove Toyota . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38Enterprise Rent-A-Car . . . . . . . . . . . .6Equalizer Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . .10Ford Wholesale Parts DealersAZ, CA, & NV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

Galpin Motors . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18, 42Garmat USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14GM Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . .55Honda-Acura Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32-33

Hyundai Wholesale Parts Dealers . .50Kearny Mesa Subaru-Hyundai . . . . .43Kia Motors Wholesale Parts Dealers .53

Levan Group, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20LKQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63Los Gatos Luxury Cars . . . . . . . . . .23Maita Subaru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26Malco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17Mazda Wholesale Parts Dealers . . .58MINI Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . .48Mitsubishi Wholesale Parts Dealers .60MOPAR Wholesale Parts Dealers . .39Moss Brothers Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge .15Nissan/Infiniti Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

North County Kia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30Power Chrysler-Jeep-Dodgeof Arizona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

PPG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Preval Spray Gun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64Pro-Spray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21Replica Plastics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40Riverside Metro VW-Honda-Hyundai-Nissan-Mazda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

SATA Spray Equipment . . . . . . . . . .19Shingle Springs Nissan-Subaru . . .37Sierra Chevrolet-Honda-Mazda-Subaru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

Subaru Wholesale Parts Dealers . . .57Timmons VW-Subaru . . . . . . . . . . . .47Toyota Wholesale Parts Dealers . . .52VIM Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54Volkswagen Wholesale Parts Dealers .61Volvo Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . .56Walcom USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13Weatherford BMW . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Inde

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www.autobodynews.com | APRIL 2013 AUTOBODY NEWS 3

Industry Fighting in Support of Linda HolcombThe auto body repair industry is ral-lying behind and supporting one oftheir own, Linda Holcomb of J.R.Sandoval Enterprises in Monrovia,CA. Linda is President of the Glen-dale/Foothill/Pasadena chapter of the

California Auto-body Associa-tion chapter andis currently un-dergoing treat-ment for breastcancer. Linda isfacing a longroad ahead andsays she just fin-ished her second

chemotherapy treatment and has fourmore to go. Her treatment will in-clude surgery, radiation and breastre-construction, followed by a yearof herception therapy and five yearsof hormone treatment.

“This is going to be a longprocess but I am very optimistic thatI will get through this whole processalive! I am strong and I am afighter!” Linda said. “The prayers,blessings and support from our in-dustry has been completely awesomeand overwhelming. It is amazinghow many people I know and how

many lives I’ve touched.”Holcomb is especially grateful

for her close friend of 40 years,Maureen Holmes of Auto CollisionSolutions in Rancho Santa Mar-garita, CA. Maureen “is like mysoul sister” said Linda. Her friendhas been taking her to many doctorappointments and to chemo treat-ments.

Another good friend, LillianMaimone, is organizing fundrais-ing to help pay for Holcomb’s ex-pensive cancer treatment costs, aswell as living expenses, as Lindacannot work through treatment anddoes not have family to offer finan-cial help. Linda said she recently re-ceived an injection to keep herwhite blood cell count up whichcost $8,000, and three pills shetakes after chemo cost over $400.Lillian hopes to raise $30,000 tohelp support Linda through the nextseveral months. To donate, pleasecontact Lillian Maimone at [email protected] mail a check made out to LindaHolcomb at 317 Linwood Avenue,Unit B, Monrovia, CA 91016. Wewish Linda all the best in her healthand happiness.

Linda Holcomb

REGIONALAuto Body Hawaii Holds School Essay Contest . 4Bill Luke Fiat Comes from a Long Line of

Pioneering History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12CAA Anounces New Board for 2013;

Directors Meeting Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10CAA East Bay Met March 19. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9CAA San Diego Hosts Sold–Out Workshop . . . 4Caliber Opens 21st Shop in LA . . . . . . . . . . . . 4California Firms Sue Ford for ‘Overinflated’

Fuel Efficiency Claims of Two Hybrids. . . . . 6CAWA Appoints Doug Stanley. . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Chief Helps EVIT Equip Two New Collision

Repair Training Centers in Arizona. . . . . . . . 6Hawaii Bill Seeks to Reduce Fees for

Antique Vehicles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4I-CAR Holds Western Regional Conference

in Anaheim, CA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Industry Fighting in Support of Linda Holcomb . 3Montana Collision Repair Specialist Hold

Spring Meeting in Helena . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Nevada Legislature Proposes New Regulations

for Vehicle Storage Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Orange County CAA Presents, “Got a Good

Lawyer?” for Body Shop Managers, Owners . 1PPG Will Hold Annual MVP Conference

April 7-9 in Scottsdale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Santa Clara CAA Hosted Toyota’s

Rick Leos March 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Seidner’s Hires Mike Stacy as Corporate

Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19State Farm to Grow in Phoenix . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Weatherford BMW’s Parts Department’s

Dedication to Wholesale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

COLUMNSAttanasio: Blogging for Fun and Profit . . . . . . 16Evans: Sharing the Love of Custom Painting

with Students at Lincoln . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Franklin: The Selling Estimator’s Job

Description. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Insider: Shops’ Inefficiencies Are Legitimate

Concerns for Insurers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

NATIONALABRA Auto Body & Glass in Clinton, Iowa,

Wins Award . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38ABRA Opens Four Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Allstate’s Overton Joins Education

Foundation Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Anthony Fisher Obituary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36ASA Announces Details for 2013

Annual Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Automaker, OEM and Recall News . . . . . . . . 34CAPA Testing on Safety of Aftermarket

Bumper Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48CARSTAR Promotes Rick Miller and Melissa

Miller (no relation) to Leadership Roles . . . 55Edward “Randy” Bevis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Feds Spend $1 Billion on Repair Bill for

Vehicle Fleet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Four Collision Industry Members Join Education

Foundation’s Leadership Circle . . . . . . . . . 48Gerber Opens New Centers in Florida and

Washington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56I-CAR Adds 4 New Online Courses,

Expands Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48ICRA Adds ‘No Free Lunch’ to Tradeshow. . . 40Indiana Convention & Exhibition Takes

Control of the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Industry Gives $5 Million in Support of

Collision Repair Programs throughEducation Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Industry Veteran Mike Spagnola Joins SEMA . 61Joe Gibbs Racing Hosts Sherwin-Williams

Worshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Keenan Launches Operation Comfort

Fundraiser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Lexus of Pembroke Pines, FL, Named 2012

Lexus Certified Collision Center of the Year . 24Maryland Legislation Would Block

Insurer-Mandated Parts Procurement, WMABA: Yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Mitchell Releases 2013 Insurance Predictions . 56NABC Appoints 3M Sales Manager Ricciotti

to Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52NABC Ramps Up Its Social Media Efforts . . . 52NABC To Take Stock of Future at April

Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52NASCAR Champion Jeff Gordon to Drive

No. 24 Chevrolet with New ImronElite Paint Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

NC Shop Opens 6th Shop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Parts Order in PA Leads to Arrest in Fatal Crash. 22Post Office Unveils 1967 Shelby Forever Stamp. 30PPG Marketing on Demand Website

Breaks New Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37SCRS Donates General Memberships to

245 Collision School Programs . . . . . . . . 40SCRS, CREF Ask Industry to Support

Their Local Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36SEMA Exhibit Summit Takes Place

April 15–17 in Las Vegas . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60Sherwin-Williams Introduces Body Shop

Phone App for Consumers . . . . . . . . . . . . 61Shop Owners, Managers Asked to

Complete Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Used Vehicle Wholesale Prices Up

1.3% in January . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38VA Police Make 383 Arrests for

Insurance Fraud in 2012. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Vermont Bill Regulates Use of Aftermarket Parts. 1WIN May 5–7 Conference to Focus

on Recruiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

PAINT SPECIALClaiming Potential Waterborne Profits—

Tsunami’s Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Collision Painter Enjoys Custom’s Freedom

of Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23Custom Painter Aaron Wachholz Paints Cars,

Boats & Bikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20From Hot Wheels to Hot Rods: Kindig-It

Designer Works for Fun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Getting Paid ... Getting Paid ... Getting Paid! . . 47How to “Touch Up” A Scratched Car in

60 Minutes and Make $95 . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Jon Kosmoski: A Painting Pioneer Uses

SATA Exclusively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Mitch Lanzini Extends his Art from

Toy Cars to Overhaulin’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Preval Wins Prestigious Sherwin-Williams’

‘Vendor of the Year’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18The Art of Atomization: Thermo Regulated

Compressed Air and Atomization . . . . . . . 13Waterborne Breathable Air Combo System

Available from Martech Services Company . 22


CAWA Chair of the Board, EdJimenez , has appointed Doug Stan-ley of Levin’s Auto Supply in Sacra-mento, CA, as the 2013 Vice Chair ofthe Association’s Membership & Edu-cation Committee. He will assistBorise Cota, of Akebono Corpora-tion, who is the current Chair of theCommittee. The Committee is respon-sible for developing recruitment andretention programs, training programs,oversight of the scholarship awards,recommends new services and pro-grams and evaluates and recommendsvendor endorsements.

CAWA Appoints Doug Stanley

Legislation has been introduced inHawaii to reduce annual registra-tion fees and state vehicle weighttax for antique motor vehicles.Under the SEMA-supported bill,the registration fee would be re-duced from $45 to $25 each year,and the weight tax would be re-duced from 1.75 cents per pound to1 cent per pound.

Hawaii Bill Seeks to ReduceFees for Antique Vehicles

Caliber Collision Centers recentlyopened its newest location in LongBeach, CA, bringing the total numberof locations in the greater Los Angelesregion to 21. The new 11,000-square-foot collision repair facility brings thetotal number of Caliber locations to 123.

“We are committed to addingcenters across the southwest that pro-vide greater operational consistency,laser customer focus and cost manage-ment they need to compete in today’shighly competitive insurance market,”said Steve Grimshaw, Chief Execu-tive Officer.

Caliber Opens 21st Shop in LA

State Farm will grow its operations inthe Phoenix area. A State Farmspokesman recently confirmed that thecompany will boost its established op-erations in metro Phoenix, as well asin Dallas and Atlanta. Tempe is hometo State Farm’s current Arizona oper-ations. State Farm, based in Illinois,reportedly plans to build on its existingpresence to create regional hubs thatcould employ thousands of new work-ers. The Arizona Republic says StateFarm had almost 1,300 full-time em-ployees and 26 part-time workers inArizona as of December 2011.

State Farm to Grow in Phoenix

The California Autobody Associa-tion San Diego Chapter will host aCARPAC fundraiser on March 26with a special one-day class on “Es-timating Solutions for Profit (ESP)Workshop” with Michael Pellet, Re-gional Training Center Manager atSherwin-Williams Dallas Automo-tive Training Center. The class qual-ifies for 12 AMI Credits and 1.75I-CAR points (after application andfees are mailed in).

Every day, shops utilize processes,procedures, and materials to return thecar to pre-loss condition and restore thecrash worthiness of vehicles they repair.The goal of this class is to help partici-pants recognize those costs of doingbusiness, effectively build them into theestimate, and aggressively negotiatepayment for them.

The class will be held at HolidayInn San Diego North Miramar, 9335Kearny Mesa Road in San Diego,CA, and begins at 8 a.m. The class isfull.

Michael Pellett has been involvedwith the collision repair business since1973 and has been employed by Sher-win-Williams for 25 years. He oper-ates a Region Training Center and is aSW Body Shop Consultant.

CAA San Diego HostsSold–Out Workshop

Auto Body Hawaii will hold its sec-ond annual Senior Essay Contest.This year an additional contest hasbeen added for West Hawaii HighSchool teachers.

The essay contest provides WestHawaii’s graduating high school sen-iors the opportunity to showcase theirwriting skills for the chance to win$500.

Auto Body Hawaii will alsoaward $500, as well as a gift certifi-cate for a Super Wash DetailingService, to the winning high schoolteacher.

The 2013’s essay theme is:“Among many is a growing senti-ment that post-secondary educationmay not be an option for a number ofgraduating high school students. Aworrying report indicates that ap-proximately 62% of West Hawaii’sgraduates did not pursue further edu-cation; some may have had prior ob-ligations, some may have not beenable to bear the cost, while otherssimply had no interest. What oppor-tunities do you think can be createdfor graduating students who are notpursuing further education and de-cide to remain here in West Hawaii?”

The contest deadline is April 19.

Auto Body Hawaii HoldsSchool Essay Contest

area, as determined by the Departmentof Motor Vehicles, except that a bodyshop may request a hearing by the De-partment to show good cause as to whythe body shop should be allowed to im-pose a charge which exceeds that limit.

Under existing law, a body shopmust complete an on-line survey to re-port certain information, including thelabor rate charged by the body shop, tothe Department of Motor Vehicleswithin 60 days immediately precedingthe date of submission of the applicationfor renewal of the license of the bodyshop. (NRS 487.685) Section 5 of thisbill requires that a body shop also reportto the Department in the on-line surveythe daily rate charged by the body shopfor storage of vehicles, if any, includingboth an indoor vehicle storage rate andan outdoor vehicle storage rate, if thoserates differ. Section 6 of this bill requiresthe Department to calculate and post theprevailing storage rates for each specificgeographic area in a report that must bemade available to the public on-line.

Existing law requires a body shopto provide to a person requesting or au-

thorizing the repair of a motor vehiclea written estimate or statement indicat-ing the total charge for the repair, in-cluding the charge for labor and allparts and accessories necessary to per-form the work. (NRS 487.6875) Exist-ing law also requires a body shop todisplay in its place of business a signsetting forth various rights of the cus-tomer, including the right to receive awritten estimate of charges for repairsmade to the vehicle which exceed $50.

Section 9 of this bill requires thatthe person requesting or authorizing therepair is also entitled to receive fromthe body shop a written statement ofcharges for storage of the vehicle, ifany, which could exceed $50. Section7 of this bill provides that the sign in abody shop which is required to set forththe various rights of the customer mustalso include language stating that thecustomer is entitled to receive a writtenstatement of charges for storage of thevehicle, if any, which could exceed $50.

Section 3 of this bill provides thatif a motor vehicle is towed to a bodyshop at the request of someone otherthan the registered owner or an au-thorized agent of the owner, the bodyshop which receives the motor vehi-

Continued from Cover

Nevada Storage Fees

See Nevada Storage Fees, Page 14

www.autobodynews.comCHECK IT OUT!



Two California law firms are consol-idating lawsuits against Ford MotorCo., alleging the automaker has led a“false and misleading” marketingcampaign for its 2013 C-Max Hybridand Fusion Hybrid vehicles, the De-troit News recently reported.

Redlands, CA-based McCuneWright, which on behalf of ‘hun-dreds’ of C-Max and Fusion hybridowners is seeking punitive damagesbecause of potentially overinflatedfuel-efficiency claims, said it willconsolidate with a similar lawsuitfiled by San Diego-based Robbins,Geller, Rudman and Dowd.

“There’s a lot of really unhappypeople,” said Rich McCune, partnerat McCune Wright, which has previ-ously filed lawsuits against HyundaiMotor Co. for fuel-efficiency claims.

The new filing will have betweenfive and 10 class-action representa-tives—Ford hybrid owners who saythat their vehicles are not living up tofuel-efficiency claims.

McCune said the law firm hasspoken to “literally hundreds” of hy-brid owners from across the country,and not just those clustered in colderregions with higher speed limits, twofactors that can significantly diminish

fuel efficiency.The original suit stems from the

experiences of Richard Pitkin of Ro-seville, CA, who purchased a C-MaxHybrid in October. Pitkin says he av-eraged only 37 miles per gallon, lowerthan the Environmental ProtectionAgency rated 47 mpg.

The EPA said in December itwould review Ford’s fuel-efficiencyclaims after Consumer Reports foundthe C-Max Hybrid and Fusion Hybridgot significantly worse fuel efficiencythan the EPA window sticker sug-gests.

Consumer Reports said in test-ing, the C-Max Hybrid’s fuel effi-ciency fell 10 miles per gallon short:It got 37 mpg overall, with 35 mpg forcity driving and 38 mpg highways.The Fusion Hybrid, certified for thesame 47 mpg, got 39 mpg in testingoverall, with 35 mpg city and 41 mpghighway.

Ford has said its hybrid vehiclesare built to give customers a choice:Drivers can operate the vehicle con-servatively and achieve EPA mileageclaims. Or they can drive the car forfun, because Ford hybrids get signifi-cantly better horsepower than com-petitor vehicles.

California Firms Sue Ford for ‘Overinflated’ FuelEfficiency Claims of Two Hybrids

Recognizing that the need for educa-tion doesn’t end at graduation, EastValley Institute of Technology (EVIT)helped establish two new state-of-the-art collision repair training centers onits Mesa, AZ, campus last year.

With the help of industry partners,including Chief Automotive Technolo-gies and its area distributor, KachinaAutomotive Equipment, theschool set up two top-of-the-line training centers next toeach other. One center is ded-icated to EVIT’s high schoolcollision repair students. Theother is used by industry pro-fessionals and manufacturerswho invested their resourcesto train collision repair tech-nicians in Arizona and na-tionally.

Both facilities includeclassroom space and a fullyequipped shop area for hands-ondemonstrations and practice. Theequipment includes a Chief Goliathframe rack, EZ Liner™ Express colli-sion repair system, computerizedmeasuring system and accessories.

“As car manufacturers continueto develop increasingly sophisticatedways to protect the passenger com-partment, the techniques we use to re-

pair vehicles is constantly evolving inresponse,” explains Mike Cranfill,Chief vice president. “In order toproperly return today’s collision-dam-aged vehicles to OEM specs, it is cru-cial that technicians stay current on thelatest developments in collision theoryand repair. This top-notch new facilityat EVIT is fully equipped to enable

our Chief University instructors toteach technicians from across the re-gion structural damage analysis, com-puterized measuring, collision theoryand design based repair techniques.”

Chief held the inaugural industrytraining event at EVIT in January,leading a full house of professionaltechnicians through its Chief Univer-sity Design Based Repair and Ad-

vanced Frame Analysis courses Jan.22-25.

“EVIT is built on a foundation ofpublic and private cooperation to offerthe best career and technical education toour students and to better serve the needsof business and industry,” said EVIT Su-perintendent Dr. Sally Downey. “Wecould not provide the quality programs

that we offer without the ex-pertise and generosity of thebusinesses and organizationsthat partner with us. Whenpublic and private sourceswork together, it’s a win-winfor everyone.”

Chief University classesare held in training centersthroughout the United Statesand Canada. They combineclassroom training withhands-on demonstrationsand practice. All courses are

led by professional Chief-certified in-structors, and most are approved for I-CAR points through the I-CARIndustry Training Alliance program.Chief training also has been certifiedby the National Institute for Automo-tive Service Excellence (ASE) forcompliance with the Continuing Auto-motive Service Education (CASE)Standards.

Chief Helps EVIT Equip Two New Collision Repair Training Centers in ArizonaThe Santa Clara California AutobodyAssociation chapter on March 20hosted Rick Leos who presented theToyota Predictive Estimating system.

Toyota announced the conceptin November, 2012. Instead of start-ing an estimate with blank paper, thesystem automatically fills in the op-erations and parts related to the repairbased on the type and location of thedamage. All the operations will haveinformation attached for repair pro-cedures. The system is being called a“game changer” because estimatorsare more likely to include all of theappropriate repair methodology, pro-cedures and parts, and won’t misskey repair items.

While still just a concept, Toy-ota is working with estimating infor-mation providers to integrate thesystem. Currently, they have not in-dicated that there will be any chargefor the inclusion into existing plat-forms.

In addition, Chris Risdon pre-sented “Toyota Collision Informa-tion,” covering repair informationavailability, OEM training that isavailable, hybrid overview, and cur-rent and new model information as itrelates to collision repair system.

Santa Clara CAA Hosted Toyota’s Rick Leos March 20


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Some say the sky’s the limit

More than 100 I-CAR instructors,volunteers, and industry membersgathered in Anaheim, CA, for I-CAR’s Western Regional ConferenceFeb. 28–March 2. During the confer-ence, outstanding instructors and vol-unteers were recognized for theirdedication and commitment to I-CAR and for delivering collision re-pair training to their local areas.Attendees also participated in net-working events, presentations, andopen forum discussions throughoutthe conference.

Jeff Peevy, I-CAR Senior Director

of Field Operationsand Segment Devel-opment stated, “Theinstructors and vol-unteers of I-CAR arethe life blood of thisorganization. With-out them, we wouldnot be able to live upto the I-CAR vision.It is an honor to rec-ognize them for thesignificant contribu-tions they have madeto so many people in

the industry that we serve.”Committee chairmen were recog-

nized for their 2012results and an indi-vidual from eachregion was recog-nized for the fol-lowing awards: theLon Baudoux In-structor of the Yearaward, the KingTUT award, and theFounders Award.

For 2012, BillVocasek (North-

west Region) and Michael Lon-abaugh (Southwest Region) wererecognized with the Lon BaudouxInstructor of the Year award. Thisaward is presented to an I-CAR in-structor who most exemplifies theI-CAR presence in the classroom,a commitment to excellence, andkeeping pace with technology.

“Each year, there are manynominations for this award and thedecision is always difficult. It is anhonor to recognize this year’s In-structor of the Year recipients. Bothgentlemen have made an impact onmany of us in the industry,” saidBob Mickey, I-CAR Northwest Re-

gional Manager.The King TUT (Total Units

Taught) Award is presented to the I-CAR instructor with the most students

taught in their region. The busiest I-CAR instructors who were recognizedfor their 2012 accomplishments wereMarc Essig (Northwest Region) andToby Chess (Southwest Region).

The Founder’s Award is presentedto one individual in each region whomost exemplifies the I-CAR VolunteerSpirit. Each recipient is given an I-

I-CAR Holds Western Regional Conference in Anaheim, CA


(l to r) Gene Lopez, Keith Going, Ralph Groover, Bob Mickey. Goingand Groover were recipients of the Founders award.

Receiving the King Tut Award is Marc Essigwith Bob Mickey (r)

Northwest Instructor of the Year is Bill Vocasek. (l to r) Mark Woirol,John Van Alstyne, Bill Vocasek, Bob Mickey

CAR Founder’s ring in ap-preciation of their dedication.Ralph Groover was recog-nized in the Northwest re-gion; and in the SouthwestRegion, it was Keith Going.

Gene Lopez, I-CARSouthwest Regional Man-ager, explained, “The recog-nition that was given to eachof these individuals waswell-deserved. Their contri-butions to our industry are sovaluable; and for that, wethank them.”


