november 2012 southwest edition

North State Autobahn Inc., a Westch-ester-NY-based body shop owned byGreg Coccaro, has won an importantvictory in the New York SupremeCourt Appellate Division against Pro-gressive Northeast Insurance Com-pany, Progressive Casualty InsuranceCompany, Progressive Direct Insur-ance Company, Progressive SpecialtyInsurance Company, and NicholasStanton. The result likely creates acase law basis for deceptive acts andpractices claims against auto insur-ance companies that divert policy-holders away from repair shopsoutside their DRP networks.

In a fifteen page decision, the

court went into great lengths ex-plaining the history of “BusinessLaw Section 349, Deceptive Busi-ness Practices” and the intent of it,writing: “This case presents us withthe question of whether a businessentity [North State] has stated a validcause of action for violation of Gen-eral Business Law §349(h) where italleges that another business entity[Progressive] deceived and misledprospective customers, causing it tosustain direct economic loss in theform of more than $5 million in lostbusiness sales. We conclude that itdoes.”

Greg Coccaro Wins Significant Appeal fromProgressive Insurance, Changes Case Law

See Greg Cocarro, Page 40

NACE 2012 in New Orleans

Attendance was down on the show floor butsome booths attracted record business.

ALLDATA’s Dan Espersen imparts his 37 plusyears of experience in “OEM Best Practices”.

CARS chair Bill Moss (l) and NACE chair, RonNagy, address the opening session.

Mike Dolabi (l) of National Autobody PartsWarehouse and Terry Fortner of LKQ on theParts Panel discussion.

Dick Cross, keynote speaker at the opening ses-sion, demonstrates the pyramid top of the or-ganization. See story p. 8.

A New Orleans-style National Anthem kickedoff the keynote address. New Orleans appearsto have recovered its pre-Katrina spirit.

AEII’s Tony Passwater presented on designingand implementing a complete repair plan.

The Autobody News staff doing its part tocover the industry.

Autobody News asked former StateFarm Estimatics Team Manager StevePlier about his thoughts on PartsTrader

earlier this month. Plier worked forState Farm for more than 22 years,starting out in 1987 as a property dam-age claim representative handling autoclaims, and in 1993, he moved into asupervisory position where he spent thelast 13 years of his State Farm career asan estimatics team manager. Today,Steve Plier is president of ConsumerAuto Repair Excellence, Inc. (CARE).

ABN: Why did you quit State Farm?Plier: I resigned my position at StateFarm because my responsibilitieswere being defined as ‘manage in a

Former State Farm Claims Rep, Steve Plier,Now Consultant, Talks ‘PartsTrader’

See Steve Plier, 8

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SouthwestPublisher & Editor: Jeremy Hayhurst

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

Serving Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico and adjacent metro areas, Autobody Newsis a monthly publication for the autobody industry. Permission to reproduce in any form thematerial published in Autobody News must be obtained in writing from the publisher.©2012 Adamantine Media LLC.

Autobody NewsBox 1516, Carlsbad, CA 92018; (800) 699-8251 (760) 721-0253 Faxwww.autobodynews.com Email: [email protected]

BASF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9BMW Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 41Chief Automotive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Chevyland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Classic BMW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Classifieds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Dallas Dodge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48David McDavid Auto Group . . . . . . . 2Dent Tools Direct USA . . . . . . . . . . 20Don Carlton Auto Group. . . . . . . . . 33Equalizer Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Filtersforbooths.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Finnegan Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge . . . 23Ford Wholesale Parts DealersTX, OK, LA, NM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Fowler I-240 Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge. 13Garmat USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6GM Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . 43H & S Autoshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Haydell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Honda-Acura Wholesale PartsDealers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24-25

Huffines Hyundai Plano . . . . . . . . . 15Hyundai Wholesale Parts Dealers . 40Kia Motors Wholesale Parts Dealers. 37Lee Supply, Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32LKQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47Malco. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Mazda Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 44Mercedes-Benz of Oklahoma City . 34Mike Calvert Toyota. . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Mitsubishi Wholesale Parts Dealers. 38MOPAR Wholesale Parts Dealers . . 27North Freeway Hyundai . . . . . . . . . 18OE Reman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Ray Huffines Chevrolet . . . . . . . . . . . 5Reliable Automotive Equipment . . . 21Reliable Chevrolet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Replica Plastics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32River Oaks Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Safety Regulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8SATA Spray Equipment . . . . . . . . . 17Scoggin-Dickey Buick . . . . . . . . . . 35Solution Finish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42South Pointe Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge. 19Star-A-Liner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14That’s Included . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Toyota of Fort Worth . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Toyota of Laredo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Toyota Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 45Volkswagen Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Volvo Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 43Young Chevrolet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Inde

xofAdvertisers

REGIONAL

Body Shop Owner Runs for County

Commissioner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

CARSTAR Adds Another Shop to

Network in Houston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Fire Marshall, Dallas Fire Rescue Team