GET THE TRAINING THAT HAS EQUIPPED 50,000+ TECHS TO PROFITABLY REPAIR TODAY’S VEHICLES.Learn complex structure repair with comprehensive, hands-on training from Chief University. Chief instructors teach the latest design-based repair procedures on today’s vehicles. Fully certified and associated with the I-Car Training Alliance, there’s no better training system for accurate – and profitable – collision repair.

New courses now available. Call 800-445-9262 or see the complete course list at chiefautomotive.com/courses/an.

GET THE TRAINING THA50,000+ TECHS TO PROFIT

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Instructor of the Year Recognition was awarded Mike Lon-abaugh. (l to r) Mark Woirol, John Van Alstyne, MichaelLonabaugh, Gene Lopez

CAA East Bay Met March 19The East Bay chapter of the Cali-fornia Autobody Association metMarch 19 in Pleasant Hill, CA.

Kurt Money with I-CAR dis-cussed the new blueprinting anddamage discovery classes, and TimBrusher, Zone Collision MarketingManager for Honda, spoke aboutthe Honda Pro First program.

For more information about fu-ture CAA East Bay meetings, con-tact Lisa Daves at (925) 699-2031or [email protected]. Costfor dinner and meeting is $40 formembers or $50 for non-members.

B&R Body Shops in Charlotte, NC,opened its sixth shop location in thearea. The new, 17,000-square-footcollision repair facility will operateas B&R Body Shop-Northlake.

“There has been substantial de-velopment in this area over the pastfew years as evidenced by the growthin specialty retail, as well as the nu-merous dealerships that have movedup here between Charlotte and theLake,” said Tommy Morgan, ownerof B&R Body Shops. “We have beenseeking a suitable facility on this sideof the city for some time.”

NC Shop Opens 6th Shop

The California Autobody Associationswore in new board members at its 1stQuarter Board meeting in Irvine onFeb. 9.

They are: President Ben Men-doza, Kelly’s Body Shop, Santa Ana;1st VP Mike Passof, B & J BodyShop, Rancho Cordova; VP Don Fee-ley, City Body & Frame, Riverside;Treasurer Ted Stein, Drew Collision,La Mesa; Secretary Kathy Mello,TGIF Body Shop, Fremont; Past Pres.Dave Picton, G & R Body & Paint,Sacramento.

CAA Board of Directors Meeting ReportThe CAA reported on the new OSHAHazard Communication Standardsthat changes the MSDS labeling andemployers have until December 1,2013 to train their employees. Moreinformation can be found on the CAAwebsite.

During the board meeting, mem-bers were part of two extremely in-formative presentations:• Rick Leoswith Toyota presented in-formation on the new Toyota Predic-tive Estimating system.• Scott Sorrell, CEO Sales Adrena-line, spoke about “How to ChargeHigher Prices & Get Your Customersto Thank You For It.” Scott’s presen-tation was sponsored by Enterprise.

The Education Committee reporteddiscussion on chapters adopting aschool and on starting a resume portalfor students, as well as helping schoolsin each chapter on raising money.

The Membership Committee dis-cussed ideas of communicated valueto non-members, putting out more in-formation to consumers to identifybrand, and a possible CSI programbranded CAA.

The Technical Review Committeediscussed ways the CAA could put to-gether a blueprinting guide, discussednew glass repair tool, and discussionon new aftermarket parts regulation.

CAA Legislative Committee ReportDepartment Of InsuranceThe Department of Insurance (DOI)has finalized its regulations regardingstandards for reasonable auto body re-pairs and procedures and use of after-market crash parts. The regulationstake effect on March 31, 2013. Theregulations:• Require an insurer to pay for anamount to repair the damaged vehicleto its pre-loss condition in a good andworkmanlike manner, based upon therepair standards required by auto bodyrepair shops licensed by the BAR;• Require an insurer to pay for thecosts associated with returning a de-

fective part and the cost to re-move and replace the defectivepart with compliant non-OEMpart or an OEM part;• Require the current insurer’swarranty be expressly stated inthe estimate of repair generatedby the insurer;• Require an insurer to cease useof a part known to be non-com-pliant, and notify the part dis-tributor within thirty (30) days.

The CAA will be workingwith interested stakeholders, in-cluding insurers, distributorsand monitoring the new regula-tions to determine how they arebeing implemented in the state.

The DOI is also in the process ofreviewing and updating regulationspertaining to labor rate survey stan-dards for conducting surveys; andclarification on steering, after a con-sumer has specifically selected a shopto have car repaired. The CAA willcontinue working with the DOI onthese regulations and will keep mem-bers advised.

Legislative UpdateThe Legislature is back in full session.The deadline for bill introduction wasFebruary 22. It is anticipated that over2,000 new bills will be introduced thisyear. The CAA will review and moni-tor and bring to the membership at-tention any legislation that mayimpact the industry.

CAA along with the ASCCA hasscheduled its annual Legislative Day

for April 16 in Sacramento. CAA ishoping to get as many members toattend this important event wheremembers have an opportunity tomeet with legislators to discuss leg-islation that impacts automotive re-pair shops.

State BudgetThe CAA will ac-tively monitor theannual state budgetand oppose legisla-tion that would re-quire small businessto withhold 3% ofpayments to inde-pendent contractorsand/or extend thesales tax to automo-tive services (labor).The CAA will con-tinue to monitor andkeep members updated on this andother proposals that impact smallbusiness.

Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR)The BAR Chief, John Wallauch wasrecently confirmed by the State Sen-

ate. The CAA testified in support of hisappointment as BAR Chief. The BARalso has been working on several areasincluding increased enforcement ofunnecessary preventative maintenanceservices or as BAR has termed “WalletFlushes.” BAR is also looking into ad-ditional enforcement tools including

cite and fine for improper estimates.Also due to recent complaints of im-proper/unsafe installation of vehiclewindshield replacement services, theBAR is discussing the possibility ofcreating minimum standards for wind-shield/glass replacement.


CAA Announces New Board for 2013; Directors Meeting Report

(l to r) Dave Picton (CAA Past President 2012) and BenMendoza (CAA President 2013)

(l to r) Don Feeley, Kathy Mello, Mike Passof, Ben Mendoza, Ted Stein,Dave Picton


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In 1873, a teenager with an adven-turesome spirit rode into a remotewestern town populated by about1,000 hardy souls, liked what he saw,and decided to put down his roots inthe desert. His name was Frank Lukeand the town was Phoenix. In theyears that followed, Frank married,raised nine children, prospered inbusiness and spent the last 20 years ofhis life in public service. At the timeof his death, in 1939, he was State TaxCommissioner.

Frank Luke Jr. was the fifthchild of Ottilia and Frank Luke. Heonly lived for 21 years but his nameand deeds will live forever in Ameri-can military history. Second only to

Captain Eddie Rickenbacker as theleading ace of World War I, Luke wascredited with 18 kills in nine monthsof combat. Rickenbacker was quotedas saying “Had he (Luke) lived, hewould have put me out of business asthe Army’s leading ace.” LieutenantFrank Luke, Jr. was posthumouslyawarded the Congressional Medal ofHonor, had a statue erected in hismemory in the mall of the State Capi-tol and was further honored whenLuke Air Force Base was named afterhim.

William ‘Bill’ Luke was theyoungest of Ottilia and Frank Luke,Sr.’s nine children. He was always fas-cinated by machines and in 1927, atthe age of 18, jumped at the opportu-nity to get in on the ground floor of ayoung, growing industry. He was tobecome the founder of Bill LukeChrysler-Plymouth and continued ashead of the automobile dealershipuntil his passing in 1988. During hisyears as an automobile dealer, BillLuke found time to pursue interests infarming, cattle ranching, and was abreeder of thoroughbred horses. Atone time he owned a stable of 70 race

horses and won the Arizona BreedersAward many times.

Dorothy and Bill Luke had fivechildren. The youngest was named

Donald ‘Don’ Luke, and, like his fa-ther, displayed an early interest in ma-chines. He began working in thefamily business at the age of 13, pro-gressed up the ladder to General Man-ager and then to President and CEO ofthe Bill Luke Dealerships. Don hasthree sons, Ryan, Chris, and Eric—

bringing the total number of direct de-scendants of the Arizona pioneers, Ot-tilia and Frank Luke, Sr., to well over100.

In May of 2012, The Bill LukeAutomotive Group added Bill LukeFiat to it’s line-up. Bill Luke Fiat islocated in the Tempe Autoplex inTempe, AZ. Eric Luke is the Fiat Di-rector and has remained in the top 3 ofthe Phoenix Zone for car sales sincetaking over the franchise.

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by Robert Mercier, Walcom Thermo DryTechnology Specialist

The coatings industry is constantly for-mulating new ways to adapt theirproducts to new environmental stan-dards, ease of use, and color match.The atomization of these coatingsthrough the spraygun nozzle is an on-going challenge for paint and spraygunmanufacturers alike and is ever-chang-ing. It only makes sense that the phys-ical application side of the process, i.ecompressed air delivery-spraygunspecifications and spraybooth design,change with it.

A painter is faced with a differ-ent set of circumstances to take intoconsideration, depending on changingenvironmental conditions in order toadapt accordingly each day, espe-cially with the new generation water-borne coatings.

The tools provided to him are anessential part of his success rate andcycle time. The spraybooth is meant toprovide a clean, consistently heated, fil-tered work environment so the techni-cian can prevent contamination of thejob. The demand is the same of the com-

pressed air delivery system. It is equallyimportant to the application process andperformance of the spraygun.

Compressed air used in paintbooths is negatively influenced by lowtemperatures in the winter and by highrelative humidity in the summer. Evenwith adequate booth heating or, in thesummer, coolingdryers, the tempera-ture of compressedair entering thespraygun stock hasa hard time reach-ing 20 °C (68 °F).Remember also thatair expansioncauses temperatureto drop an addition10–12 °C (50 °F–54°F), lowering paintatomization air to atemperature under10 °C (50 °F). With relative humidityunder room temperature ‘dew point,’a micro-mist that mixes with the paintmay be generated. Therefore, the ideal20 °C (68 °F) conditions indicated bypaint manufacturers for satisfactoryresults are not met, with correspon-

ding loss of brilliancy, orange peel ef-fects and poor distribution.

Thermodry Technology heats andmaintains the set compressed air tem-perature regardless of climate/roomconditions. This allows the painter touse filtered, heated and thermo regu-lated compressed air, which maxi-

mizes results by eliminatingenvironmental factors both in thebooth and from external weather con-ditions. The operator can set tempera-ture from 20 °C to 50 °C (68 °F–122°F) for the painting phase and up to 70°C (158 °F) for the drying phase. The

PID retroaction system (proportional-integrated-derived) and instant regula-tion of the heating power at SCR(wave cut) keeps the temperature setby the operator constant. The IPHheating system has the same heatingelement features as the equipment,thus providing both tube heating andinternal temperature control, keepingit constant during the entire paintcycle.

A Heated and Thermo Regulatedair delivery system that maintains 68degree nozzle temperature free of hu-midity and gaseous impurities guaran-tees the technician superioratomization at the spray gun nozzle.This results in faster drying times, bet-ter paint flow out, lower paint con-sumption, and the elimination ofimperfections or die back (loss ofgloss.)

Painters will immediately feel thedifference in terms of faster dryingtime, better paint flow-out, lowerpaint consumption and higher appli-cation speed. In addition, painters canexpect significant improvement in thequality of work when using both wa-terborne and solvent based paints.


THERMODRY TECHNOLOGY: BENEFITSHeat your materials at the point of atomization within yourspraygun nozzle and eliminate costly spraybooth retrofits

The complete and efficient solution to resolve problems related to new generation paint application.

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1. 25% to 40% reduction in drying time for waterborne and solvent based paints2. Material savings from 15% to 30% due to higher transfer efficiency with maximum coverage3. Reduce cycle times & operating temperatures of your existing spraybooth saving time and energy(additional cycles)4. Clean paint work equals considerably less buffing and faster delivery to your customer5. Simple installation works with your existing compressed air system and 110volt outlet6. Superior atomization with zero impurities equals the “Quality in the finish” your customers deserve

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“We have invested in the Walcom system and our painters can’t imagine painting cars without it. We paint cars faster, with higher quality, and have experienced a signi�cant savings in materials.”

— Jack LamborghiniTotal Care Accident RepairRaynham, Massachusetts

The Art of Atomization: Thermo Regulated Compressed Air and Atomization

The collision repair world is changingrapidly these days. I recently attendedan autobody association meetingwhere a representative from Toyotaintroduced their new Parts Bridgeproduct. The estimating system withwhich they decide to integrate thisproduct will have exact manufac-turer’s billing prices and technicalservice bulletin information to ensureparts are installed properly. It was sug-gested that this product would elimi-nate most supplements. Suddenly alarge part of the estimator’s job wouldbe reduced greatly.

At the same time, the competitionfor jobs is heating up more and more,and consolidators are buying up manyof the existing shops. The result of thisis sort of a Wal-Mart versus local mer-chants war. Smaller shops are finding itmuch harder to compete when a chainof franchise or consolidator shops isgobbling up the lion’s share of the workin an area. How can they fight back?

When I go around to smallershops, I see a major difference in theway they see the estimator’s role.Often the estimator still has the oldviewpoint that it’s only necessary towrite an estimate when a customercomes in and to get that person toleave the keys for the shop to do thejob. In a chain of corporate-orientedshops, the estimator usually has a dif-ferent role altogether. I would be in-clined to now call that job a ‘collisionrepair sales representative.’ Yes, theestimator still has to sell the customeron leaving his or her car, but muchmore is often required.

I’ve taken the liberty of writingup an estimator job description thatencompasses most of what could beexpected of an estimator today. It is

true that in a larger shop, front deskpeople and customer service represen-tatives may cover many of the ele-ments I’ve listed. But I’ve found thateven in some smaller shops that arepart of a chain, the estimator may stillhave to perform the tasks of sales, cus-tomer follow-up, seeking customer re-ferrals and more. For independentshops and shops like these, this couldbe a reliable guide:

Collision Repair Sales RepresentativeJob Description• Primary duty: To show a customerthe estimated cost and time of repairand to close the sale with the customersigning an authorization and leavingthe keys to the vehicle.• Add-on sales: Estimator may see anopportunity to offer a specialty item,like running board or other item for ahandicapped person, car seat for achild, animal restraint for a pet, ortinted glass, special lights, tires, rims,spoilers, etc. for cosmetic improve-ments.• Secondary key duty: Using the cus-tomer information form to discoverfollow-up and referral job informa-tion, like other vehicles in the family(especially young drivers and their ve-hicles), company vehicles at the cus-tomer's work place, and other possiblevehicle repair needed.• Additional key duty: Using the cus-tomer information form to identifydates and times to re-contact the cus-tomer and maintain a long-term rela-tionship. This can include birthdays,anniversaries, confirmations, gradua-tions, and more. Inquiry should alsobe made about membership in a club,association or other group activitywhere the shop could provide promo-

tional items.• Delivery of completed vehicle:Whenever possible, the estimatorshould deliver the vehicle to the cus-tomer and use this opportunity to askagain about other family, friend andcompany vehicles that may need repair.• Follow-up calls: Keeping the cus-tomer advised of progress on the vehi-cle while in for repairs and refinishing.Also a follow-up call within thirtydays after the repair to determine cus-tomer’s degree of satisfaction. If notfully satisfied, customer can be invitedto come back and have repaired areabuffed and polished.• Prospecting for customers duringslow times: Calling customers ondates and times of events as noted,like birthdays, anniversaries, confir-mations, graduations, and more. Ageneral follow-up call should be madeat one-year, two-year and three-yearintervals. Call should always includean inquiry about the condition of all

family and company vehicles.

Why Good Salespeople Are RareI’ve found in many companies wheresales people are highly valued andhighly rewarded, there is often an atti-tude among other personnel that salespeople are pampered too much andpaid too highly for what they do.

It’s been my experience that ef-fective sales people have an unusualtalent and skill that not many people possess. The best sales people are ag-gressive without being offensive.They are empathetic without beingtimid or subdued. They’re able to per-sist in a pleasant way until theyachieve their objective. While manypeople are reluctant to reach out andtake command, the effective sales per-son is never reluctant to step up andask for the job or the order. Withoutsomeone who possesses that forcefulsales element, many shops and com-panies would not survive.


The Selling Estimator’s Job Description

On Creative Marketingwith Thomas Franklin

Tom Franklin has been a sales and marketing consultant for fifty years. He has writtennumerous books and provides marketing solutions and services for many businesses.He can be reached at (323) 871-6862 or at [email protected]. See Tom’s columns at www.autobodynews.com under Columnists > Franklin

cle must provide notice, return receiptrequested, to the registered owner ofthe motor vehicle, which notice mustinclude the location of the body shopand certain other information, includ-ing the storage fee, if any, charged bythe body shop.

Section 3 further provides that the

body shop may not impose a charge forstorage of such a motor vehicle until itreceives the return receipt from the reg-istered owner of the vehicle. Sections12-14 of this bill provide for injunctiverelief, civil penalties and a criminalmisdemeanor penalty for violations ofthe provisions of this bill.

The full text of the bill can beread at:http://openstates.org/nv/bills/77/SB170/documents/NVD00010385/

Continued from Page 4

Nevada Storage Fees

People used to think that blogs werelight and breezy, written mostly bysoccer moms or retired teachers andfeaturing their poetry, baby picturesand long-winded opinion pieces. Butover the years blogs have changed ina big way. Nowdays, experts on cer-tain subjects will go to blogs exclu-sively to see what they can’t findanywhere else on the Internet. Blogshave gone from irrelevant to pertinentwithin the past five years, and todaymore companies than ever (includingbody shops) have one blog and maybeeven more.

For those of you who have beeninside fixing cars too long and don’tknow what a blog is, here is my ele-vator speech. A blog is the morphingof two words (web–log) and in simpleterms, it’s a discussion-based or infor-mational site published on the weband including a series of entries (alsoknown as posts) typically displayed inreverse chronological order.

Until 2009, blogs were normallythe work of a single individual or asmall group, and often covered oneparticular subject. More recently‘multi-author blogs’ (MABs) have de-veloped, with posts written by largenumbers of authors and professionallyedited.

More and more companies, in-cluding body shops, are creating blogsfor many reasons, according to AngelIraola, a blog expert and the owner ofNet Business Consulting & Services(NBCS) in Santa Rosa, CA. Iraola hasbeen designing websites and blogs forhis clients since 2006 and has seen ahuge spike in their overall popularity.

“I used to get 1–2 calls everymonth from people asking about blogsand now I get about 5–6 calls a week.Why are they so in style right nowwith companies of all sizes? Becausefor one, they see their competitorsdoing blogs and they want to keep up.Also, they’re easy and affordable toset up and maintain, moreso than web-sites. In addition, people read blogsnow more than ever and they enjoy in-teracting with other readers.”

To get top search rankings onsites such as Google and Bing, blogscan play an instrumental role, Iraolasaid. “By using meta tags and the

proper keywords, blogs can help com-panies to spread the word and enhancetheir Search Engine Optimization(SEO) efforts. I’ve helped some of myclients to become #1 on Google andtheir blogs are one of the main reasonsfor their success online.”

How can body shops use blogs toget more customers? Iraola isn’t giv-ing away his secrets, he said, but heoffered some basic advice. “Post atleast once every week, otherwise yourblog will become stale and peoplewon’t read it. And change up the con-tent, with articles about helpful newsand tips about driving and cars and in-terviews with your employees andfunny, entertaining stories includingvideos, in some cases. Make it inter-esting and varied and solicit com-ments by doing polls and promotingdiscussion with your readers.”

Laurie Kaiser is the marketingdirector at LaMettry’s Collision, withseven locations in the Minneapolis-St.Paul area. Kaiser contracted an out-side firm to create LaMettry Colli-sion’s blog in 2011 after it developedthe shop’s website, she explained.

“They recommended a blog to en-hance our SEO, tell our story and keepengaged with our customers. We alsoattached the blog to some of our socialmedia, such as Twitter and Facebook.We’ve made the content for our blog ateam effort, soliciting feedback andgathering ideas about future blog arti-cles from our employees, customersand even vendors.”

Some of the more popular postson LaMettry’s blog include: Best andWorst Car Commercials for 2013;Why Your Car Gets Poor Mileage inthe Winter; Green Auto Repair:LaMettry’s Commitment to the Envi-ronment; and Congratulations toLakeville High North’s Class of 2012.

Stefanie Almendares is the mar-keting manager at Eur-Asia Motors inSan Francisco, CA. One of the firstthings she did after getting hired earlylast year was create a blog and con-nect it to the shop’s website and its so-cial media.

“We specialize in information andeducation on our blog, because wewant to be an advocate for the indus-try and a source our readers can trust,”

Almendares said. “Sometimes I haveto ask our techs about how to fix cer-tain items, so that I can write aboutthem for our blog. For instance, wewrote a post recently about how longit takes to repair a bumper. I didn’tknow, so I had to learn how a fender isrepaired and how long it takes to com-plete the job, so that I could pass it onto our readers.”

Does Almendares have any tipson how to make it in the blogsphere?

“I post as often as I can and wealways use lots of photos. Our SEOperson told us to use plenty of pic-tures and write alternate text for eachphoto we post. That way, we get morereadership and enhance our searcha-bility.”

Kevin Rains is a second-genera-tion owner of Center City Collision inCincinnati, OH. He delegates the ma-jority of his shop’s day-to-day tasks tohis managers and employees, but han-dles all of his company’s marketing

himself, he explained.“I really enjoy the marketing as-

pect of this business, because it’s al-ways changing with the technology. Istarted blogging way back in 2001 formy church, long before most peopleeven knew what blogs were. Then,three years later I started a blog for ourshop. Now I also publish a blog calledthe Auto Guru Blog, on which I teachreaders about the technology involvedin car repair, so that they know what toexpect.”

How does he know if people readhis blog and has he seen any benefitsfrom it?

“There is no doubt about thepower of blogging, because I haveseen it firsthand. Everything we doonline is there for a reason and SEO isof course a big factor.

“We can’t rely 100% on our blogor our website, because marketing is amix of different things but blogging isa part of that.”

Blogging for Fun and Profit

with Ed Attanasio

Social Media for Shops

Ed Attanasio is an automotive journalist based inSan Francisco, California. He can be reached [email protected].



Malco Products, Inc. | Annandale, Minnesota, U.S.A. | www.malcoautotools.com | ©2013

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Sherwin-Williams recently an-nounced it has awarded its Vendorof the Year Award to Preval, a divi-sion of Chicago Aerosol. This is thefirst time the company has received

the prestigious award, which recog-nizes a small group of supplierswho have demonstrated substantialsuccess in a variety of categories,including double-digit sales growth,high-quality and high-value prod-ucts, ambitious new product devel-

opment and exceptional service andmanagement.

Peter Sedlak, vice president ofMarketing & Purchasing at Sherwin-Williams Co., said Preval was selectedfor the award, in part, because of the

company’s drive to succeed and theunprecedented success of its relativelynew vFan, a portable airbrush systemthat has been enthusiastically wel-comed among professional contrac-tors as well as a number of otherindustries.

The vFan led to a 12% sales gainin Preval’s Sherwin-Williams con-tracts. And despite the rapid growth inthe paint and coatings industry andothers, Preval has maintained as oneof its core business values an unre-lenting focus on quality, value andcustomer service.

“Somehow, the Preval Spray Teamcan separate themselves fromthe pack by out-servicingmost [of their competitors],”Sedlak said.

Preval, and its parent com-pany, Chicago Aerosol, wererecognized with the award atthe Sherwin-Williams’ ven-

dor luncheon in Nashville, TN.“Winning this award from Sher-

win-Williams, one of the biggestnames in the paint and coatings in-dustry, validates all of the hard workthat we have put into bringing inno-

vative new products to the market andsetting ourselves apart from the com-petition,” said Preval President SamAverbuch.

The vFan is used for precisionpaint and material dispensing; touch-ups and surface repairs; surface prepa-ration; and curing. Distributedworldwide, the vFan is used in diverse

markets across the globe, includingthe appliance, automotive, aerospace,arts, bookbinding, craft and hobby,container, converting, electronics,food and beverage, furniture, homeimprovement, life sciences and med-ical, light emitting diodes (LED),

metal finishing, marine, new homeresurfacing, non-woven, packaging,scrap booking, semiconductor andsolar energy and textile industries.

The vFan Airbrush is the only de-vice on the market that converts to anairgun and achieves both 3-inch fanand 1/16-inch hairline patterns. Amaz-ingly portable, the vFan Airbrush canbe used in all environments whenpowered by 150 Feet of Energy,Preval’s innovative, eco-friendlyaerosol compressor unit. Each canis-ter of 150 Feet of Energy contains 7ounces of VOC-exempt propellantthat powers more than 150 feet of lin-ear paint coverage and up to 40 squarefeet of paint coverage. The vFan Air-brush is also compatible with mostworkshop compressors.

In addition to the vFan, Preval iswell known for its Sprayer, a portable,professional-grade, inexpensive spraysystem that is used for countless ap-plications. The Sprayer is disposable,recyclable, easy to clean and where nocompressor is needed. Preval has alsorecently introduced a number of othercomplementary products to the mar-ketplace.

Preval Wins Prestigious Sherwin-Williams’ Vendor of the Year


(l to r) Keith Ramsey, Ken Kamien, Matt Spagat,Sam Averbuch, Bryan Smith, Sheryl Ellenbrock,Shawn Orr and Teresa Chapman


Seidner’s Collision Centers, a 13-shop operation based in Los Angeles,CA, has named industry veteranMike Stacy as director of corporatestrategy.

Stacy has more than 40 years ofindustry experience. He launched hiscareer in 1972 before opening hisown collision repair shop in 1981.Stacy later served as zone vice pres-ident for CCC Information ServicesInc., and most recently served as vicepresident of sales and marketing forVeriFacts Automotive.

“Having Mike with his vast in-dustry experience, knowledge and en-ergy will allow Seidner’s CollisionCenters the opportunity to continueour growth strategy to better serve ourcustomers,” said Steve Seidner, vicepresident and co-owner of Seidner’sCollision. “Mike will be an importantpart of our executive managementteam.”

“I have had the great honor ofvisiting many remarkable shops inmy career and I absolutely can’tthink of a better organization to bealigned with than Seidner’s,” saidStacy. “I am honored to be an inte-gral part of Steve and his teams vi-sion for the future.”

Seidner’s Hires Mike Stacyas Corporate Director by Janet Chaney

The Montana collision industry brokerecords on Saturday, March 2 at theMontana Collision Repair SpecialistsSpring Meeting in Helena. Approxi-mately 105 attendees came to Mon-tana’s state capitol for this industryday, including guests from Utah, Col-orado, Florida and the Idaho Auto

Body Craftsman.Mike Anderson highlighted the

event with his “Parts Procurement-Best Practices” seminar. Anderson’sopening comment was, “We willthrive—not just survive.” His Indus-try Overview before the seminar wasan eye opening collection of data doc-umenting the changes and challengesin today’s marketplace. Throughoutthe day, Anderson offered solutions tomeet these challenges and to “Be TheBest In Your Area.” Dealership partsmanagers, counter people and bodyshop parts managers attended thismeeting.

MCRS lobbyist, Drew Geiger,spoke at the MCRS Business Break-

fast Meeting to bring the industry upto date on the 2013 Montana StateLegislature and current legislationthat may affect the industry. Themorning meeting was an interactivesession with the MCRS Board andmembers, reporting associationbusiness and encouraging discus-sion.

The Montana Collision RepairSpecialists holds two meetings a year,offering guest speakers and good in-dustry education.

Learn more at:www.mtcollisionrepair.com.

Montana Collision Repair Spe-cialists is an affiliate of the Society ofCollision Repair Specialists.

Montana Collision Repair Specialists Hold Meeting in Helena

(l-r) Barry Reddick, Collision Pro, Helena, MT; Matt Thornton, Park Royals Collision, Boise, ID,Ron Fuller, Whitehall Body Shop, Whitehall, MT, and Rick Booth of Rick’s Auto Body in Mis-soula, MT were part of the Industry Roundtable Discussion at the MCRS’ March 3 meeting

Eight Montana shop owners led by facilitatorMike Anderson conducted an IndustryRound Table at the MCRS meeting luncheon.Mike led the Round Table with this theme,“What is keeping you up at night.”

by Melanie Anderson

Customer painter Aaron Wachholz,owner of X-treme Paint Auto Body &Marine in Wyoming, MN, began hiscareer nearly a quarter century agowhen he was in the Navy, painting andrepairing the landing and captainboats aboard the ship. After his stint in

the Navy, he worked at two bodyshops and eventually started doing hisown custom work as well as custompainting new conversion vans thatwere sold on dealership lots.

Wachholz, 43, started X-tremePaint Auto Body & Marine 16 yearsago and now has four employees. Theservices provided by his business in-clude custom painted graph-ics, custom airbrushing andmurals, auto body collisionand frame repair, fiberglassand aluminum boat repair andcustom motorcycle painting.The shop serves the NorthTwin City Metro area withquality collision repair andcustom paint with award win-ning unique designs. Awardsinclude: DuPont Top Gun:2000, 2001, 2002, 2003;Donnie Smith Custom BikeShow: Best Paint 2009, Best in Class2009, Best in Class, 2006; as well asseveral local car and bike show custompaint awards.

Over the years, he estimates he’scustom painted over 5,000 cars, bikesand boats.

“I like playing with different col-ors, filling out different designs andusing my creativity to create some-thing new,” Wachholz said. “I lovecreating something new and different,utilizing unique colors and color com-binations. I take a vehicle and I’ll de-sign a paint job that flows with thenatural body lines on the vehicle. I

like to take the shape and puta paint job to it that enhancesall of the natural shape andcontours of the body.”

On the flip side, what hehates about custom painting isnot always knowing for surewhat exactly the customer hasin mind, because some cus-tomers come in with a vagueidea or concept that he bringsto life. He has a fear of disap-pointing them, although thathas never happened.

He said one of his strangest re-quests for custom painting was aHummer H2 where the customerwanted a two-toned bright pink.

His most famous customer isJesse Ventura, for whom he did cus-tom paint on a favorite bike. Venturais a former professional wrestler whoutilized his skills learned in the ring to

become Governor of Minnesota.His favorite project was a donated

custom paint job he did last year on a2011 Harley Davidson Street Bob for‘Tribute to the Troops.’ The custompaint utilized custom flakes and mul-tiple candy colors. Raffle ticket sales

were over $40,000 and pro-ceeds were donated to educa-tional accounts for childrenof fallen soldiers.

“The bike was phenome-nal, especially in the sun.That was the coolest job I’veever done because it was thefirst time I ever did a custompaint that made a difference

in the lives of people.” Thisyear he’s working on aHarley Davidson street glidefor the ‘Tribute to the Troops’fundraiser and the bike willbe unveiled in mid March.

As far as tips go, hispaint is PPG Vibrance and helikes using stands made byInnovative Tools. He partic-ularly likes the Octopus standwhich allows him to easilypaint weird, odd-shapedparts. “You can clamp itdown at eye level and work all awayaround the object.” He also likes theirhood and bumper stands which makeit easy to paint a panel in the booth at

the exact height and vertical angle heneeds to do intricate hood artwork.Wachholz used Innovative Tool’s Ul-traRack Paint Stand to paint a customhood for Innovative Tools and their

SuperStand Bumper Standfor a custom painted bumpercover that the company dis-played at SEMA.

X-treme Paint Auto Body& Marine5204 260th Street,Wyoming, MN [email protected]


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Custom Painter Aaron Wachholz Paints Cars, Boats & Bikes

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A broken headlight led to the arrest ofa man accused of a hit-and-run acci-dent that left another man dead.Pacurie Huynh, 29, of Upper Darby,PA, was tracked down via a part or-dered to repair the Toyota 4Runner hewas driving when he allegedly struckthe victim, Thomas Quercetti, 28, onFourth of July last year.

Huynh was arrested Feb. 25 andcharged with causing an accident thatinvolved death and failing to give in-formation. Quercetti was walking homefrom a friend’s house about 1:30 a.m.on the shoulder of the 100 block ofNorth State Road in Springfield Town-ship, Delaware County, when he wasstruck by a vehicle. Police said therewas no indication that the vehicle triedto stop.

Quercetti was in critical conditionwhen he was taken to Crozer-ChesterMedical Center, and died at home onFeb. 20. He had been on life supportsince July 4, according to Emily Har-ris, spokeswoman for Delaware CountyDistrict Attorney Jack Whelan.

The complaint says investigatorslearned in January that evidence sent tothe FBI’s laboratory in Quantico, VA,

indicated a certain brand of headlampwas involved in the accident. The head-lamp is used in the Toyota 4Runner.

Investigators also learned thatonly one Maryland business suppliesthe parts to all Toyota dealerships inthe northeastern United States. Thedealers then order the parts for localbody shops. The Maryland businessprovided a list of orders for the partssubmitted from July 4 to Feb. 12. OnFeb. 14, a detective with the DistrictAttorney’s Office reviewed an invoicefor a front passenger headlamp or-dered on July 5 by Essington AutoCenter in Philadelphia from ConicelliToyota in Conshohocken.

Investigators interviewed the Ess-ington manager, who said the car’sowner paid in cash and provided the ve-hicle identification number. Thatyielded a 2012 Toyota 4Runner regis-tered to Huynh, whom the managerpicked out of a photo lineup. On Feb.25, Huynh was seen driving the vehi-cle. When in custody he said he was theonly person who operated the vehiclebut denied having been in an accident,the complaint says. Huynh is still incustody with bail set at $500,000.


Waterborne Breathable Air Combo SystemAvailable from Martech Services CompanyAs the use of waterborne paints be-comes more popular and, in some areasrequired, the need for clean and drycompressed sprayable air is a criticalprerequisite. The need for proper filtra-tion to remove moisture, oil vapors,gaseous hydrocarbons, dirt, rust, scale,and other potentially dangerous con-taminants is a core re-quirement. Then, if thedew point and relative hu-midity can be drasticallylowered, the user can cre-ate a quality of spray airnecessary to properlyapply today’s top of theline waterborne paintproducts.

Tom Wright, Di-rector of Sales & Mar-keting for MartechServices Company, says “The Model50-WB has all the features of a Qual-ity Air Breathing System, Model 50series system, plus the additional abil-ity to lower the dew point and relativehumidity for spraying waterbornepaints.” Furthermore, Wright states,“It only makes sense that if the air issafe as breathable air, then it wouldalso be superior sprayable air. Add away to lower the dew point and the

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This system can handle up to twopainters at the same time. The Model50-WB is a 50 SCFM system, and isalso available in an 80 SCFM system.

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Parts Order in PA Leads to Arrest in Fatal Crash


620 Blossom Hill Rd.,Los Gatos, CA 95032 Business Hours: Monday - Friday, 8:00 am to 5:30 pm Hours: Monday - Friday, 8:00 am to 5:30 pm

866.381.7223Fax: 408.356.8245

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Jonathan Phillips, 35, of SummitCollision Center in Lees Summit,MO, is new to custom painting but hasbeen in the production painting side ofthe business for 12 years. Custompainting caught his attention a fewyears ago when he became interestedin learning more about colors, tech-

niques and effects. So he attended afew Jon Kosmoski House of Kolorseminars and practiced his skills ontwo motorcycles and his own ‘99Mustang, which he painted a darkgreen with metallic flakes.

Phillips, who said he’s always hadan artistic eye, took art classes in school.But his career in auto body paintingstarted because of a friend’s need forhelp in his shop. At the time, Phillipswas in the construction business, but hedecided to work for six months as anapprentice auto body painter learning

the trade.When Phillips

was ready to buyhis own spray guns,the Sagola spraygun line was rec-ommended to him.He liked the guns somuch, he ended upbuying three Sagolaguns from Spray-Tech Solutions overan 8-month period:a base 4500 HVLPXtreme, a HVLP3300 Pro sealer gunand a XLT Xtremeclear gun.

“I was totallyblown away by these guns,” Phillipssaid. “I switched to Sagola after seeinghow well they are made on their web-site. They have no distribution rings orpackings that have to be changed.Sagola also offers a digital air gauge

built in the gun. The HVLP Xtreme re-ally lays out metallics beautifully.”

Phillips loves the freedom of cus-tom painting because it has less struc-ture than collision painting and amistake could be turned into a master-piece with the creativity custom paint-ing allows. He also enjoys the

freedom to mix of colors in custompainting as opposed to in collision re-pair where the paint is ‘non-nego-tiable.’

While custom painting is stillmostly a hobby, he continues to paintcollision repairs for Summit CollisionCenter, which also offers frame repair,body pulling, unibody repair and otherservices. Summit Collision Center hasbeen serving the community in KansasCity since 2002.

Collision Painter Enjoys Custom’s Freedom of Expression

... and after custom paint job by Phillips

Phillips’ 1999 Mustang before custom painting ...

identify their manufacturer. Suchidentification shall be accessible to theextent possible after installation.● Aftermarket parts may not be re-quired by an insurer in the repair of au-tomobiles placed in service during thetwo years immediately preceding theclaim report and which have 30,000 orfewer miles recorded on the odometer.● An insurer shall identify clearly onthe repair estimate all aftermarketparts installed on a vehicle, if any. Ifaftermarket parts are installed, the in-surer shall disclose to the claimant inwriting, either on the estimate or on aseparate document attached to the es-timate, the following information inbold-faced, capitalized font no smallerthan 12-point type:This estimate has been prepared basedon the use of non-original manufacturerparts. Parts used in the repair of yourvehicle by other than the original man-ufacturer, also known as aftermarketparts, are required to be at least equal inlike kind and quality in terms of fit,quality and performance to the originalmanufacturer parts they are replacing.


Vermont Bill


by Ed Attanasio

Parts Manager Chuck MacLeod hasbeen running the parts department atWeatherford BMW in Berkeley, CA,since 1989 after joining the industryin 1975. He worked briefly for anotherBMW dealership for a few years andMacLeod has been employed in onecapacity or another for the Bavariancarmaker for almost four decades. Heknows the brand known for perform-ance and BMW parts inside and out.

He runs a tight ship, with a ware-house that is immaculate, and with asales team that averages better than 16years experience, their depth of prod-uct knowledge and expertise is a hugeasset to his operation. Weatherford’swholesale reps Jon Hoke (19 years),Rey Garcia (15.5 years) and GuyDuggins (17 years) know preciselywhat body shops need, including es-sentials like prompt delivery, technicalexpertise and the ability to get the or-ders right the very first time on a con-sistent basis.

Wholesale is an integral part ofWeatherford BMW’s approach to doing

business, and that’s why MacLeod hasthree counter people that are 100% ded-icated to wholesale, he said.

“We have more than 100 bodyshop customers, but the majority ofour wholesale comes from a coregroup of 20–30 shops that order partsevery week and sometimes almostevery day,” MacLeod said.

“These are primarily shops thatspecialize in BMW, so they expect acertain level of customer service fromus and we provide it. With four trucksdoing three local deliveries every dayand two to areas outside the immedi-ate East Bay area, we can get the partsto our wholesale clients quickly andefficiently.”

MacLeod will try to price-matchaftermarket parts whenever his depart-ment can, he explained. “Body shopswant to please their insurance compa-nies without sacrificing quality, but weknow that price is always a considera-tion. So, that’s why we try to price-match in some instances, withoutgiving the parts away, because likeeveryone else, we need to make money.We want to work with shops, so we willalways make every attempt to accom-modate them, withinreason of course.”

Overseeing a $1million inventoryhoused within animpressive 120,000square-foot facilitythat used to be asteel factory, Weath-erford BMW’s30,000 square-footparts department iscontained in a build-ing with an expansive showroom anda mechanical repair shop. MacLeod’sdepartment sells more than $3 million

in wholesale parts annually and did al-most $12 million in total parts sales in2012, he said.

“It breaks down to 80% collisionparts and 20% mechanical. We alsohave a collision center located offsitein Oakland, CA, sowe sell them a lot ofcrash parts as well,”MacLeod said. “Wesold more than$600,000 last year atour collision centeralone, so it’s a sig-nificant part of ourwhole oeration.”

With tons of ex-perience, MacLeodis convinced thatBMW original fac-tory parts are supe-rior in every way to aftermarket parts,he stated confidently. “I’ve seen ithundreds of times where body shopstry to use aftermarket BMW sheetmetal, for example. In the end theycall us, because they find out too latethat their crash parts don’t fit or re-quire costly prep work. I see it againand again, with items like headlight

assemblies, bumpers and some of thesophisticated electronic parts in someof our newest models. BMW cus-

tomers are autophiles and [self edu-cated] experts about their cars. Manyof them paid $70,000 and up on theirvehicles, so they want and deserve theOE parts that were designed by BMWon all their repairs.”

With a 95% first-fill rate on parts,MacLeod’s department can be the go-to source for all BMW parts in GreaterSan Francisco Bay Area. “If any cus-tomer wants something we don’t havein our inventory of more than 5,000part numbers, we can get it withinhours, in most cases. With two dailydeliveries from our distribution centerin Stockton, CA, every part is simplyhours away. Knowing that we haveaccess to this huge inventory makes useven more effective, because wewon’t ever adversely affect our bodyshop customers’ cycle times. TheseBMW drivers don’t want to be with-out their cars for very long. Plus, theinsurance companies are always mon-itoring the body shops’ cycle times aswell, so it’s an important factor totheir success. If a parts department hasa part, but it takes too long to get it tothe customer, things like price aren’tas important, especially with thisbrand.”

Weatherford BMW’s Parts Department’s Dedication to Wholesale

Weatherford BMW’s Wholesale Reps (from left) Jon Hoke, Rey Gar-cia and Guy Duggins have more than 50 years of cumulative industryexperience and in excess of 16 years on average.

Parts Manager Chuck MacLeod is a lifetimeBMW veteran, who started working forWeatherford BMW back in 1975

Retail Counterperson Thomas Stevenson is committed to finding theright parts right away for his walk-in customers at Weatherford BMW

Lexus of Pembroke Pines, FL, Named 2012 Lexus Certified Collision Center of the YearStandox® has congratulated Lexus ofPembroke Pines in Florida for beingnamed the 2012 Lexus Certified Col-lision Center of the Year.

The national award is based on a12-month measurement of customersatisfaction, sales growth, manager,estimator and technician certification,facility and equipment requirements,and benchmark achievements. Nation-wide, there are 233 Lexus Dealerswith 16 dealers realizing the power ofthe Lexus Certified Collision Centerprogram and that competed for theaward.

“At Lexus of Pembroke Pines, weare dedicated to providing our cus-

tomers with a luxury customer experi-ence, which includes maintaining

Lexus industry cer-tification bench-mark standards.Being named the2012 Lexus Certi-fied Collision Cen-ter of the Year is anhonor and I amvery proud of ourteam,” said BrianMartin, collisioncenter director.

As the 2012

Lexus Certified Collision Center of theYear, Lexus of Pembroke Pines wasfeatured in a Lexus TV spotlight,which aired on February 11, 2013.

Lexus of Pembroke Pines has beena proud user of Standox® since 2009.

“We wish to congratulate Lexusof Pembroke Pines on being named the2012 Lexus Certified Collision Centerof the Year,” said Matt Robertson,DPC sales director–North America.“The award is a testament to BrianMartin and his team’s strong commit-ment to providing their customers withquality vehicle repairs.”


750 Potter Street, Berkeley, CA 94710www.weatherfordbmw.com

Weatherford BMW

Weatherford BMW

www.weatherfordbmw.com(800) 995-9269

(800) 995.9269(510) 841.5996 Fax(800) 995.9269(510) 841.5996 Fax

Toll Free:Toll Free:

[email protected]

Over $1 million parts inventoryExtremely Knowledgeable Parts CrewOur fleet of vehicles will get your order deliveredwhen you need itAt Weatherford BMW we are 100% committedto your complete satisfaction

Original BMW Parts and Accessories

by Janet Chaney, Exclusive toAutobody News

“Taking Control of Your Future” wasthe motto of the 2013 Bi-Annual Con-vention and Technology Exhibition

sponsored by the Indiana Auto BodyAssociation in Indianapolis, February22–23. This two-day convention was asolid mix of collision repair technol-ogy, education and industry issues.

The freezing rain that hit Indi-anapolis the night before didn’t slowdown this show one bit, althoughMike Anderson, who was scheduledto open the show Friday morning, gottrapped in Toronto by the storm.

IABA ExecutiveDirector and man-ager of the Con-vention, TonyPasswater, tookover and gave theevent a great start.

The conventionwas held at theLincoln Collegeof Technology, aperfect venue forthe event. Over 65vendor boothspopulated the

main hall and educational programswere in the classrooms. The IndustryPanel Discussions were built into theTechnology Exhibition. “The successof this event was a joint effort betweenthe Indiana Auto Body Associationand Lincoln College of Technologyinstructors and staff,” said Passwater.“I can’t thank themenough for its suc-cess.”

The showopened with TonyPasswater deliveringthe theme “The Fu-ture Is Not LockedIn Stone.” The meet-ing moved right into

a panel discussion “The Future of theCollision Repair Industry,” which fea-tured, Nick Notte, Sterling Auto BodyCenters, Jim Keller, 1Collision, TimAdelman, ABRA and Erick Bickett,FIX Auto. These industry leaders col-lectively represented MSOs, insurer-owned shops, networks and franchisesspeaking very candidly about theirbusiness models and the future of the

industry.Discussion cen-

tered around thecurrent market shiftand action steps tomeet new businessdemands. A fewpoints from thisdiscussion: Therewill be more strate-gic alliances withinsurers and shops;insurers may fundconsolidators; costof training needs tobe addressed withthe insurers; MSOsoffer insurers a pre-

dictable outcome such as a valuable sin-gle point of contact, call centers, etc;lower costs; marketing is more impor-tant than ever; insurers looking for lesscost of claim, LAE (Loss AdjustmentExpense); help carriers reduce LAE; in-dependent shops use their entrepreneur-ial spirit; shops need to offer apredictable outcome; shops need towork on their SOPs and be consistent.The question asked by one panelistsummed it up, “What are you doing toprepare yourself?”

Ray Gunder, of Gunder’s AutoCenter, Lakeland, FL, Larry Cer-nosek, Deer Park Paint and Body,Pasadena, TX, Greg Coccaro, NorthState Custom, Bedford Hills, NY, andWade Ebert, American Auto Body,Springfield, IL, filled the next paneldiscussion, “Taking Back Control ofYour Business.”

Aaron Schulenburg, ExecutiveDirector of the Society of CollisionRepair Specialists, introduced the pan-

elists and asked them to talk abouthow they got started in the businessand how things have changed. The en-trepreneurial spirit was truly repre-sented on this panel.

Greg Coccarorecounted how heand his brother bor-rowed $500 andstarted fixing cars,primarily foreigncars. They built asuccessful state-of-the-art collision cen-ter based on theircommitment to their customer and ex-ceptional work. This shop is now aMercedes-Benz Certified Collision Re-pair Center serving New York’s pros-perous Westchester County.

Ray Gunder described his lovefor the business and in the late 1960’sstarted his own shop, which is nowGunder’s Auto Center, a large andsuccessful collision center. Ray’s wife,Deannie, and two adult children,Travis and Jodi, work with him tocarry on the 40-year Gunder tradition.

Wade Ebert’s Dad had a particu-lar love for Corvettes. He started fix-

ing them but one day he noticed, “Allmy friends grew up and are drivingstation wagons.” That was the begin-ning of American Auto Body. Ebert

said “I decided to take a shot and workwith my old man.” He is now the sec-ond generation at American.

Larry Cernosek from Pasadena,TX, graduated from college with a de-gree in marketing and communication.However, an injury halted his career.When he received a $3,000 settlement,Cernosek bought a $2,000 pickup andstarted towing cars. That was in 1975.He now owns Deer Park Paint and Bodyand Cernosek Wrecker.

The speakers on this panel were allindependent shop owners and brought a


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Indiana Convention & Exhibition Takes Control of the Future: “What are You Doing to Prepare?”

Tony Passwater, Executive Director of the Indi-ana Auto Body Association, opens the 2013Bi-Annual Convention and Technology Exhibit

Rich Evans, fabricator, customizer and Autobody News columnist,gets the students’ attention at the Indiana convention

See IABA Convention, Page 60

Great crowd at the Indiana Convention

“Thank you for beingpioneers in the in-dustry and comingto Indiana,” saidAndy Tylka to theTaking Back ControlPanel. Tylka owns 3shops in Indiana.

Tim Adelman,Executive Vice-President ABRA,talks about CAFEStandards, ABRA’sshared manage-ment approach andthe importance ofmarketing andstaying close toinfluencers

PPG will hold its annual spring MVPBusiness Solutions Conference April7–9, at the JW Marriott Camelback inScottsdale, AZ. This MVP Conferencevenue in the desert will provide ad-vanced business thinking and innova-tive solutions to PPG customers.

In keeping with PPG’s tradition ofexemplary and relevant programming,the conference has a notable lineup ofwell-known, motivational keynotespeakers, pertinent seminars and in-teractive workshops all focused onaiding attendees with improving theircollision center performance. Theconference is structured to give par-ticipants exposure to fresh approachesfor advancing their competitive capa-bilities.

“We are committed to helping ourcustomers create a competitive advan-tage in the marketplace,” says JimBerkey, PPG, Director, MVP Busi-ness Solutions. “The industry is everevolving and becoming more complexso it is essential that we develop andoffer our customer partners opportu-nities to gain insight and exposure tothe latest business practices that willdevelop leadership, talent and a cul-

ture that drives continuous, measura-ble and market-driven improvement.”

The comprehensive conferenceschedule is highlighted by prominentkeynote speakers: Sasha Strauss,George Avery and Steve Gilliand.

In his address titled “Branding101/Brand Strategy Essentials,”Strauss, Managing Director at Inno-vation Protocol and Adjunct Professorat USC’s Annenberg School for Com-munication, where he teaches BrandStrategy, will talk about why brandsmatter, who they matter to, how youcan build them into your marketing,advertising and public relation strate-gies.

Avery, State Farm’s spokespersonto the collision repair industry, is anAuto Estimating Consultant, past Na-tional Auto Body Council Presidentand current CIC Chairperson andwell-recognized industry leader. Hewill present an overview and perspec-tive on how the industry landscape ischanging, the possibilities and howState Farm is restructuring to adapt tothe “Industry Headwinds.”

With his characteristic humorousand reality-tested technique (“you’re

not burned out if you’ve never beenlit”), Gilliand delivers his trademarkedand profound presentation titled“Enjoy The Ride™.” This keynotespeaker will challenge you personallyand professionally. From the beginningwhen he shows the audience how to ig-nite their passion to the end with hiscompelling challenge to never loseyour focus, he releases an “explosionof enthusiasm” that is absolutely con-tagious. Fasten your seatbeltas Gilliandoutlines a roadmap for success.

Some of the breakout sessions in-clude:• “Digital Marketing = More Cus-tomers, More Revenue and MoreProfit” where attendees will learnabout the importance of strategy be-fore tactics, 12 powerful digital mar-keting tools and why marketing is aprocess;• “Creating a culture of peak perform-ance and achieving greater results,”focuses mainly on the managementpractices that will create a culture ofpeak performance. This energetic, hu-morous and content-rich presentationis guaranteed to provide you withpractical knowledge on creating a cul-

ture of peak performance and achiev-ing greater results;• “X-Ray Estimating® “An Ace upYour Sleeve,” is a session which of-fers an approach to improving your re-pair cycle time and hours per dayperformance but in a different wayfrom X-Ray Repair Planning®.

The conference is open to ownersand managers of collision centersusing PPG Refinish products. MVPconferences are biannual events andkey components of PPG’s ongoingcommitment to provide advancedbusiness thinking and innovative so-lutions to its MVP customers.

The conference commences onApril 7 with leisure activities that in-clude the Randy Dewing MemorialGolf Tournament or relaxing at the JWMarriott spa or pool followed by awelcome reception.

Prospective attendees are encour-aged to visit www.ppgmvp.com forcomplete conference information andregistration details. Additional infor-mation about PPG MVP Business So-lutions and future conferences mayalso be obtained by calling (866) 237-8178.

PPG Will Hold Annual MVP Conference April 7–9 in Scottsdale


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Triumph and pitfall stories of today’swaterborne initiative are in front ofour eyes and ears every day. One thingwe do know is that by lowering theoverall VOC (volatile organic com-pounds), waterborne painting hasminimized harsh chemicals that flashoff into the atmosphere and yourworkspace. It has also improved thecuring process by drying more uni-formly coat-by-coat compared to sol-vent-based paints which can takeweeks to dry. This eliminates dim-ming of color (due to the primer, baseand clear coats curing together) overtime. Waterborne has also seen bettercoverage with fewer coats using lessmaterial.

The issues with waterborne paint‘come to the surface’ very quickly. Thethinking is that since less material isused, this will save cost on a job. Manyhave found that while the waterbornepaint is more expensive, if the job isdone right the first time, those poten-tial savings are realized. However, anew problem has arisen in the chem-

istry of a paint job—The Dew Point ofthe compressed air stream. With sol-vent-based paints, water droplets werealways an issue, dripping out of a fit-ting onto a panel once it was nearly

complete. Even someone using a high-powered air sander in a prep stationwith an overflowing water separatorcould dump the week’s water collec-tion onto a surface.

Nearly all the paint manufacturessuggest a single-digit relative humid-ity (RH). Figuring out relative humid-ity isn’t as much as a science asmeteorologists make it out to be. It isthe Dew Point of the compressed airdivided by the temperature of thecompressed air. Taking that informa-tion, it looks like there is a simple wayof achieving the single digit RH. Heat-ing the air sounds easy, but there aretwo big factors to consider: Air hasterrible heat transfer capabilities (it’sused as an insulator in double panewindows), and the human hand startsto get sensitive at temperatures of100°F and will burn at 140°F. The log-ical conclusion must be to lower thedew point of the compressed airstream.

Desiccant pots or air dryers havebeen used for years for removing hu-midity from compressed air whenusing solvent-based paints. The mediaacts like a sponge adsorbing humidity,and needs to be replaced when satu-rated.

The indicator window on thesepots will change color when it’s timeto change the media. Usually, people

change these when they change fromblue to pink or white. Shops also tryand use this older technology whenusing waterborne paints. One of the is-sues is the colored indicator windowswill not even start to visually changecolor until the RH is near 24%, whichis 140% out of specification. Usually,what past practice has found is if thedesiccant is changed with the colorbeing pink or white, the RH is 40%plus. This costs shops dollars in lostproduction when troubleshootingpaint issues along with slowing pro-duction down due to longer dryingtime. Painters think they have drycompressed air, but they really don’t.The only way to assure you have dryair with desiccant pots is to checkweekly with a humidity tester.

Tsunami’s solution to this prob-lem is the Ultra System—a completesystem which includes a regenerativedryer, filtration to remove liquidwater, oil and contaminates, alongwith a 80-gallon storage tank. Themedia in the towers is quite differentfrom the typical silica gel type mediasfound in the pots. Under the micro-

Claiming Potential Waterborne Profits—Tsunami’s Solution


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NASCAR Champion Jeff Gordon to Drive No. 24Chevrolet with New Imron Elite Paint SchemeFour-time NASCAR Cup Serieschampion Jeff Gordon will drive theNo. 24 Chevrolet SS featuring a newImron® Elite “Real Truck Paint”theme design in the spring race at Tal-ladega Superspeedway on May 5,2013. A preview of the new Imron®

Elite design will be revealed in theirbooth #90225 at the Mid AmericaTrucking Show being held on March21-23 in Louisville, KY.

Gordon’s historic NASCAR CupSeries career started 20 years ago atAtlanta Motor Speedway as the youngdriver burst onto scene in the rainbow-colored Hendrick Motorsports No. 24DuPont Chevrolet. The following sea-son, Gordon started to take the motor-sports world by storm. Now, 20 yearslater with four championships and 87career victories under his belt, Gordonwill race the commemorative No. 24Imron® Elite Chevrolet only one timeat the Talladega Superspeedway. Gor-don, Hendrick Motorsports andDuPont Performance Coatings are cel-ebrating their 21st full season to-gether—the longest current runningdriver/owner/sponsor partnership inNASCAR.

Gordon was successful winningthe final race of the 2012 season in the

silver 20th Anniversary paint schemeon the No. 24 Chevrolet and is hopingfor a repeat in the Imron® EliteChevrolet at Talladega.

DuPont Performance Coatingsproducts have been a constant duringthe storied career of Gordon and Hen-drick Motorsports. The new Imron®

Elite paint scheme uses the popularflame design with DuPont™ flatblack and specially formulated neonyellow, orange and red high glosspaint finishes. The unique design wascreated by NASCAR’s first officiallylicensed artist Sam Bass.

DuPont Commercial Finishes,featuring an array of Imron® prod-ucts, has earned more commercialand OEM approvals than any otherpaint manufacturer. When it comes tolasting appearance, Imron® Elitedemonstrates superior impact resist-ance and retains its gloss and mirror-like finish keeping heavy duty truckand fleet assets in service longer, andrequire less finish maintenance overtime. Imron® Elite finishes are usedon the OEM production line as wellas in aftermarket repair and mainte-nance, allowing “repair-in-kind” ca-pability to achieve an original factoryfinish that lasts.

Post Office Unveils 1967 Shelby Forever StampThe United States Postal Service isfeaturing the 1967 Shelby GT500 aspart of its new muscle car Forever®

Stamp series.

Created by award-winning artistTom Fritz under the art direction ofCarl T. Herrman, the GuardsmenBlue with Wimbledon White stripesShelby is one of five stamps in theU.S. Postal Service’s Forever® stampscollection.

“The ‘67 Shelby GT500 is one ofthe most celebrated muscle cars in theworld,” said Tracey Smith, CarrollShelby Licensing president. “CarrollShelby’s father was a postal workerand allowed him to ride around on hismail runs, so we’re excited to see oneof his automobiles being featured insuch a prestigious collection from theU.S. Post Office. It’s a beautiful tributeto the legacy of Carroll Shelby and hiscontributions to automotive history.”

The ‘67 GT500 featured on thestamp honors the original musclecar manufactured by Shelby Ameri-can. Powered by a 428-cubic-inch,355-horsepower Police Interceptorengine, the monstrous Shelby fea-tured a rear spoiler, grille-mountedheadlights and rocker panel stripes.With only 2,048 built in 1967, theShelby GT500 is both exceptionaland rare.

The 1967 Shelby GT500 is oneof five vehicles featured in the MuscleCar Forever® stamps series, whichwere unveiled at the Daytona 500 byracing legends Richard and KylePetty, and U.S. Postmaster GeneralPatrick R. Donahoe on Feb. 22. TheMuscle Car Forever® stamps are thethird issuance in the “America on theMove” stamp series from the U.S.Postal Service.

“The ‘67 Shelby is as legendaryas the man who built it, so I wanted tokeep with the traditional paint schemeand iconic look of one of the mostpopular muscle cars of all time,” saidFritz. “It was a tremendous honor tobe the artist chosen to create the Mus-cle Car Stamps. Now my work will beamong the special Forever® stampsthat people will collect and pass downfrom generation to generation.”

Industry Gives $5 Million in Support of Collision Repair Programs through Education FoundationThe generosity of the collision indus-try in supporting its’ future profes-sionals was displayed in 2012 as over$4.9 million was donated to collisionschool programs and students throughthe Collision Repair Education Foun-dation. This level of support wasmade possible through 175 totaldonors in 2012. In addition to therecord amount of support, the colli-sion industry surpassed the $10 mil-lion mark in total giving through theCollision Repair Education Founda-tion since 2008, when the organiza-tion began its philanthropic focus.

Through both monetary and in-kind product donations, the 2012 Col-lision Repair Education Foundationdonors helped to provide studentscholarships, student tool grants,school equipment and supply grants,several Ultimate Collision EducationMakeover school grants, and muchmore.

“It is a true testament of the in-dustry’s generosity and support thatthe Collision Repair Education Foun-dation provided over $4.9 million in2012 and the fact that over $10 mil-lion has been provided since 2008,”said Clark Plucinski, Collision Re-pair Education Foundation Executive

Director. “As 175 total donors pro-vided this level of support in 2012,imagine the potential of what could beprovided with even more involved.Collision school instructors need oursupport now more than ever to helpprepare their students with a technicaleducation that would best preparethem for entering the collision indus-try upon graduation. The collision in-dustry should be celebrating thesesupport numbers as I am not aware ofany other technical industry thatshows this type of support for theirschool programs. It is only throughour industry donors that are we ableto announce this level of support andwe look forward to having an evenbetter 2013!”

For additional information aboutthe Collision Repair Education Foun-dation, visit CollisionEducationFoun-dation.org.

Inter-industry organizations andindividuals who are interested in sup-porting the Collision Repair EducationFoundation in 2013 and providing as-sistance to collision schools and stu-dents should contact Director ofDevelopment Brandon Eckenrode [email protected].


Autowest Honda RosevilleRosev i l le

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Avery Greene HondaVal le jo

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Barber HondaBakersf ie ld

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Clawson HondaFresno

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First HondaSimi Va l ley

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Galpin HondaMiss ion Hi l ls

800-GO GALPIN818-778-2005

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Honda Cars of CoronaCorona

800-557-3652951-734-9045

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Honda of HollywoodHol lywood

800-371-3719323-466-3205

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Honda of OaklandOakland

510-547-8047Dept. Hours: M-F 7-8; Sat 7-6

Kolbe HondaReseda

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Larry Hopkins HondaSunnyvale

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Metro HondaMontc la i r

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Ocean HondaSanta Cruz

831-464-1800Dept. Hours: M-F 7-6; Sat 8-4:30

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Robertson HondaNorth Hol lywood800-508-3894818-301-3511

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San Francisco HondaSan Francisco415-913-5125

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Chapman HondaTucson

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Santan HondaChandler

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Tempe HondaTempe

800-571-7019480-421-4860


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www.autobodynews.comwww.autobodynews.com

AUTOMAKER, OEM, AND RECALLAUTOMAKER, OEM, AND RECALL

, ,, , ,R OEMR OEMR, OEMAUTOMAKER, OEM, OAUTOMAKER, OEM,AUTOMAKER, OEM,AUTOMAKER, OEM, OAU OM R AU OM R AUTOMAKER AUTOMAKER, OEM,O AUTOMAKER, OEM,AUTOMAKER, OEM,AUTOMAKER, OEM,O , , M M M,U U U M M MR R R E E EE E E K K K M M M T T T K K K A A A A A A E E KE A A A AK AK AK MA MA MA U U U M M MM M M R K K K O O O AUTOMAKER, OEM, DDNNNNA DDDDANDANDDDNNNNAAAAANANDNNDDAND A C EC C R L A C EC R R R C C C RE RE R R R L L L L L L A A A E E E CA CA AL AL LL LL L L R RECALLAUTOMAKER, OEM, AND RECALL

Autobody News April 2013CALIFORNIA • NEVADA • ARIZONA


Ford Motor Co. is recalling 230,000minivans because third–row seatlatches can rust and fail to relatch.

The recall of the 2004–2007Ford Freestar and Mercury Montereyminivans is in 20 ‘salt belt’ states, in-cluding Michigan, where the vehicleswere sold or registered.

Ford agreed to recall the vehi-cles in the face of a 14-month inves-tigation by the National HighwayTraffic Safety Administration.

It includes vehicles equippedwith a third-row seat. Ford said it isaware of 80 complaints but no in-juries or crashes.

In August 2011, Ford becameaware of a customer with difficultylatching the third row seat into itsseating position.

Between January and November2012, Ford and NHTSA continued anactive dialogue on this subject andconducted vehicle surveys and testing.

The recall includes about196,000 vehicles in the United Statesand 33,250 in Canada.

Ford dealers will install newthird-row seat latch striker mountingbrackets, which relocate the seat latchstrikers from the potentially corrodedarea. In addition, dealers will installoverlay panels on the exterior of thewheel wells to prevent entry of waterand corrosive elements.

The states where the vehicleswere registered or sold are: Connecti-cut, Delaware, the District of Colum-bia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine,Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan,Minnesota, Missouri, New Hamp-shire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio,Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ver-mont, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Ford Recalling 230,000 Minivans for Rust

2010–13 Legacy, 2010–13 Outbackand 2013 XV Crosstrek. The recallincludes 2,819 vehicles in Canada.

The engine may start and run for15 minutes, and the engine may con-tinue to start and stop until the batteryin the key fob dies or the vehicle runsout of gas.

The vehicles could pose a dan-ger if parked in a garage because of abuildup of carbon monoxide, whichcould cause asphyxiation.

Subaru dealers will replace thekey fobs and the recall campaign willbegin by the end of April.

Subaru noticed an increase inwarranty claims in July after a sup-plier had made a change to improvethe key fob in 2011. After issuing atechnical report in December, Subarumounted a new investigation.

Porsche is recalling about 2,263 of its2012–13 911 models because part ofthe exhaust system can fall off.Porsche said the models were the 911Carrera, 911 Carrera Cabriolet, 911Carrera 4 and the 911 Carrera 4Cabriolet equipped with the 3.4 liter,6-cylinder engine and the standardrear muffler exhaust system. The au-tomaker said its internal testingshowed the exhaust systems “do notachieve the required service life” andmight fracture, allowing the end tofall off.

Porsche Recalling 911 Models for Exhaust System

Federal safety regulators have openeda new safety investigation into724,000 Ford Escape, Fusion andMercury models over hundreds of re-ports of sudden loss of engine power.

The National Highway TrafficSafety Administration said it hasopened a preliminary investigationinto the 2009–11 Ford Escape and Fu-sion, and Mercury Mariner and Milan.

The vehicles can unexpectedlygo into ‘limp home mode’ at reducedpower, the agency said. NHTSA andFord have received almost 1,500complaints about the problem. Therewere three crashes and one injury.

NHTSA said it analyzed 123complaints about the cars or SUVsgoing into what’s known as limpmode, in which vehicle speed waslimited to 20 mph. Drivers may in-terpret the limp mode as stalling,even though the engines still movethe vehicles, the agency said. Vehi-cles usually go into limp mode whencomputers detect an engine problem.

Ford made a design change in2009 to address complaints but didnot recall the vehicles.

The Fusion and Milan are nearlyidentical cars with the same engines,as are the Escape and Mariner. Fordscrapped the Mercury brand in 2010.

NHTSA said there have been27,500 warranty claims for the issue.Ford has received more than 1,400complaints about the issue.

Feds Probe 724,000 FordModels for Stalling

Japanese automakers led by ToyotaMotor Corp. and Honda Motor Co.topped Consumer Reports’ annualauto rankings, while Detroit’s BigThree automakers lagged behind.

The magazine unveiled its in-fluential 2013 annual auto ratingsissue in Washington, saying Toy-ota’s Lexus unit was top overallbrand with all of its vehicles recom-mended, followed by Subaru andMazda— which tied for second, andToyota and Acura, which tied forfourth.

All U.S. brands were in the bot-tom half of the rankings. Fewer thanhalf of all U.S. vehicles were recom-mended by the magazine, and mostof those came from General MotorsCo.’s GMC and Chevrolet brands.

The ratings are based on feed-back from 1.2 million owners, Con-sumer Reports testing and otherfactors.

Just 20% of Ford Motor Co.’sFord models and 20% of Cadillacmodels were recommended.

Chrysler also fared poorly. Just25% of Chrysler models were rec-ommended.

Acura, Honda’s luxury brand,was the only other brand to have100% of its models recommended byConsumer Reports.

Japanese Automakers RankHigh in Consumer Reports

Hyundai is recalling certain modelyear 2012 Veloster vehicles manu-factured from July 4, 2011, throughOctober 31, 2011 and equipped withpanoramic sunroofs. The panoramicsunroof assembly may have beenweakened during installation at thefactory. If the assembly was weakendat the factory, the panoramic glasspanel may break while the vehicle isin motion leading to personal injuryor a vehicle crash.

Hyundai will notify owners, anddealers will inspect the sunroof’s in-tegrity and replace the sunroof glassassembly, as necessary, free ofcharge. The safety recall will beginin March 2013. Owners may contactHyundai at 1-800-633-5151.

Hyundai Recalling Velostersfor Sunroof Malfunction

Subaru of America is recalling 50,000vehicles in North America becausethe remote engine starter could mal-function and start the vehicle withoutwarning. The Japanese automakersaid the recall covers 47,419 vehiclesincluding the 2012–13 Impreza,

Subaru Recalling VehiclesThat Can Start on Their Own

Ford Motor Co. plans to recall 7,150vehicles built in November, includ-ing the 2013 Escape crossover, be-cause some models are equippedwith a defective child lock on the leftrear door. Also included in the recallare the 2013 Focus and C-Max cars.

The action marks Ford’s fifthrecall for the redesigned Escapesince the vehicle’s launch last year.

The company will inspect 5,638Escapes that were built in LouisvilleAssembly Plant between Nov. 14–Nov. 24, Ford spokeswoman KelliFelker said.

Ford is recalling 1,223 Focuscars as well as 283 C-Max vehicles.Both of the affected models werebuilt at Michigan Assembly Plantbetween Nov. 17 and Nov. 21.

In some of these vehicles, thechild lock on the left rear door maynot work when the driver tries to ac-tivate the locks. The driver may in-correctly believe that the locks arefunctioning properly, Ford said.

About 5,650 of the vehiclescovered by the recall are in theUnited States, Felker said, addingthat Ford was not aware of any acci-dents and injuries due to the prob-lem.

Ford Plans to Recall 7,000 Vehicles for Child Lock Flaw


Nissan Recalls Five 2013 Models for Air Bag ProblemNissan is recalling five of its 2013models in the U.S. because a faultysensor can permanently turn off thefront-seat passenger air bag. The re-call covers the Altima midsize car, aswell as the Leaf electric car,Pathfinder SUV and the Sentra com-pact. Also covered is the InfinitiJX35 SUV. The Altima is Nissan’stop-selling car with 49,000 sold thisyear. Nissan says in documents filedwith safety regulators that it hasn’tdetermined the number of vehiclesaffected by the recall. Front passen-ger seats have sensors that determinethe passenger’s weight and turn offair bags off if a child is on board. Themalfunctioning sensors can turn theair bags off permanently. Nissan saysits dealers will inspect the sensors inApril and replace them free of chargeif necessary.

Honda is recalling nearly 250,000 ve-hicles worldwide for brakes that sud-denly starting braking on their own.The problem is caused by improperelectronics and wiring in the vehicle-stability-assist system. No crasheshave been reported related to the de-fect. Honda Motor Co. said it was re-calling more than 183,000 vehicles inthe U.S., including the Acura RL,Acura MDX and Pilot models. Morethan 56,000 vehicles were recalled inJapan, affecting the Odyssey, Legend,StepWgn and Elysion models. Alsobeing recalled are nearly 8,000 vehi-cles in Canada, nearly 1,000 in Aus-tralia, about 300 in Mexico and 70 inGermany. The vehicles were producedfrom March 2004 through May 2006.

Honda Recalls 250,000 Vehices for Brake Problem

Toyota Motor Corp. is recalling209,000 FJ Cruiser SUVs becausetheir front seatbelt retractors couldfall off. FJ Cruisers from the 2007through 2013 model years are in-cluded in the recall. Toyota said thedriver and front passenger seatbeltsare mounted on the vehicle’s reardoors. If the doors are closed force-fully over a period of time, crackscan form in the door panel around theseatbelt retractor and the retractorcan become detached. Toyota said ithas received no reports of injuriesdue to the defect.

Toyota Recalls 209,000 FJCruisers for Seatbelt

The National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministrations will investigatewhether 561,000 2004–09 ToyotaPrius hybrids have defective steeringshafts. NHTSA said it will decidewhether to grant a defect petitionclaiming the steering column linkagewas improperly assembled. Toyotahas issued two recalls for steering is-sues in the Prius. In November, Toy-ota recalled 669,000 2004–09 Priusvehicles to replace the steering shaftextension assembly. Toyota said dueto insufficient hardness of the exten-sion shaft, parts that connect the ex-tension shaft to the steering gear boxmay deform if the steering wheel isfrequently and forcefully turned tothe full-lock position while driving ata slow speed. In 2006, Toyota re-called 170,000 2004–06 Prius vehi-cles because the intermediate shaft inthe electric power system can crack,which could result in a loss of steer-ing control.

NHTSA May InvestigatePrius over Steering Shafts

Chrysler is spending more than $1billion to build paint and body shopsfor the Sterling Heights plant in sub-urban Detroit. The projects will add a1 million-square-foot body shop anda 425,000-square foot paint shop tothe plant. Construction is expected tofinish this year.

Chrysler Spends $1B onPaint and Body at Plant

Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionnesaid the next-generation 200 has beendelayed until January. The 200 hasbeen a strong seller. Its sales rose 44percent in 2012 to 125,476 units,making it the automaker's best-sell-ing car and fifth-best selling name-plate. Sales through the first twomonths of this year are up 21 percentto 20,292 units.

On March 1, the company saidit had a 68-day supply of Chrysler200s.

Chrysler 200 Redesign to beBuilt in January, 2014

Chrysler is telling owners of about2,500 Dodge Challenger muscle carswith V-6 engines not to drive them be-cause a short in a wiring circuit can setthem on fire. Owners also are beingtold not to park the cars in a garage ornear a structure until the problem can

be fixed. The cars are from the 2013model year and have V-6 engines. Theywere made during the eight weeks thatended Jan. 24. Chrysler didn’t identifyexactly where the short occurs, but saidit’s in a place that most owners wouldnever see.

Chrysler Tells 2500 Owners ofChallengers ‘Fire Risk’


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Edward “Randy” Bevis, 90, whoowned Bevis Auto Body in Alexan-dria, VA, for four decades, died Feb.16 at Inova Alexandria Hospital. Hehad pneumonia, his daughter JoyGilstrap said.

Mr. Bevis opened his businessin 1949 and sold it in 1989. From thelate 1940s to the early ’60s, heowned an Esso gas station in Alexan-dria.

Edward Randolph Bevis wasborn in Rocky Mount, NC, andmoved to the Washington area as aboy. He graduated from Mount Ver-non High School and served in theArmy in Europe during World WarII.

In 1971, Mr. Bevis, his son, EdBevis Jr., and two other boaters wererescued after being lost at sea offNorth Carolina’s Outer Banks forthree days. Their ordeal was reportedon the front page of The WashingtonPost.

Mr. Bevis was past president ofthe Washington Auto Body Associa-tion. His wife of 35 years, IreneLewis Bevis, died in 1982. Survivorsinclude his wife of 19 years, LoisAnsel Bevis of St. Petersburg, FL,and four children from his first mar-riage.

Edward “Randy” Bevis

The Society of Collision Repair Spe-cialists and the Collision Repair Ed-ucation Foundation ask industrymembers to support their local sec-ondary and post-secondary collisionschool programs, students and in-structors. Now more than ever, in-structors need the industry’s help toensure their students are fully pre-pared to work within the collision in-dustry after graduation, SCRS said.

SCRS and the Education Foun-dation suggest the following waysthe industry can help and participate:• Host a collision class field trip toyour business • Volunteer on their advisory board • Mentor a student for potential fu-ture employment • ‘Adopt’ the school’s collision pro-gram and sponsor several minorprojects to help provide a more pro-fessional atmosphere for the students(i.e. new epoxy floor coating, freshcoat of paint on the walls, studentwork uniforms, etc.)

For more information findingcollision school programs near you,and what type of assistance needed,please contact Director of Develop-ment Brandon Eckenrode at [email protected].

SCRS, CREF Ask Industry toSupport Their Local Schools

In 2012, the Virginia State Police In-surance Fraud Program received1,976 notifications of suspected in-surance fraud. 459 cases wereopened, which is almost twice thenumber opened in 2011. They made383 arrests for insurance fraud andother related offenses—a 66% in-crease over 2011.

Court-ordered restitution wasmore than $3 million in 2012, thesecond highest amount of restitutionordered by the courts since 2001.This brings the total of ordered resti-tution since the program began in1999 to almost $18 million. Sus-pected false insurance claims re-ported to the Insurance FraudProgram—both attempted and col-lected—topped $147 million.

Since the program has been op-erating, more than 19,000 referralshave been made to the Virginia StatePolice, 4,574 fraud investigationshave been initiated, and agents havemade a total of 2,468 arrests for in-surance fraud and related crimessuch as arson and forgery. The Vir-ginia State Police investigates sus-pected fraud in property/casualtylines of insurance, as well as sus-pected workers’ compensation fraud.

VA Police Make 383 Arrestsfor Insurance Fraud in 2012 Anthony Francis Fisher, 86, a resi-

dent of Chincoteague, VA, passedaway at his residence on Saturday,Feb. 9, 2013.

Mr. Fisher was in auto body re-pair for many years and was in theUnited States Coast Guard duringWorld War II.

He was predeceased by hiswife, Thalia Juanita WhealtonFisher; and a son, Mark Fisher.

Born on Sept. 6, 1926, inWilmington, DE, he was the son ofthe late Henry Fisher and BarbaraMerkel.

He was member of St. AndrewsCatholic Church on Chincoteague.

He is survived by his children,Anne Arnold and husband, James,of Disputanta, VA, and DeloresKaminski and her husband, Edward,of Northeast, MD; a daughter-in-law, Roberta Fisher of Herndon,VA; two sisters, Barbara Austin ofCarolina Shores, NC, and TheresaSewell of Lewes, DE.; seven grand-children; six great-grandchildren;and several nieces and nephews.

A funeral service was held onFeb. 15, at St. Andrews CatholicChurch. Interment is at St. Peter’sCemetery, Pilottown Road, Lewes,DE.

Anthony Fisher Obituary

by Ed Attanasio

In the automotive paint industry, manu-facturers are eager and willing to helptheir customers in areas such as produc-tion, recordkeeping and cost analysis.But now forward-thinking companieslike PPG are reaching out to help job-bers and body shops in their marketing,advertising and media-buying efforts.

Launched in April 2012 for dis-tributors and body shop customers, thePPG Marketing on Demand websitewas created to perform a wide rangeof marketing functions—website de-velopment, the creation andproduction of advertisingand marketing materials, andother tasks to help clientsgrow their businesses andestablish a presence in theirparticular markets. PPG de-veloped the website in con-junction with Brandmuscle,a marketing software andservices firm based in Chicago.

“We are passionate about helpingour distributors and body shops to suc-ceed,” said Cristina Fronzaglia, man-ager of marketing communications,

PPG Automotive Refinish. “Our goal isto help our customers gain a competi-tive edge with their online and offlinemarketing programs. By teaming upwith Brandmuscle, we’re able to assistour customers in executing the types ofmarketing programs that are oftenavailable only to larger organizations.”

Marketing Director Lori Alba isproud of the program PPG invested infor its customers. “PPG wanted to pro-vide its distributors and body shopswith a user-friendly, web-based toolfor creating marketing materials on-demand,” Alba said. “We reached out

to PPG sales reps, distributors andbody shops to find out what theywanted and needed in order to growtheir businesses. With our researchand experience and their feedback, we

were able to create a site that acts as aone-stop marketing resource.”

Alba has additional insight on bodyshops and their marketing needs be-cause her husband manages a large bodyshop in Ohio.“There are thousands ofshops out there with little timeand limited budgets and evenfewer resources to focus onmarketing and advertising. Weknew we had to create a sitethat PPG distributors and bodyshops could use easily andquickly. By making the naviga-tion straightforward and pro-viding features like a workcenter where customers cansave and later retrieve ads they’ve cre-ated, an asset library where they cangrab images and logos, and an extensivehow-to section, PPG Marketing on De-mand is very easy to use.”

Shops and distributors can createhigh-quality customized ads and othertailored marketing materials with afew clicks of the mouse using PPGtemplates for use in newspaper, mag-azine, trade and broadcast advertising.

“While shops will have access tocreate materials online 24/7, they can

also reach out to the PPG Marketing onDemand support team for personalizedone-on-one help with their advertising,”Alba said. “Rather than guessing whatkinds of advertising to run or using ashotgun approach, the PPG Marketing

on Demand support center can help dis-tributors and body shops by providingrecommendations and helping to nego-tiate the best advertising rates.”

For distributors and body shopslooking to create a website withoutspending thousands of dollars, PPGMarketing on Demand can make ithappen easily and affordably, Alba ex-plained. “PPG customers can create aprofessional site at a fraction of the costof doing it on their own, and we canmaintain it for a nominal monthly fee.”

PPG Marketing on Demand Website Breaks New Ground


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The Automotive Service Association(ASA) will hold its next annual busi-ness meeting April 19-20 at the HurstConvention Center in Hurst, TX. Theagenda will include an open meetingof the ASA board of directors onApril 20. Ron Pyle, ASA presidentand chief staff executive, will delivera state-of-the-association addressduring the Saturday luncheon, and anew chairman, along with otherboard members, will be sworn in. Anopen membership forum will also beon the agenda.

All ASA members are invited toattend the open meeting on Saturday,which will be held from 9 a.m. to4:30 p.m. and includes lunch. The of-ficial registration form for the April20 events, and information abouthotel options close to the meeting fa-cility, will be available on the ASAwebsite at www.ASAshop.org.

The Automotive Service Asso-ciation is the largest not-for-profittrade association of its kind dedicatedto and governed by independent au-tomotive service and repair profes-sionals. ASA serves an internationalmembership base that includes stateand chapter groups from mechanicaland collision repair segments.

ASA Announces Details for2013 Annual Meeting

Keenan Auto Body Inc. has launcheda fundraising drive to raise money forthe National Auto Body Council’s(NABC) Operation Comfort initia-tive.

Operation Comfort was foundedin 2004 and provides opportunitiesfor wounded service members to par-ticipate in rehabilitative, adaptivesports and Automotivation, a pro-gram for wounded service membersto work on cars. The organizationalso provides family financial assis-tance and therapeutic trips.

The goal for the fundraiser is toraise $1.5 million to purchase, reno-vate and fully equip the 30,000square foot training facility that willhouse the Automotivation program inSan Antonio, TX.

“We believe in this program andappreciate the opportunity to giveback to those who have given somuch,” said Mike LeVasseur, pres-ident and chief operations officer ofKeenan Auto Body. “We have movedforward by equipping all 11 of ourlobbies with donation pads and freestanding posters that depict exactlywhat the program is all about. We arealso matching dollar for dollar every-thing that we raise.”

Keenan Launches OperationComfort FundraiserIn four separate transactions,

ABRA Auto Body & Glass, a Min-nesota-based vehicle repair com-pany, announced the acquisitionof two corporate repair centersand the opening of two franchiserepair centers in four states. Thelatest deals increase the totalnumber of ABRA repair centersnationally to 95 company-ownedlocations and 46 independently-owned franchises for a total of141 in 16 states.

The four newly acquired repaircenters are located in Omaha, NE;Wilmington, NC; Lebanon, TN; andClearfield, UT.

“There is no doubt we are in ac-celerated growth mode and are ded-icated to following through on ourlong-term expansion and acquisitionplan,” said Duane Rouse, Presidentand Chief Executive Officer ofABRA. “We are focused on the fu-ture and fully expect to increase ourbusiness opportunities while ex-panding our national footprint innew and existing markets.”

“Not only are we are gaining mo-mentum, but it is full steam ahead,”said Tim Adelmann, ABRA’s Exec-utive Vice President of Business De-velopment.

ABRA Opens Four Centers

Claims Vice President Pam Overtonof Allstate Insurance has joined theCollision Repair Education Founda-tion Board of Trustees. The organiza-tion’s Board of Trustees consists ofindustry members who provide guid-ance in the organization’s efforts tosupport secondary and post-sec-ondary collision students nationwide.The Board selects recipients of the or-ganization’s annual student scholar-ships and tool grants, in addition tothe naming the winning Ultimate Col-lision Education Makeover schools.

“I’m excited to be a part of sucha forward-thinking and well-re-spected group of Trustees,” Overtonsaid. “In this role, I’ll have thechance to influence the industry’s fu-ture and I look forward to that op-portunity and working with such adistinguished group.”

Overton began her Allstate ca-reer in Houston, TX, in 1981. She’sheld several claim positions and lead-ership roles. Her most recent posi-tions include: Vice President,Tech-Cor Research; Senior Manager,Allstate Auto Claims; Claim FieldDirector, Southern Region; VicePresident, Claims Property; and VicePresident, Claims Auto.

Allstate’s Overton Joins Education Foundation Board

The average used-vehicle wholesalecost rose above $10,000 in January,the Automotive Dealer ExchangeServices of America reported, butused-vehicle shoppers may soonfind a bit of price relief.

Used vehicle wholesale pricesrose 1.3% compared to last January,in part because so many cars weredestroyed last fall in SuperstormSandy, the Detroit News reported.

But wholesale prices—theprices dealers pay at auction, whichare much less than actual used-carresale values but provide a basis forprice comparison—should soften inthe months ahead, much like theydid during the latter half of 2012,said Tom Kontos, executive vicepresident and chief economist ofADESA in a report.

The average wholesale price ofused cars rose 1.1% to $9,082.Crossover prices jumped 1.7% to$13,568. Truck prices fell 0.2% to$9,961. The average wholesale priceof full-size vans continued to surge;the average price is now $10,116.Mid-size car prices leaped 4.2% to$8,365. January sales of certifiedused vehicles were up 14.9%, ac-cording to Autodata Corp.

Used Vehicle WholesalePrices Up 1.3% in January

ABRA Auto Body & Glass, a Min-nesota-based damaged vehicle repaircompany recently announced theirClinton, IA, repair center has earnedthe prestigious President’s ClubAward for Excellence.

The annual award honors top2012 performing ABRA repair cen-ters across the country for excellencein operations, leadership, customerservice, and overall sales. The Clin-ton ABRA franchise is independ-ently owned by John McEleney ofMcEleney Chevrolet-Buick-GMC-Toyota.

Mark Wahlin, ABRA’s VicePresident of Franchise Develop-ment, said, “John McEleney is a fan-tastic business owner whoepitomizes the ideals of leadershipand ABRA values and brand name.We are extremely pleased to presentthis award to him and his entire teamin Clinton.”

For franchise opportunities insmall and midsize markets, contactMark Wahlin, Vice President ofFranchise Development and Opera-tions ([email protected] or763.585.6315).

ABRA plans to continue ex-panding in the years ahead.

ABRA Auto Body & Glass inClinton, Iowa, Wins Award


The Society of Collision Repair Spe-cialists (SCRS) has donated 245memberships to secondary and post-secondary collision school programsthrough the Collision Repair Educa-tion Foundation, a $73,500 value.Through the general membership do-nation, each school will receive a win-dow decal, membership certificate,access to SCRS member informationand all association communications.

SCRS Executive Director AaronSchulenburg noted, “Supporting ourindustry’s education system is an in-tegral part of our association’s mis-sion to educate, inform and representthe collision repair professional. It isour hope that the schools and instruc-tors will take advantage of the infor-mation and resources, to help educatetheir students on the activities takingplace within the industry, and that thestudents will foster an appreciation forthe support structure that exists withinthe industry, once they enter the work-force.”

Collision Repair Education Foun-dation Director of Development Bran-don Eckenrode noted, “I would like tothank SCRS for their support of theCollision Repair Education Foundation

and the secondary and post-secondarycollision school programs that our or-ganization works towards assisting na-tionwide. Many collision instructorsare facing limited budgets and throughworking together with industry organ-izations like SCRS, we can show theeducators of the industry’s future pro-fessionals that we care and are lookingto keep them current on industry infor-mation. I look forward to working to-gether with the SCRS Board ofDirectors on helping to inform theirmembers of where their local collisionschool programs are located and howthey can get involved in supporting thecollision students and instructors.”

Industry members that are inter-ested in supporting secondary andpost-secondary collision school pro-grams through the Collision RepairEducation Foundation should visithttp://collisioneducationfoundation.organd contact Director of DevelopmentBrandon Eckenrode at 847.463.5244or [email protected].

SCRS Donates General Memberships to 245 Collision School Programs through FoundationAn industry issues luncheon called

“There is No Free Lunch” will kickoff the Midwest Auto Body TradeShow, the Iowa Collision Repair As-sociation (ICRA) recently announced.

This luncheon, which will beheld on March 28 from 12 p.m. to 1:30p.m. at Prairie Meadows in Altoona,IA, will address insurance-mandatedparts procurement programs and theproposed Iowa Senate Bill 42, whichis requesting an interim study onDRPs.

Iowa Senator Brad Zaun, whointroduced the bill, and ICRA lobby-ist Scott Weiser will speak at theluncheon. The parts procurement dis-cussion will include insurance repre-sentatives, collision repairers andparts managers.

After the luncheon, the tradeshow will open at 2 p.m. and run till7 p.m. Space has been added to fa-cilitate more than 60 vendor boothsthis year. Product demonstrations andeducational classes will be held onthe stage in the same room as thetrade show.

The educational sessions willcover such topics as:• Social media• OSHA hazard communication/global harmonization rule

• Plastic repairShow specials, gift certificates,

special attendee show discounts anddoor prizes will again be offered atthe show. Also, new car models willbe on the floor for attendees to pre-view.

“The grassroots approach withour members and vendors has provento be a tremendous success for thisindustry event,” said John Arnold,vice president of ICRA and owner ofArnold’s Body Shop, Davenport.

Added Mark Martin of AnkenyAuto Body, “This is a very dynamicshow, and with everyone in the roomfor the entire event, it creates a greatatmosphere for all the participants.We all look forward to comingback.”

“This is a great venue for our in-dustry to get together and learn moreabout what we do,” said Dale Wilgen-busch, ICRA president and co-ownerof Avalon Body Shop in Rickardsville.“There is always so much to gain atone of these events.”

The luncheon costs $25. Con-tact Janet Chaney at (480) 720-2565with any questions.

ICRA Adds ‘No Free Lunch’ to Tradeshow

Joe Gibbs Racing Hosts Sherwin-Williams WorshopThe next A-Plus™ Network EcoLean™Level 1 workshop from Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes will beheld April 30 and May 1 at the Joe GibbsRacing (JGR) facility near Charlotte,NC.

Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) is one ofthe premier organizations in NASCAR,currently fielding three NASCAR SprintCup Series teams, four NASCAR Na-tionwide Series teams, and a driver de-velopment program. Its driver lineupconsists of Denny Hamlin, KyleBusch, and Matt Kenseth in the SprintCup Series and is owned by Joe Gibbs,a three-time Super Bowl winner as headcoach of the Washington Redskins anda member of the Pro Football Hall ofFame.

JGR has competed in NASCARsince 1992, winning three Cup Serieschampionships, and four NationwideSeries owner’s championships, alongwith more than 175 NASCAR races,including three Brickyard 400s and aDaytona 500.

These Sherwin-Williams exclu-sive EcoLean Level 1 workshops aredesigned to educate attendees aboutmaximizing profitability by improv-ing productivity and eliminatingwaste throughout their facilities. Theprogram is offered to collision center

owners and dealer managers.“The EcoLean curriculum was de-

veloped specifically with collision shopoperators in mind. This upcomingCharlotte workshop, held onsite at aNASCAR championship team’s head-quarters, allows attendees to really seelean production in action,” says TroyNeuerburg, Manager of MarketingBusiness Services at Sherwin-WilliamsAutomotive Finishes. “Through it theywill learn practical processes and usefultips on lean production’s application incollision repair and methods to maketheir collision shops more efficient,productive, and subsequently moreprofitable.”

The EcoLean 1 workshop cur-riculum includes:• Principles of reducing environmen-tal waste• An overview of lean production, andits practical application in collision re-pair• Approaches to making the collisionfacility more efficient and consistent• How to build a lean culture from theground up

To register online for the upcom-ing Charlotte A-Plus UniversityEcoLean Level 1 workshop, go tohttp://www.regonline.com/Regis-ter/Checkin.

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by Ed Attanasio

He’s an artist, a painter, a car cus-tomizer, an automotive builder, ateacher, the author of five books, apaint manufacturer and the creator ofa stunning finish for hundreds ofbreathtaking vehicles and thousands ofcustom motorcycles, including eightcars and six motorcycles featured atSEMA shows. His name is Jon Kos-moski, the founder of the House ofKolor® in Minneapolis, MN, and eventhough he’s 75, the man still builds in-credible cars and travels throughoutthe country to teach new and veteranpainters how to do it Kosmoski-style.

Kosmoski’s current role and im-pressive legacy in the automotivepainting industry through sevendecades starting in the late ‘50s hasearned him titles of “master,” “legend”and “icon.” Companies all over theworld clamor to work with Kosmoskithrough either sponsorships or otherprojects, and that’s why SATA, thepremier manufacturer of paint sprayguns, is proud to say that this amazingpainter uses its products and no other.

Jon Kosmoski established the

House of Kolor® 57 years ago, longbefore he was a world-renowned cus-tom painter. As a 19-year-old studentstudying automotive repair, Kosmoskirebuilt a ‘40 Chevy Coupe and took itto the best shop in town to have hisbaby painted. “When I got that carback, I wasn’t happy at all,” Kosmoski

explained. “The paint job wasn’t whatI had expected. If this is the best carpainter in town and this is what they’regiving me, I was disappointed. Ithought I can do better than this. So, Itook night classes on paint and colli-sion repair and jumped into it prettyquickly.”

Within a short time, Kosmoski

was known throughout Minneapolisfor his skills as a custom painter. Heloved being creative and producingoutstanding cars and motorcycles, buthe wasn’t enamored with the challeng-ing lacquers and enamels of the late1950’s, because he discovered thatthey would easily sun-fade or cold-crack. He experimented and absorbedvaluable information like a paintsponge, because Jon Kosmoski isn’tafraid to learn as much as he can aboutany subject that will help him to do abetter job.

Kosmoski wanted something su-perior to apply to the numerous carsand motorcycles that were now flyingthrough the doors at the House ofKolor® in the early 1960s. “I startedworking with a polymer chemist toproduce custom paints that wouldn’ttarnish or crack and perform well de-spite all of the other problems I wasencountering with existing products.There was nothing out there even closeto what I wanted, so I had to invent it.I started using organic pigments wayback in 1963, while most paint manu-facturers were using only inorganicpigments.” With his new paint and by

constantly honing his painting skillsand tapping into his zeal for creativityand innovation, House of Kolor® be-came a household name by the mid1970s.

In 1996, the House of Kolor® was

purchased by the Valspar AutomotiveCoatings Division. Today, Kosmoskiis still involved with House of Kolor®

in a 12,000 square-foot shop with“Tebo” his electrician, fabricator andmechanic. Jon produces 4–6 cars ormotorcycles for car shows and maga-

Jon Kosmoski—Painting Legend Uses SATA Guns Exclusively


Jon Kosmoski’s 1967 Ford Mustang got a lotof attention at SEMA in 2004

Jon Kosmoski pictured here with his SATA4000 B RP, the only spray gun he uses on hisaward-winning cars and motorcycles

zine covers every year, while travelingworldwide to teach his painting tech-niques. He’s known for many things,but has become one of the leading ex-perts on candy paint. One of his trueloves is helping painters to learn whathe’s discovered over 55 years in thisindustry, he explained.

“Our unique product line givescustom painters the flexibility to usetheir creativity and skills to design, in-vent, and create “one-of-a-kind” cus-tom paint jobs that last, Kosmoskisaid. “That’s why I love this business,because creating a one-of-a-kind paintjob requires a combination of techni-cal skill and artistic ability. I enjoypassing all of my knowledge and ex-perience in my training classes, sothat’s very satisfying.”

With a plethora of award-winningvehicles created over the years, Kos-moski cites a handful as his most no-table—all of which starred on theshow floors of SEMA shows over a12-year period. “I would say that my1967 Mustang with a matching motor-cycle; 1934 Ford 5-window coupewith a 383 in it; 1948 InternationalPickup, which was unveiled at theSEMA Show in 2008, and our 1932Ford Roadster—those are the ones

people seem to like the most.”After experimenting with a wide

range of different spray guns for manyyears, Tony Larimer, the director ofsales & marketing at Dan-Am Com-pany, exclusive independent distribu-tor of SATA in USA, gave a few of hiscompany’s guns for Kosmoski to usein 1999. When he got his hands on SA-TAjet 2000 B RP (no longer in pro-

duction) he quickly became a seriousSATA supporter.

“Tony said try this gun and let usknow what you think,” Kosmoski said.“That 2000 RP really turned my headand I rarely say that about any prod-uct! I loved the way it handled almostimmediately. Right then and there I de-cided to start using SATA guns exclu-

sively. I used that 2000 for a while, andthen when SATA came out with the3000, I changed over. The 3000 wasover-the-top and SATA really steppedup with that gun. Now I use the 4000 BRP, their newest gun and it is excep-tional.”

To kick off their association in2000, SATA and Kosmoski worked to-gether to produce a signature specialetched jet blacks two-gun set. Only500 were produced and they were soldquickly, but you can still find a fewused ones on sale now and again overthe Internet.

Larimer values SATA’s relation-ship with Kosmoski and the House ofKolor® for many reasons. “We’re gladto be associated with Jon because heuses our guns exclusively and teachesother painters about how to sprayusing SATA guns,” Larimer said.“He’s more than an impressive partner,because he’s also my friend of 15years. We talk almost weekly and hispassion for what he’s doing is conta-gious. When people meet Jon for thefirst time, they always come away say-ing wow—what a fascinating anddriven guy and still going nonstop atage 75! He has the energy of six peo-ple. It’s unbelievable.”

Having a visionary like Kosmoskion the SATA team is important, be-cause Jon offers feedback all the timeabout the company’s products andtheir capabilities, Larimer said.

“One of the things I love aboutJon is that he’s an unlimited source ofinformation. Some artist/painters keepa lot of their tips and techniques secret,but Jon loves to share his knowledgeto anyone that wants it. At SATA, wealways listen to our painters, so that wecan use their input for our next gener-ation of products.”

Why does Kosmoski covet hisSATAjet 4000?

“I’ve been working with this gunfor almost three years now and it’s abeautiful gun. It gives me a very uni-form pattern and I’ve learned that Idon’t need to apply so much pressurewith the 4000—only about 26–27 PSI.I am a heavy-handed painter by nature,when it’s required and the 4000 worksgreat when I need to go that way.

“Also, this gun saves money byimproving my efficiency and usingless paint, while getting a glossier andcleaner look.

“I’ve been teaching painters for 35years now, and I train everyone on aSATA.”


The right part makes the difference.

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This 1948 International refinished by Jon Kos-moski was unveiled at SEMA in 2008

I wrote an article a few months ago fo-cusing on inefficiency within bodyshops. That is, inefficiencies that aremost commonly associated with therepair process. If it takes you sevendays to repair a vehicle and the shopdown the street could have done it infive days, you’ve just cost everyonemoney.

I recognize that all shops should-n’t be painted with the same broadbrush but in my view, if you’re ineffi-cient you’re guilty by association. Be-cause of inefficiencies, insurersunnecessarily spend money every daythat could have been used to lowerpremiums or offset the impact of a rateincrease. Yes, most insurance compa-nies are profitable, but it’s not as a re-sult of all the great deeds and serviceprovided by body shops.

Most shop owners believe thatinsurance companies are penny-pinch-ing Scrooges looking to take controlover the shops and the industry. Thatviewpoint is shortsighted. We try tocontain our losses by working withshops to ensure estimate accuracy(also known as taking control of theshop). And we also try to find way forshops to be more efficient in the esti-mate and repair process (also knownas taking control of the industry). Torecap the obvious, we will do what-ever is necessary provided it is not il-legal or completely unethical.

I’m certain some of our businesspractices are less than ideal but thefacts are the facts. Shops would not beas advanced as they are today if itweren’t for insurance companiesleading them in the right direction. Wetry to help make you more efficientbecause when you aren’t, we lose andso does the vehicle owner. So do you,as the shop owner.

How does the vehicle owner losebecause of your inefficiency? The in-convenience of being without their carfor a few additional days is just the be-ginning. It can also lead to an increasein our customers’ premiums. Unfortu-

nately, our customer won’t associatethat increase in premium to an ineffi-cient repair industry riddled withunder-performers. They blame insur-ers for the rate increase.

The end result is that any addi-tional unnecessary expense in the re-pair of a vehicle costs us money. Howdo we account for the additional ex-pense? The only way we can. We passalong that cost through premiums.What do most consumers do whenthere is a price increase? They look forquotes from other carriers and we po-tentially lose a customer. For some,that’s just free enterprise, but for indi-vidual insurers, that’s a lose, lose andlost scenario.

There is another area that can havean even more profound impact on ourmutual customer: customer service.Back in the day, all shops were sup-posed to do was fix the car. Customerservice was something you received ata hotel or from a switchboard operator.

Even though the industry has evolvedsignificantly, shops are still better atfixing cars than at servicing the cus-tomer. That’s where inefficiency andlack of process as it relates to customerservice can be devastating to an insur-

ance company. AndGod help us if yourmanager or estima-tor doesn’t like us.It shows in the cus-tomer service re-sults.

I would arguethat poor customerservice indirectlycosts insurers moremoney than a fewdays of rental orextra hour on an es-timate. While we

don’t like to admit this publicly, webelieve you are an extension of us.Our customers spend more time inter-acting with you than they spend with

us. We can deliver outstanding cus-tomer service but if you do a poor jobof it, we are going to pay for it. Inshort: We need you to be more effi-cient.

So that’s a look at what bothers in-surance executives. You may not carebecause you have more pressing issuesthat require your attention besides ap-peasing the ‘rich insurance companies.’

The wish of every major insurancecarrier is fairly simple. First, a high-quality, timely and a cost-effective re-pair should be assumed from aprofessional operation. Insurers should-n’t have to monitor, correct, scold, chas-tise or force accountability in order tohave it done right the first time.

More importantly, we wish shopswould value customer service as muchor more than they care about the ac-tual repair. Inefficient or lack of cus-tomer service processes hurts all of us.That’s something that none of us taketo the bank.


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with The Insurance InsiderInside Insurance

The Insider is a corporate-level executive with a Top 10 auto insurerin the U.S.. Got a comment or question you’d like to see him addressin a future column? Email him at [email protected]

sentatives and convened other colli-sion industry segments to discuss crashparts and parts procurement policy.

Some collision repair organiza-tions such as Washington MetropolitanAuto Body Association (WMABA)worked closely with Delegate Fisher

in drafting the language.“We are one hundred percent in

support this bill,” said WMABA Ex-ecutive Director Jordan Hendler, to atrade media source. “We have alreadybeen in contact with several consumerand automobile dealer groups whowill also stand with WMABA in sup-port of this measure.”

The bill has been referred to theHouse Committee on Economic Matters.


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by Robert Keppel,Applied Colors

Ever had a customer bring you theirscratched car and ask, “I can’t pay youto make it PERFECT, butcan I pay you to just make itlook BETTER?”

Here’s a little trick formaking this type of customerhappy, and pocketing a quickprofit. I used to do this at myrepair shop in Beaverton,OR, where we called it theUltimate Touch Up.

First, if you’re going toattempt Touch UP, make sure

it meets the following criteria:1. The car’s paint color is not lightmetallic. No silver, no gold, no light

blue, no light green.2. The damage is not to a hor-izontal surface. Only touchup vertical surfaces, includ-ing doors, fenders, and quar-ter panels.

Here’s how to execute theUltimate Touch Up, step bystep:1. Mix an oz. of the car’spaint with .25 oz. of cat-alyzed clear. Stir.2.Apply to the scratch with a

thick brush. Be sure to fill above thesurface of the scratch.

3. Cure for 10 min. with infraredlamp.4. Spray with water to cool and solid-ify paint.5.Wrap 1000 grit sandpaper around asolid, flat surface. A firmfoam sanding block or acredit card works well.6. Wetsand in an “x” patternuntil the touch up paint islevel with the panel. Be care-ful not to “dig in” with yourfingers and burn the clear!7.Wetsand by hand the entirearea with 1500 grit sandpa-per.8. Remove paint scratches

with electric polisher: com-pound and wool pad.9. Polish with foam pad.

In 60 minutes, you have aflat, hard-to-see repair that thecustomer can live with. Wenever had an unhappy cus-tomer who chose the UltimateTouch Up.Robert Keppel is president

of Applied Colors, (www.ap-pliedcolors.com), a Tigard,OR, company that producesthe ScratchOut paint touch

up system. It allows auto body shopsto touch up minor paint damage forhalf the time and cost of using theirprimary paint rack.

How to “Touch Up” A Scratched Car in 60 Minutes and Make $95


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by Bob Klem, PaintEx

In the past couple of decades, shopshave engaged in a process that yieldsthem more profits than ever before.When I say more, I mean shops aremaking reasonable profits compared tothe archaic method of a false dollaramount times a manipulated labor ratefor painting a panel. This is supposedto cover your costs of utilizing thepaint and materials necessary to re-store the damaged vehicles you workon. We all know there is only one en-tity benefiting from the above reim-bursement method: insurers.

There are three steps involved ingetting paid properly using myPaintEx system:

1. Make sure there exists an “es-tablished contract of repair” with thevehicle owner-customer. That puts youand the vehicle owner in the No. 1seat.

2. Make sure you have an “as-signment of proceeds” similar to “as-signment of benefits” that which youcommonly sign for medical treatment.You must be first in line to get thatcontract signed. This is not an author-

ization to repair, it’s a contract.3. Stop using the words “fair” and

“estimate” and the latest, newest word“calculator.” It means nothing morethan any other word that insurers in-vented and can manipulate to theirown benefit. Stick with “cost account-ing” under the GAAP rules—(thesame rules that brought Enron to theirdemise.) Cost accounting is enforce-able and it is working as we speak. If itends up in small claims court, we arewinning an estimated 97% of the time.The judges are catching on to thegame.

I am not going to argue the prosand cons to the benefits of using an as-signment of proceeds but will stateusing it can be a powerful tool that getsthe job done.

Let us focus on the collision repairshop as a “subcontractor” put in themiddle between an insurance com-pany—third party payer and the vehi-cle owner-customer whom the shopdoes not want to lose as a customer.(Get the contract signed first.)

The insurer will try to use wordtracks, sentences, even single words:“fair” and “competitive” or “all we

owe is” and more, but remember, any-one can make a case that something is“fair” so eliminating that one word andreplacing it with “reasonable” takes allthe air out of their argument. PaintExdoes exactly that.

Is it reasonable or unreasonable tobe reimbursed only $1 when some-thing cost you $2? That is a no brainer.Of course it is unreasonable!

What about using the word “fair”?Think about this: getting reimbursed$1 instead of zero is fair, right? Argu-ments can be made either way and wewant you to learn how to eliminate un-wanted arguments and simplify themethods of getting properly reim-bursed, so how do we plug up thathuge, big black hole of a deficit?

PaintEx is such a simple, easy-to-use, Internet-based cost accounting in-voice generating program that can betailored to fit your individual needs, oryou can use the pre-loaded programitems based upon national pricing andyou simply fill in your individual shopinformation and desired profit marginand create a professional itemized in-voice.

No “estimating”—You provide an

individually itemized invoice. Again,a no brainer when it comes to educat-ing the consumer who understands theitemized invoice.

A little education and knowledge,a few simple steps, and a PaintEx in-voice improves your bottom line whileretaining that valued customer. Even ifinsurers throw this typical curve ball:You are not being “competitive.”Comparing your shop to one down thestreet is “unfair” and “unreason-able”—You can hit that ball back intotheir court because making a profit onall of your individual shop’s paint andmaterials utilized in the course of re-pairing damaged vehicles is not a deadissue.

We have shops all across the na-tion making reasonable profits on theirpaint and materials using the threesteps and the PaintEx program.Step 1: Get the signed contract.Step 2: Start writing preliminary dam-age reports (no more estimates.)Step 3: Assignment of proceeds, (an1857 federal law.)

For more information, call BobKlem at 760-489-6600 or visit ourwebsite at www.paintex.com.

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Certified Automotive Parts Associa-tion, (CAPA) provides aftermarketparts that have been certified by CAPAto be comparable to the car companybrand part. The claim is based on thenotion that if an aftermarket part usesthe same materials, construction fea-tures, dimensions and geometry as thecar company brand part, then it can beexpected to perform in a comparablemanner to the car company brand part.

Approved by CAPA’s TechnicalCommittee in 2010, the CAPA 501Bumper Parts Standard, like all otherCAPA Standards, is based on compar-ative testing of an aftermarket part tothe car company brand counterpart.

In addition to requirements formaterial composition, mechanicalproperties (strength), construction fea-tures, fit and appearance, the CAPA501 Standard also includes a series offull part dynamic crash tests. Test partsare mounted to a vehicle simulator andare crashed into a fixed, flat, rigid bar-rier at 5 mph. After the crash, highspeed video and detailed graphs of theimpact force and deceleration are usedto compare the performance of the af-termarket part to the car companybrand part. In addition, the amount ofphysical deformation is carefully ex-amined and compared.

“While this testing is extensive

(and the complete procedure is publi-cally available), CAPA’s Board andTechnical Committee wanted to insurethat all performance characteristicswere compared in detail to the carcompany brand parts,” said JackGillis, Executive Director of the Cer-tified Automotive Parts Association.

“Because of industry concernsabout the safety-related aspects ofstructural parts, CAPA raised its ownbar—we requested that the highly re-spected Insurance for Highway Safetyconduct a series of high and low speedcrashes. The sole purpose was todemonstrate the parts meeting theCAPA requirements will, in fact, per-form in a comparable manner to thecar company brand part in both highand low speed crashes. While this mayappear to be an overly comprehensiverequirement—crash testing is complexand costly—CAPA is committed to re-assuring both consumers and the col-lision repair industry about theperformance of the parts it certifies,”added Gillis.

While CAPA 501 Bumper PartsStandard provides the industry withconfidence in the use of a CAPA Cer-tified bumper part, only one manufac-turer has chosen to submit their partsto CAPA for Certification. ProductionBumper Stampings Inc., (PBSI) a U.S.

based manufacturer and member ofthe Diamond Standard Brand Group,has 29 CAPA Certified front bumpersrepresenting over 40,000 parts avail-able in the U.S. market. “Going for-ward we anticipate the market willdemand that even more of our bumperproducts become CAPA Certified,”said Mike O’Neal, President of PBSIand Diamond Standard. “As the onlymanufacturer certified by CAPA tomeet the CAPA 501 Standards, we areprepared to meet that demand.”

“Unfortunately, the market is giv-ing aftermarket manufacturers whoproduce structural bumper parts amixed message,” stated shop ownerand CAPA Technical CommitteeChairman Mike Schoonover. “In spiteof bumper sawing demonstrations andvideos of ‘exploding’ energy ab-sorbers, shops are still using non-CAPA Certified bumpers and otherstructural parts—regardless of therisks. As long as our various industriesaccept the cheapest parts, there’s re-ally no reason for those manufacturersto produce high quality CAPA parts,despite the stated concerns about po-tential safety issues. The good news,for those shops concerned about re-ducing repair costs and protectingtheir customers from poor qualityparts, there is a CAPA alternative.”

CAPA Testing on Safety of Aftermarket Bumper Parts

I-CAR® says a study has confirmedthat training has a direct impact onperformance, including improvedtouch time, cycle time, and CSIscores and that I-CAR training con-tinues to lead as the industry standardfor performance and knowledge.

To deliver on this industry need,I-CAR has added four additional on-line courses to its course catalog: Sta-tionary Glass (GLA02e), MechanicalSystems Analysis (DAM03e), Dam-age Analysis of Advanced Automo-tive Systems (DAM07e), and WindNoise and Water Leaks (WNW01e).

John Van Alstyne, I-CAR CEO& President stated, “To fully servethe growing training needs of theInter-Industry, I-CAR has developedonline and virtual instructor-ledclasses which are convenient, effec-tive, and essential,” he continued,“That said, as our customer focusgroups have told us, quality instruc-tor-led, Live training with effectiveinstructors remains the preferred wayto learn for many, and the only wayto learn when working with more ad-vanced or complicated subject mat-ter. Therefore, Live training remainsan I-CAR priority for the ultimatelearning experience.”

I-CAR Adds 4 New OnlineCourses, Expands Training

Four Collision Industry Members Join EducationFoundation’s Leadership CircleFour collision industry members havejoined the Collision Repair EducationFoundation’s Industry LeadershipCircle through their $1,000 personalcontributions to the organization.

Domenic Brusco of PPG Auto-motive Refinish; Bill Lawrence ofLC Automotive Group; Tim Morganof Spanesi Americas; and Tim O’Dayof Gerber Collision & Glass have do-nated $1,000 personally to the organ-ization. Monetary donations to theCollision Repair Education Founda-tion assist in the organization’s effortsto support secondary and post-sec-ondary collision repair students andtheir school’s collision programs.

Domenic Brusco, PPG Automo-tive Refinish, Senior Manager of In-dustry Relations, said, “I bothprofessionally and personally believein the purpose, vision and especiallythe staff and Board of Trustees of theFoundation, and it gives me greatpleasure to give back to an industryand business that PPG supports andin which I have been blessed withmany great opportunities.”

Bill Lawrence, owner of LC Au-tomotive Group noted, “The Founda-tion’s effort to enhance technical

education and to link qualified gradu-ates to employment in our industry isa critical component of developing askilled work force for today and thefuture. My businesses and I are com-mitted to the Foundation’s work andwe are happy to contribute to its ef-forts and successes.”

Tim Morgan, Managing Directorof Spanesi Americas, said, “As aproduct of technical education my-self, back in my day it wasn’t such a‘hi-tech’ field to learn as it is today.Schools and educators are faced witha big challenge to make sure they pre-pare students to enter this industryemployable. My donation is a smallpart of what is really needed to makeour students learn, grow, and succeed!I hope others can step up and help forthe future starts today.”

Tim O’Day, President & COO ofGerber Collision & Glass said, “Ger-ber Collision & Glass supports the Col-lision Repair Education Foundation,but a critical part of the Foundation’sdonor base comes from individuals. Iam proud to show my personal supportfor the Education Foundation as ithelps to attract talent into our industryand educate our future employees.”


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You only get one chance at the first repair.Original Thought #78

• Original BMW Parts & Accessories

by Melanie Anderson

Custom painter Mitch Lanzini ofLanzini Body Works in HuntingtonBeach, CA, began his career polish-

ing and showing off his toy cars. Asa kid, for Lanzini the Batmobile onTV exemplified hot rods and customcars, and by high school he wasusing cans of spray paint on bicyclesand motorcycles. At 21, he cus-tomized his first vehicle, his ownDatsun truck, that earned him hisfirst magazine cover. Today, Mitch,54, has more than 30years experience inthe business, hasbeen featured onmany more maga-zine covers, and hasowned Lanzini BodyWorks with his wife,Tara, for 20 years.

You could sayMitch was born to bean artist. His grandfa-ther Angelo Lanziniwas a renownedpainter and sculptorin Italy. “Mitchcomes from a long line of artists in hisfamily,” said Tara. “It’s in his blood.His grandfather painted portraits fortwo U.S. presidents and was commis-sioned to paint the Pope’s portraitwhich still hangs in the Vatican today.Angelo’s three sons, including Mitch’sdad, were all artists too.”

Like a typical body shop, LanziniBody Works does collision repair andexterior custom painting work in a4,500 square-foot space. What’s notso usual is some of the other workthey do, like custom painting interior

pieces for a prototype airplane thatwill be featured in the Hamburg AirShow in Germany in March. Othercustom painting and designing jobshave included ambulances, surf

boards, guitars, race cars, bowlingpins, motorcycles, kids’ pedal cars andtheir own line of roller derby skatewheels.

However, building and restoringhot rods is their main line of business.Their two favorite projects are theirown cars, a gold 1933 Speedstar coupeand a purple 1932 Zipper Roadster. The

coupe, Mitch said, is “a piece of rollingart” because many of the parts arehandmade. After working some 300hours on the body, he spent 24 hoursstraight painting it. Over the course ofhis career, Mitch figures he’s custompainted nearly 200 show-stopping cars.

“What I love about painting carsis that it really is a true form of art.”But getting to the painting means hun-dreds of hours of prep time has al-ready been spent. “Even if you’vedone everything right, things can stillgo wrong,” said Mitch. “You’ve put so

much time into a car for so long, andwhen the day comes where you’re ac-tually mixing paint and suiting up togo into the booth, you cross your fin-gers and pray to the paint gods thatnothing goes wrong. Because thereare days when things do go wrong thatdidn’t go wrong the day before, andany painter who tells you he hasn’thad that day is a liar,” Mitch said. “Alittle speck of dust can ruin hours ofprep work. Today’s painters have to bepart chemist and part weatherman be-cause so many things can go wrong.”

His current paint preference isBASF Onyx, and for clears andprimers, he uses Young’s House ofKlear. “The gloss factor of the clearsare amazing and the other products arevery user-friendly, affordable and mixwell,” Mitch said. He also likes theuniversal flattening agent that is “out-standing.” In addition to cars, he usesthe House of Klear products on high-profile artwork he does for an expres-sionist artist because “the clear looksamazing under gallery lights.”

Between 2004–2009, the Lanzinishop was featured in the Velocity net-work TV reality show Overhaulin’

where the concept of the show was to‘borrow or steal’ an old, tired or an-tique car and restore it in one weekand return it as a surprise to its owner.The body and paint work was done atLanzini Body Works, where 25episodes of the popular car make-overshow was filmed.

“It was great to do the show, but

also really challenging because duringfilming, all the other work in our shopcame to a halt, and working non-stopmeant a lot of sleepless nights,” Mitchsaid. “On Overhaulin’, if the car wasready to paint at 2 a.m., you paintedthe car at 2 a.m. We worked throughmany sleepless nights, but as crazy asit sounds, the best paint jobs I’ve donewere done in the middle of the night

Mitch Lanzini Extends his Art from Toy Cars to Overhaulin’


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Mitch and Tara Lanzini

Mitch Lanzini in the paint booth

The Lanzini’s own 1933 Speedstar Coupe

when I was sleep deprived.”When the producers of the show

first approached Mitch with the con-cept and asked if he wanted to be in-volved, Mitch admits he didn’t thinkit was possible to completely restorea car in just one week. He thought theshow would be a train wreck but, ofcourse, he wanted in. The very firstmakeover was a Chevelle and it cameinto Mitch’s shop a mess—a baremetal body full of rust and holes.When the body work was done,Mitch spent all night painting the car,

and when the tow truck showed up at6 a.m., they sent the driver out forcoffee while they walked around the

car with heat lamps. “The paint wasstill wet when the car rolled away,”Mitch said. “It was an intense build.”And that was justthe first of many.That’s when Mitchgot the wake upcall that doing theshow wasn’t goingto be easy by anymeans, and so heasked the produc-ers to rotate film-ing amongst othershops.

A u t o m o b i l edesigner Chip Foose hosted the show,which ran for five seasons, and hasnow returned for its sixth season.Foose is Mitch’s neighbor, closefriend and also has a shop nearby.“Chip is probably one of my bestfriends and someone I respect morethan most. We always have so muchfun hanging out and working togetherbecause we’re like two little kids whojust love to create things. He’s beenaround cars his whole life too, so wehave a lot in common and a lot of funtogether.”

Some of Mitch’s celebrity cus-tomers include comedian Christo-

pher Titus who had his own FOXshow, and race car driver JimmieJohnson. However, Lanzini Body

Works gives everyone who walks intheir doors the same level of attentionand painting excellence.

“The day I know everything as apainter is the day I will retire,” Mitchsaid. “As of now, that hasn’t hap-pened, and it probably won’t for along time to come.”

Lanzini Body Works Inc.17901 Sampson LaneHuntington Beach, CA 92647Phone - (714) 375-2828Fax - (714) 375-2830E-mail: [email protected]


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A collage of pictures from Overhaulin’

1972 Torino

The U.S. government spends nearly$1 billion annually maintaining its588,000 vehicles, the GovernmentAccountability Office said in an auditreleased March 7.

In the 2011 fiscal year, the ad-ministration spent $975 million onmaintenance.

The report looked at whetherfederal agencies use original or re-manufactured parts to fix vehiclesand found that agencies have differ-ent policies on whether to use them.

Remanufactured parts are gen-erally cheaper. The U.S. Postal Serv-ice said it “relies heavily on theremanufacturing industry to sustainour vehicle.”

The U.S Postal Service’s fleet ofnearly 210,000 vehicles are on aver-age 16.2 years old, while HomelandSecurity’s 48,917 vehicles are fouryears old on average.

The General Services Adminis-tration’s fleet of 200,000 vehicles are3.5 years old on average and need farless maintenance than other fleets.

Some agencies like the FBI,U.S. Postal Service and Customs andBorder Patrol, use in-house garagesfor some maintenance and repairwork.

Feds Spend $1 Billion on Repair Bill for Vehicle Fleet


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NABC To Take Stock of Future at April Meeting The National Auto Body Council(NABC) is expanding the format oftheir April planning and board meet-ing to accommodate an agenda de-signed to help chart the future of theorganization, which strives to pro-mote a positive image of the automo-tive collision repair industry.

The meeting will take place onThursday, April 18 and the morningof Friday, April 19. It is being held atthe I-CAR Training and Support Cen-ter in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. TheNABC is trying to encourage thosewho feel strongly about the work itdoes to participate in the process, sothe meeting place has been selectedfor its convenient location just 30minutes from the O’Hare Airport,with lodging nearby. There is no reg-istration fee. The meeting will start at8:00 a.m. on Thursday and run until5:00 p.m. Matt Ohrnstein of Sym-phony Advisors, LLC will facilitatefor the first half day, as the NationalAuto Body Council assesses its cur-rent goals, determines where it wantsto be in five years, and charts possiblecourses to get there.

Thursday afternoon will consistof committee sessions providing anopportunity for all participants to be-come engaged in discussions. Friday

morning will feature committee re-ports, with a wrap by noon to accom-modate the booking of afternoonflights.

“Just as our regular board meet-ings have open attendance, so, too,does this very special event,” saidNABC National Director Chuck Sul-kala. “It’s a chance for all to voicetheir opinions, concerns and thoughtstogether with members of the Na-tional Auto Body Council. It’s a greatopportunity to see what we’re reallyall about. We look forward to seeingeveryone there.”

Rooms have been reserved at theHampton Inn in Hoffman Estates lo-cated approximately two miles fromthe meeting site. The phone numberfor reservations at the NABC rate of$79 per night is 847-882-4301.Transportation from the hotel and tothe center will be available from7:30–7:45 a.m. Thursday morning.Room reservations should be made asquickly as possible as the room blockis being held only until March 18.

If you would like to attend orhave questions, contact Chuck Sul-kala at 888-667-7433 or [email protected] or MikeMcManus in the NABC office at 414-408-4957,

NABC Ramps Up Its Social Media EffortsThe National Auto Body Council(NABC) recently announced that it isundertaking its official ‘ramp up intothe world of social media’ by invitinginterested parties to create, share andexchange industry-related informationideas on its revamped Facebook andTwitter platforms.

Craig Camacho, National AutoBody Council board member andchair of NABC’s marketing and pub-

lic relations committee, took the leadon the initiative, which includes re-newing and modernizing the look,feel and message of the NABC’sFacebook page and Twitter feed(@AutoBodyCouncil).

NABC’s Facebook page layouthas been updated to be more attractiveand inviting, including a link,www.facebook.com/NationalAuto-BodyCouncil, that makes it easier forpeople to locate and access.

Relevant content, industry news,thought-provoking riddles and, most

importantly, program updates, arenow listed on an almost daily basis.

Dates for Recycled Rides® andFirst Responder Emergency Extrica-tion (FREE) events will be listedalong with information on other cam-paign initiatives such as OperationComfort, Distracted Driving, In-Lan-guage, the Body Shop Image Awardand the Award of Distinction.

In today’s digital and onlineworld, it’s hard to imagine an or-ganization achieving successwithout embracing the benefits ofsocial media, including Face-book, Twitter, Pinterest and themany other available platforms atthe fingertips of marketers

around the world.“There is no better return on in-

vestment then when you grow youraudience organically through socialmedia and I am excited that the Na-tional Auto Body Council is now po-sitioned to make an impact in thisarea,” stated Camacho, who is also themarketing director and social mediamanager at 11-shop MSO KeenanAuto Body. “If you use Facebook,come check us out and ‘like’ the newNational Auto Body Council pagewhich will also feed into our Twitteraccount.”

The National Auto Body Councilhas appointed Renee Ricciotti, 3Mnational key account sales manager,to its 2013 national board.

Ricciotti has been a member ofthe collision industry for nearly twodecades, helping build the 3M Auto-motive Aftermarket Division acrossthe United States. As national key ac-count sales manager since 2008, Ric-ciotti has put her leadership skills andindustry expertise to work to suc-cessfully build multi-functionalteams to effectively serve 3M’s auto-motive customers.

“It’s an honor to be selected toserve on the NABC board to giveback to the collision industry,” saidRicciotti. “I look forward to address-ing industry issues on behalf of themanufacturers, distributors and storeowners I’ve worked with for 20years. I look forward to being in-volved in great NABC programs likeRecycled Rides and Automotiva-tion.”

Ricciotti joined 3M AutomotiveAftermarket Division in 1994 andhas received numerous awards forher performance, including the 3MGolden Step Award, Brick LayerAward and top sales performer.

NABC Appoints 3M SalesManager Ricciotti to Board

The Collision Industry Snapshot sur-vey remains open for new responses.

Collision shop owners and man-agers are asked to consider complet-ing the Collision Repair IndustrySnapshot Survey, which is co-spon-sored by the Collision Repair Educa-tion Foundation and I-CAR.

Through the survey results, theindustry will be able to view statis-tics on the current state of the indus-try and also to highlight careeropportunities to collision students.Only through the participation of col-lision shop owners/managers can thissurvey accurately reflect currenttrends and information on the indus-try.

An electronic tablet (retail value$400) will be awarded to one ran-domly selected respondent that suc-cessfully completes the survey. Allresponses will be kept confidentialand results will be reported in aggre-gate; respondents will not be con-tacted; and the list will not be sold orshared.

Collision shop owners or man-agers (one per location please) are in-vited to take the survey at this link:https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Collision_Industry_Snapshot_Survey.

Shop Owners, ManagersAsked to Complete Survey


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I did a little traveling this month. I gota call from Tony Passwater, the di-rector of the Indiana Autobody Asso-ciation, who organizes the bi-annualConvention and Technology Exhibi-tion which was held in IndianapolisFeb. 22–23 at the Lincoln College ofTechnology. See Janet Chaney’s pieceon the event, p. 26 this issue.

They wanted me to do an ap-pearance, which is cool, but inter-acting with the students on a projectwould be even cooler. At the end ofthe day, I wanted the students to dothe project and get the experiencewith me guiding and helping. Thechallenge the IABA came up withwas painting a truck and doingsome graphics, some flames. Butthe catch was, they wanted to do itin a five-hour period, and I thought,‘Oh here we go, these guys havebeen watching too many Car War-

rior episodes with 72-hour builds.’But we were able to work it outwhere I thought I could squeeze in apaint job with graphics in a 10-hourperiod, or worse case scenario, a 12-hour period. So, I started reachingout for the tools I would need topull something like this off. I wentto my stencil line. I have pre-drawn

out graphics, such as tribal flamesand traditional flames. I got meas-urements from Tony, which allowedme get the graphics pre-designed,pre-cut and pre-masked before Ishowed up, which would save us alot of time.

On my way to Indianapolis, Iheard there were ice storms and Ithought I’d be cancelled. However, Igot a text that said the show must goon. Luckily, I made it into Indianapo-lis. I was on the last plane in beforethey shut down the airport.

The next morning, I got a ride toLincoln College of Technology and it’sa pretty impressive school. The autobody shop had quite a few completedvehicles. Director of Operations RogerPark showed me around. They were

equipped with spray booths, tools andequipment, frame racks, etc.

What they had lined up for mewas a 1998 green Dodge Dakota. Ireached out to Vintage CollectionPaint Line by Cumberland Productsbecause they have a flat black paintthat we would be using on this proj-ect. I envisioned a two-tone flame de-

sign with a flat black look. When Ishow up, the truck is sanded in 800grit and now I am having to backtracka little bit and rethink this. I talked toBruce Barlow from Vintage Collec-tion Paint Line by Cumberland Prod-

ucts—this product is over the top, andeasy to use. They were willing to pro-vide this product to me. I asked MikeEnglish, Technical Manager, if we putdown the flats, are we able to clearover it, and what timeframe we had toclear over it? The answer was ‘yes,’we could clear over it and we had 24hours. I was jazzed about that becauseit doesn’t throw a wrench in the proj-ect. I met with the top 12 students whowere going to work along with me.They also had bleachers set up for theother students. I started with the ba-sics and interacted with the students,and asked them what they were think-ing. I said we could utilize the lines onthe truck and make it look real cool.We had to take few more parts off thetruck. I brought out the flames and Ihad them lay them out and get cre-ative. I also gave the students someideas and then let them run with it.There was no reason for me to do itfor them. It was about them doing it.


Sharing the Love of Custom Painting with Students at Lincoln

Custom Cornerwith Rich Evans

Rich Evans is the owner of Huntington Beach Bodyworks and an award winning painter andfabricator. He offers workshops in repair and customization at his facility to share his uniquetalents. For contacts and design samples visit www.huntingtonbeachbodyworks.com

So, we get started and I am feelingpretty good about the pace we’re at. Allthe students at the Lincoln College ofTechnology were really into the proj-ect and excited about it. I gave them alittle direction and let them get in-volved hands-on so they can walkaway and say, “Hey, I did that.” We’repacing pretty good. Five hours in, wehave it masked and ready for color. Thestudents are working well together.These guys are getting creative, run-ning flames over the shaker scoop anddown the sides, in the back. I broughtsome reverse stencils so we could putmy Rich Evans Design series logo onthe truck. They made their way into thebooth and get it all masked up, tightenup a few places to get the maskingdone right. We’re using SATA sprayguns with 1.3 tip. Using Vintage flatblack paint, we walked around it twoand half times. I let each individual stu-dent get a little bit of spray time in toget a chance to put some color on it.We’re now about 8 hours in and we’recalling it quits for the day. We have a24-hour window with the clear to comeback and clear over the flat black withno sanding necessary.

In the morning, the students de-mask it, go back around it and pre-

clean it, sand out the blowthrough thatcome underneath the tape with 800grit, and tighten up the graphics andget it masked up. With a 1.3 RP gun,the goal is to walk around it with threecoats. But we’re in a time crunch,nearing about 10 hours in, and I hadto jump on a plane in a couple hours.We were able to walk around it threetimes in 25 minutes because theheated booth allows you to move a lit-tle more quickly. Students mixed theclear, and everybody worked together.In 12 hours, we got a flame job, a two-tone complete paint and re-assembled.

The facility and the staff werephenomenal. I had a great visit andinteraction with the students, the up-coming next generation into the in-dustry.

I’d like to thank IABA for havingme come out, and special thanks to theguys from Vintage Paint! For more in-formation about Vintage, go to:www.cumberlandproductsinc.com.


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CARSTAR Promotes Rick Miller and Melissa Miller(no relation) to Leadership RolesCARSTAR Auto Body Repair Expertshas promoted field service managersRick Miller and Melissa Miller (norelation) to leadership roles within itsfield service and operations depart-ment.

In addition, CARSTAR also re-cently appointed Dean Fisher asvice president of service and opera-tions for the U.S.

Rick Miller, who joinedCARSTAR in 2007 as a regionalservice manager and most recentlyserved as director of field servicesand operations, has led the imple-mentation of the CARSTAR ServiceEDGE model across the country.

With his promotion to assistantvice president of the department, hewill manage the execution of strate-gic business initiatives for theCARSTAR stores, guiding the com-pany’s team of regional service man-agers and leading stores as theyembrace key programs.

Previously, Miller worked withCarter & Carter International in Eu-rope and North America since 1998.He started his collision career in Ger-many as a refinish apprentice thenmoved back to the U.K. to manage

dealer body shops and import recon-ditioning centers.

Melissa Miller has been pro-moted to director of field services andoperations. She joined CARSTAR in2004 as a project manager in Fran-chise Integration, after working as theoffice manager and marketing direc-tor in her family’s collision bodyshop —Randy & Bob’s CARSTAR inChicora, PA,—from 1999 to 2004.

She served as regional servicemanager for Pennsylvania in 2006and was appointed senior regionalservice manager in 2009. She is ac-tive in the Women’s Industry Net-work (WIN) and serves on thecommunications committee.

“Our field service team membersare the connection to our store own-ers, and their leadership, experienceand expertise in working with our net-work are essential to our success as anorganization,” said David Byers,CEO of CARSTAR. “We are proud topromote two members of our fieldservice team who have consistentlydemonstrated the commitment to ourstores, a passion for the industry and atrue understanding of what it takes tosucceed in this business.”

by Mitchell staff

Mitchell, a provider of technology,connectivity and information solu-tions to the Property & Casualtyclaims and Collision Repair indus-tries, recently released predictions fortrends related to cloud computing andbig data analytics that could affect theinsurance industry throughout 2013.

Focusing on trends expected toimpact an ecosystem that includes re-pair and body shops, insurance com-panies, claims adjusters and payers,Mitchell is forecasting experiencesworkers’ compensation, auto casualtyand auto physical damage profession-als could undergo this year.

“In today’s fast paced, competi-tive business landscape, there is in-creased pressure on the insuranceindustry to think creatively about theservices they offer and how thoseservices are delivered to maintain acompetitive edge,” said Erez Nir,CTO at Mitchell. “Cloud computingstrategies have been popular in the IT-focused environment. We have em-braced cloud computing at Mitchell,in the way we deliver software-as-a-service to our customers as well as inhow we consume our own businesssystems. Beyond the core competen-cies our industry has, in part due to thecomplexity and change 2013 willbring, we expect the industry to con-tinue to deploy various cloud and bigdata strategies to help overcome busi-ness and technology challenges.”

The broad industry and specificpredictions from the company’s coreAuto Physical Damage, Auto Causal-

ity and Workers’ Compensation divi-sions include:

Large-scale trends:More attention will be given to lever-aging complex data sets: The ability toincorporate data from multiple sources,such as different areas of a business orbusiness lines, and combine them withexternal data sources to enable moreintelligent decision-making will be-come central to business operations. Inaddition to addressing the complexitiesof big data (e.g. volume, velocity anddata management), companies will ex-plore how to incorporate ancillarysources and more sophisticated combi-nations of data sets to get an edge onthe competition.

The demand for cloud computingwill increase: In 2012, adoption ofcloud platforms and services contin-ued to increase along with interest in asingle environment and partner forcloud computing technologies. In2013, insurance carriers will begin toconsolidate cloud computing vendorsand realize the benefits of workingwith a single provider, such as stream-lined and accelerated deployment ofnew offerings, reduced operationalcosts, and improved data exchangeand information sharing.

Micro trends:Recycled parts prices will decrease: Wewill see a softening of salvage vehiclevalues globally in 2013. As the Euro-pean debt crisis continues to outpaceour own, the Euro will further softenagainst the US dollar. This will make itmore expensive for Europeans to pur-

chase US-based salvage vehicles, re-ducing demand. An additional factorimpacting salvage values is the in-crease in the annual rate of new carsales, expected to hit 15 million for2012. Combining these factors with the250,000 total loss vehicles expectedout of Hurricane Sandy will depresssalvage car values in 2013. For con-sumers, this means that there will be anincrease in the availability of recycledparts for vehicle repairs at a lower cost.

The average industry cost to repairauto collision damage will increase.This will occur, in part, to the softeningof salvage values, putting more border-line vehicles in the ‘repairable’ columnrather than ‘total loss’ and an overall in-flation of labor, parts and paint in 2013.This will also occur from an increase inthe cost of raw materials (such as paintmica and chemicals) as well as plasticsand steel prices. In addition, we expectto see an increase in average hourlybody shop labor charges if the economycontinues to recover in 2013.

There will be a rise in healthcareePayment solutions: More carriers willuse ePayment systems to gain a com-petitive advantage. They will work with

the provider community to be betteraligned with changes in healthcare reg-ulation that promote eBill, eRemittanceand ePayment through electronic fundstransfer (EFT). ePayment systems pro-vide the capacity to substantially lowertransaction expenses, decrease the bur-den on adjusters and call centers, andenable similar benefits to accrue tomedical provider trading partners.

There will be increased attentionon keeping out-of-network costs down:Despite increased efforts to direct in-jured workers to network providers,many state regulations or employerprograms offer the flexibility to useproviders of their choice, which putsworkers’ comp insurance payers in thechallenging out-of-network territory.Therefore, such payers will leveragethird-party negotiation services to settleout-of-network claims. Tapping into anoutside team of skilled negotiators willhelp workers’ comp insurance payersand providers reach mutually benefi-cial agreements. The negotiationprocess will be accelerated, and insur-ance payers will achieve an average of30–40 percent success rates in negoti-ating out-of-network charges.

Mitchell Releases 2013 Insurance Predictions


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The Boyd Group Inc. recently an-nounced the opening of a new repaircenter in Washington and one inFlorida. The Boyd Group now oper-ates 181 locations in the U.S.

The center in St. Cloud, FL, isapproximately 26,000 square feetin size. It was part of the 11 centersacquired with The Recovery Roomacquisition in November 2012, butwas closed for approximately ayear prior to the acquisition. It hasnow reopened and operates underthe Gerber Collision & Glass tradename.

“We welcome the reopening ofthe St. Cloud location, which willserve Orlando and Kissimmee sub-urban area customers. This center issituated in an attractive location with

good visibility for those traveling onthe E. Irlo Bronson Memorial High-way,” said Tim O’Day, Presidentand COO of the Boyd Group’s U.S.operations.

The center located in Stanwood,WA, is approximately 4,500 squarefeet in size and previously operated asTwin City Collision. With this addi-tion, the Boyd Group owns and oper-ates 14 repair centers in Washington.

Gerber Opens New Centers in Florida and Washington

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Autobody Newson Facebook

scope, it looks more like honeycombor porous with the beads being verysmall—many more beads fill the samespace, greatly increasing the surfacearea. The dryers work by flowinghumid air through one or more towersfor a predetermined time. The con-troller on the dryer will switch theflow from the tower being used to anew tower which has been regener-

ated or dried out. The drying cycletakes a small amount of air flowingfrom the new tower and reverse flowsthrough the wet tower, causing themedia in the tower to dry out. Youcould compare this to replacing orchanging out the older style desicantpots every few minutes. These sys-tems are completely self-containedand include a built-in bypass so theneed for additional airline plumbing ina shop has been eliminated. The 80-gallon storage tank allows for storageof ultra clean dry air, adding storage

capacity to your air system. Up to fourbooths and prep areas can be run offof one system, reducing the amount ofequipment and installation costs foreach area. The Ultra systems also pro-vide an indicator message as to whento change the coalescing pre filter.This is generally the only requiredmaintenance and can be done in a fewminutes.

Painting is a critical process re-gardlesss of whether you are stillpainting with solvent or have switchedto water; and every time you squeeze

the gun you need to have exactly thesame result. By having the ultra-drylow single digit clean compressed air,you will save many dollars in in-creased production or throughput inyour shop as well as eliminating qual-ity issues or rework.


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Waterborne Profits

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by Melanie Anderson

Kindig-It-Designs owner DaveKindig started drawing cars when hewas five years old. Self-taught in allaspects of custom car building, Kindiglaughingly says, “I have a design andengineering degree from Legos andHot Wheels.”

Today, Kindig-It-Designs em-ploys 17 people after 14 years in busi-ness in Salt Lake City, UT. Kindig, 42,is a custom car builder, designer andpainter. “We do all aspects in-house—everything from design, chas-sis engineering, body and paint, sheetmetal fabrication, electronics, audio,graphics and custom suspensions,” he

said. Kindig described his shop as aone-stop custom and restoration facil-ity.

“Our forte is not just street rods,or one style of car,” Kindig said. “Wedo cars from any era. We prefer to docustomizing. We work on late modelvehicles as well as the earlier musclecars and street rods back from theearly ‘30s.” On average, the shop isworking on about 34 cars at any giventime, many of which are long-termprojects.

As a young man, Kindig’s passionstarted with VW Beetles. “Istarted off buying Volkswa-gens and chopping the tops,taking tops completely offand making Roadsters out ofthem.” Playing around withthe early Volkswagen Bee-tles snowballed into biggerand better cars, although hestill loves the VWs because it’s hisheritage. Currently, he has a baremetal finished VW that he’s still work-ing on that he says will be a “radical

piece” once it’s finished, a combina-tion of old and new.

With a life built around cars, onewould think Kindig would have sev-eral custom cars of his own, but thatisn’t so. “That’s the funny part aboutit. I’m like the shoemaker that neverhas time for his own shoes,” he saidlaughing. His only completed customcar is a 1961 VW shortened wheel-based dune buggy. “After 14 years inbusiness, I believe that is first car Iever built and finished for myself. Ilive vicariously my hot rod dreamsthrough others’ wallets since I don’thave time for my own.”

By age 20, he was rebuildingVWs and working across the street

from High Per-formance Coatings.He admired the carsthat were pullinginto that place andthe owner fre-quently borrowedKindig’s forklift.One day the ownerof HPC asked himwhen he was goingto come work forhim, and soonKindig started anew career thatlasted more thaneight years. Hestarted off sand

blasting and ended up traveling acrossthe country helping with marketing,operations and national sales. “It was agood opportunity for me. I saw theworld and met a lot of racers and topbuilders.”

However, Kindig never gave updrawing. Eventually, his renderingstacked up on his office wall caught theattention of those in the industry andhis hobby became a side business,then a career.

“I figured out that working 60hours a week for someone else wasn’t

really cutting it. It wasn’t exactly whatI wanted to do,” he said. The amountof work he had with the renderings,painting cars out of his garage and

selling parts on the side allowed himto quit his full-time job with HPC andstart his own business, and Kindig-ItDesigns was born. It started out of hisgarage with barely 1,000 square feet.That only lasted a little more than two

months before he moved into a 4,500-square-foot space for two-and-halfyears before moving into 9,000 squarefeet. Five years later, the shop addedanother 9,000 square feet. Recently,Kindig signed a two-year lease optionto buy the entire 27,000 square foot

building, of which he subleases 6,000square feet to an upholstery shop andwindow tinting business.

Kindig loves his work, but “It’snot like work. It’s like a good-payinghobby. I go to work every day and I

get to sit in my drawing office if I de-sire to and just sit here and draw. It’sbeen very rewarding. It’s calming, andit’s exciting. When I talk to a clientabout building a car, usually the veryfirst thing we do is a rendering. Withina couple minutes, I’m already driving

From Hot Wheels to Hot Rods: Kindig-It Designer Works for Fun


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RX-8 2012

Dave Kindig at work in his design studio

1964 Cadillac Coupe Deville Convertible built for speedskater Apolo Ohno

1932 Ford Tudor

this car up and down the street, imag-ining what it would look like. Youwant to build a car to somebody’s tasteand by adding your flare and playingoff the customer’s taste, I build a car

that’s very unique. Each car is differ-ent. It is something that will be time-less and classic, it will stop peoplewalking through a show. I love to putthe details into a car and a lotof design flavor.”

His favorite project is awhite 1968 Mustang called‘The Boss’ and is well-known in the show industry.

His most famous cus-tomer is Apolo Anton Ohno,a gold medal Olympic speedskater who commissioned

Kindig to rebuild a 1964 Series 62Cadillac Coupe DeVille that was fea-tured on Hot Rod Television on theSpeed Channel.

Currently, the shop is working ona 1953 GM Parade ofProgress FuturLiner Bus, oneof 12 originals. Of these 12originals, nine are still in ex-istence: one burned up, onewas rear-ended, and oneended up being used for partsand is no longer trackable, ac-cording to Kindig. This bus,No. 3 of the series, is over 11feet tall, 8 feet wide and 33feet long and only seats three.The driver sits in the center,

10 feet in the air. The doors are 16 feetlong and the interior includes a stair-case. Most of the structure needs to berebuilt, and Kindig-It used computer-

generated scanned 3D schematics tomeasure all dimensions of the vehicle.

Kindig said these vehicles arevery sought after and that one of theseremaining vehicles sold for $4.2 mil-lion at Barrett-Jackson in 2008. He

added that his shop has received a lotof national attention because of the ve-hicle. The owner of the #3 FuturLineralso found another original and hascommissioned the shop to rebuild itfrom scratch, updating the replicatedversion with a full modern drive train,modern electronics, smoke machineand air driven doors. This one will be

used for tradeshows.One of Kindig’s favorite products

is PPG paint. “PPG is a great productfor us. I am really impressed with theirclear coats, and the way they link upin a baking situation is obviously more

modern. The colors offer good cover-age, and I like the ability to custommix colors and have the backing ofPPG as far as knowledge to makingbalanced formulas.”

Kindig-It Designs has devel-oped two of their own colors, called‘Kindig-It Cool Clay’ and ‘BadTomato.’


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SEMA Exhibit Summit Takes Place April 15–17 inLas Vegas, 7 Months Prior to Nov. 5–8 ShowSEMA Show exhibitors may partici-pate in the SEMA Show ExhibitorSummit, a unique conference de-signed to help them improve perform-ance at the upcoming event.

Taking place in Las Vegas, NV,on April 15–17—seven months priorto the actual SEMA Show—the Ex-hibitor Summit is the ideal place fornew and established exhibitors tolearn how to maximize the return ontheir investment.

SEMA 2013 takes place Novem-ber 5–8, in Las Vegas, NV. For details,visit www.SEMAShow.com.

“The summit is the best place forour team to connect with exhibitors andexplain the many programs and serv-ices available to them,” said PeterMacGillivray, SEMA VP of eventsand communications. “During the sum-mit, there are no distractions or inter-ruptions. We’re able to spend qualitytime and give exhibitors a really clearunderstanding of the different resourcesthat are available to them.”

MacGillivray notes that a key as-pect of the Exhibitor Summit is thatworkshops and individual meetingsare conducted by SEMA staff andshow organizers. “It’s important to us

that exhibitors know who to contact,and that their contact is someone whoknows and understands our show,” hecontinued. “Since the Exhibitor Sum-mit takes place seven months beforethe actual event, we’re able to buildon the relationships as they executetheir plans for the show.”

Topics addressed during thesummit include cost-effective ways toset up a booth, resources available totarget buyers, value-added programsand more. Participants may sit downin one-on-one sessions where Showexperts evaluate and analyze the ex-hibitor’s unique needs to help reduceexpenses, and they are able to tour theconvention center.

To make it easy and affordable formanufacturers to attend in the summit,SEMA and its hotel partners offer a lim-ited number of hotel rooms for the sum-mit at no cost to participants. All mealsat the Summit are included as well. Par-ticipants are responsible for travel to andfrom Las Vegas and incidental hotelcharges. Certain conditions do apply.See www.semashow.com/exhibitor-summit, or can be obtained from KatePeterson at [email protected] 702/216-5831.

WIN May 5–7 Conference to Focus on RecruitingThe upcoming Women’s IndustryNetwork (WIN) Educational Confer-ence will focus on recruiting talent tothe industry.

“We know attracting talentedpeople to the collision repair industryis a hot topic,” said Tina Clark, co-chair of the WIN Conference. “Un-derstanding the myriad sub-issuesrelated to recruiting, such as how toattract the best talent, and legal con-siderations during the interviewingand hiring process, enables our mem-bers to be smarter employers, man-agers and employees.”

This year’s WIN EducationalConference is scheduled for May 5-7in Phoenix, AZ.

WIN recently announced thekeynote speakers who will present atthe 2013 WIN Conference.

The general session of the edu-cational conference will feature au-thor and motivational speaker SusanFowler, who will present the confer-ence theme, “Empower the LeaderWithin.” Fowler has more than 15years of advertising, sales, productionand marketing experience, and en-courages finding the balance and con-nection among professional, personaland spiritual lives.

Day two of the conference will

feature Barb Moses, who will present“Empower the Leader Within by theObserver Becoming the Observed.”

“We are proud to unveil the 2013WIN Educational Conference themeand agenda,” said Jessica Voss-Kehl,co-chair of the conference planningcommittee. “Conference attendees canexpect to be inspired and educated onempowering the leader within them-selves, as well as how to help supportand develop the leaders in others. Theycan also anticipate engaging dialogueon careers, hiring and retention in ourindustry, along with hearing what thefuture holds with our emerging trendsand technologies panel discussion.”

To help welcome new women tothe industry, WIN is offering severalscholarships to attend the conference.

WIN is offering six Student Con-ference Scholarships to students en-rolled in a secondary or post-secondarycollision repair technology program.Each scholarship recipient will receivea one-year WIN membership, paidWIN Conference fee, and free hoteland travel to the conference.

WIN is also offering scholarships toemployees of collision repair busi-nesses, including technicians, officeemployees and administrators.

different message to the audience, rep-resenting the backbone of the inde-pendent collision repairer. A few keypoints from this discussion: Understandwho you are and what you want to do;You have to rely on yourself to makechanges in yourbusiness; Knowyour own labor rate;Do not rely on theinsurance esti-mate—it is not theblueprint of repair;Meet your legisla-tors; Meet your In-surance Commissioner; Charge forprocedures; If you don’t ask you don’tget; You’re going to have trouble swal-lowing a warranty when you don’t getpaid for the procedure.

Gunder has taken an aggressivelegal approach in Florida to get com-pensated for the work his shop per-forms. Greg Coccaro’s lawsuit withProgressive ended this year in Greg’sfavor. The Texas Insurance Commis-sioner personally visited Larry Cer-nosek’s shop because he wanted to

meet the man who sent in so manycomplaints to his office. AmericanAuto Body was awarded an out-of-court settlement by State Farm in1999.

At the end of this discussion,Schulenburg asked them one lastquestion, “Are you more successfultoday?” Each man said ‘yes’ but allsaid it is not any easier, although per-

sonally they are satisfied with whatthey do. Ebert’s reply encapsulatedthe speaker’s sentiments: “There isgreat satisfaction in knowing whole-heartedly that you work for the peo-ple that put the keys in the ignition.”

In addition to these two informa-tive panel discussions, this conventionoffered technical training classes by I-CAR, Car-O-Liner, Chief, Matrix andAllData. Rick Leos from Toyota gavea class introducing Toyota’s ground


IABA Convention

The Indiana Convention Trade Show Floor. Over 65 vendors participated,showing wares to over 600 attendees

See IABA Convention, Page 62


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Sherwin-Williams Introduces Body Shop Phone Appfor ConsumersMore than 5.3 million. That’s howmany vehicle accidents there were inthe U.S. in 2011, according to the Na-tional Highway Traffic Safety Ad-ministration. If you were involved inone of these, then you know the con-fusion, stress and potential trauma thatcan occur right after a collision.

Now Sherwin-Williams Automo-tive Finishes introduces anew Body Shop App forconsumers to utilize in casethey are involved in a trafficaccident. The new mobilephone application providesusers with all kinds of infor-mation and contact access.

The new app will pro-vide immediate access to the user’sfriends and family contacts, insurancecompany or agent, vehicle identifica-tion data, local emergency services(police, fire, ambulance, and hospi-tals), geographic location of the acci-dent and even tips of what to do ifinvolved in an accident. It is capableof retrieving the contact informationfor nearby towing services, Sherwin-Williams A-Plus™ Network bodyshops, and car rental locations.

“Any time you’re in an accident,it’s a very stressful occasion. Fortu-

nately, most drivers now have theircell phones with them. This new appwill supply drivers with the data andcontact information through their cellphone to make the entire post-acci-dent process go as smooth as possi-ble,” says Troy Neuerburg, Managerof Marketing Business Services atSherwin-Williams Automotive Fin-

ishes.According to Neuerburg,

this mobile phone app alsocan help drivers prepare anaccident report and sharephotos from the scene of theincident. The new app is freefor consumers and can bedownloaded for iPhone users

at Sherwin-Williams iPhone App or forGoogle Android users at Sherwin-Williams Android App, or by going towww.sherwin-automotive.com.

Using GPS data, the Sherwin-Williams Body Shop App is compati-ble with most smart phones anddevices, including Blackberry,iPhone, Nokia/Symbian, Google An-droid, Palm, and Microsoft Windowsmobile platforms.

For more information, visitwww.sherwin-automotive.com or call1-800-SWULTRA (1-800-798-5872).

SEMA has hired industry veteranMike Spagnola to fill the newly cre-ated position of VP, OEM & ProductDevelopment Programs. Spagnolabrings with him 40 years of specialtyauto parts experience, including morethan 20 years of product developmentand project vehicle work.

Spagnola will oversee the newSEMA Product Development Centerlocated adjacent to the SEMA head-

quarters in Dia-mond Bar, CA.The building hasa history of serv-ing as a vehicletechnology cen-ter, giving SEMAthe opportunity tooffer these serv-ices without hav-

ing to start at ground zero.Whilebased in Southern California, theseprograms and services will be avail-able to SEMA members everywhere.

“The SEMA Product Develop-ment Center is going to be an amaz-ing resource for SEMA members,”Spagnola said. “I’m excited to be apart of the expansion.”

“We’re excited to have Mikejoin SEMA in developing servicesthat help members with product de-

velopment and OEM initiatives,” saidChris Kersting, SEMA Presidentand CEO. “SEMA’s vehicle technol-ogy and OEM programs, led by JohnWaraniak and Bill Wolf, haveproven to be extremely beneficialover the years.”

Spagnola’s experience includesretail, distribution and manufacturing.Most recently, he served as Presidentfor Street Scene Equipment where hemanaged the company’s day-to-daybusiness for 16 years. His project vehi-cles have been featured on the coversof more than 50 enthusiast magazines,and honored with more than a dozendesign awards from various OEMs.Spagnola has also completed six yearsof service on the SEMA Board of Di-rectors, a position from which he re-signed effective with his new role as astaff member.

“Through the use of new tech-nology and partnerships, manufac-turers can develop products faster,more accurately and less expen-sively than ever before. Programssuch as SEMA’s Technology Trans-fer, Rapid Prototyping and VehicleMeasuring Sessions can all be en-hanced to help our member compa-nies make and sell more products,”said Spagnola.

Industry Veteran Mike Spagnola Joins SEMA

Mike Spagnola

breaking Predictive Estimating Sys-tem. Mike Anderson spoke on “Out-sell Upsell and Close.” Rich Evans,well-known TV star of Car Warriorsand other shows, packed the housewith his ‘Vehicle Custom Layout andDesign’ demonstration which was ofparticular interest to the younger col-

lision students attending.George Avery, Claims Consult-

ant with State Farm Insurance, andDale Sailer, VP Business Develop-ment with PartsTrader, gave an up-date of that pilot program. AaronSchulenburg commented, “One ofthe problems the industry is havingmay be because this is a mandatoryprogram.” State Farm does requireSelect Service shops to use Part-sTrader. The program is not yet sys-

tem wide. The pilot program is stilldeveloping in five different areas ofthe country.

Over 600 people attended theshow. The Indiana Auto Body Associ-ation hosted an Opening Party Fridayevening. The juxtaposition of the twopowerful industry panels reflects thechallenges and opportunities the col-lision repair industry faces. PanelistJim Keller of 1Collision shared histhoughts: “In spite of the ice storm

that hit Indy the night before, the showtraffic was solid and the diverse in-dustry-related panel discussions, sem-inars, and presentations were veryenlightening.”


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