Up on Canines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Louisiana Department of Insurance Holds

Fraud and Vehicle Theft Conference . . . . 7

Oklahoma State Rep Wants Insurance

Options for Career Tech Students . . . . . 12

Service King Acquires 50th Location

in Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Service King Acquires 51st Texas Shop,

in Mansfield. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Service King Helps ‘Helping a Hero’

Program for Military. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Service King Wins Silver Stetson;

Best Place to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Sherwin-Williams A-Plus Network

Hosted Digital Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Spring, TX, Auto Body Repair Expert

Suggests Ways for Consumers

to Evaluate Body Shops . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Texas Employers See 49% Drop in

Workers’ Compensation Insurance

Premiums Since 2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

TIAA Continues to Grow its New

Collision Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

COLUMNISTS

Attanasio: The Original Social Media, and

Most Important, is the Phone Call . . . . 38

Franklin: The New Co-Op Marketing . . . . . 42

Gesterkamp: E-Coated Parts Procedure . . 36

Insider: Clean Up Your Own House Before

You Gripe About Someone Else’s . . . . . 34

Sisk: CCRE’s Fall Seminar Covers Adhesion,

Warranties, and Much More . . . . . . . . . 14

Sisk: The NitroTech Spray Generator

Controls the Uncontrollable . . . . . . . . . 22

Yoswick: NACE Keynote Speech Focuses

on Thinking about Business . . . . . . . . . . 8

NATIONAL

American Honda Launches ProFirst

Shop Recognition Program . . . . . . . . . 28

Automaker, OEM and Recall News . . . . . . 30

BASF Showcases Newest Additions to

VisionPlus Online Tools at NACE . . . . . 45

Car-O-Liner to Lead Training at

SEMA 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Collision Repair Industry Loses a

Legend and a Friend; McBroom

Passed Away Oct. 11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

DEG & the Keys to Successful Estimating

Presented in New Orleans . . . . . . . . . . 45

Esurance recognizes Three CARSTAR

shops with awards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

GCIA Succeeds in Getting Allstate to

Reverse Decision about Sales Tax

Reimbursement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Greg Coccaro Wins Significant Appeal

from Progressive Insurance,

Changes Case Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Honda Develops New Welding Technology,

UHSS Structure for 2013 Accord . . . . . 26

How to be a ‘Courageous Leader’

Presented at NACE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Insurers Talk MSOs, Consolidation,

the Cloud, and Tech Trends . . . . . . . . . 16

Martin Senour Kicks Off 4Q

Training Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Matrix Electronic Measuring, Inc.

Awarded Two Patents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

NABC Gifts 6 Vehicles to Needy

New Orleans Families at NACE . . . . . . . 46

NACE 2012 in New Orleans . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

NACE Sees Fewer People,

But Quality Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Pink Car Tribute to Breast Cancer Survivors . 35

Prevost ALR Aluminum Air Piping

is an Easy System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Steve Trapp Presents Implementing

Best Practices for SOPs . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

WIZARDS Introduces Nano-Technology

Spray Wax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

PartsTrader Coverage

ASA’s Caspersen Comments on

PartsTrader Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Former State Farm Claims Rep, Steve Plier,

Now Consultant, Talks ‘PartsTrader’ . . . . 1

George Avery Spoke on PartsTrader

to GCIA Sept. 20: Parts Margins

“Not Guaranteed to Remain” As Are . . . 32

PartsTrader Reduces Minimum

Quote Time to 30 mins . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Contents

www.autobodynews.com | NOVEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 3

ASA’s Caspersen Comments on PartsTrader MeetingsReductions in parts profits was thebiggest concern voiced by more than125 collision repairers who attendedtwo Automotive Service Association-sponsored meetings recently in Ohiocentered around State Farm’s elec-tronic parts ordering pilot.

The meetings were open to every-one in the collision repair industry atno charge. The first meeting was heldin the Cleveland area Sept. 18; the sec-ond in the Cincinnati area Sept. 19.

Denise Caspersen, manager ofASA’s collision division, presented theelements of the pilot to date, reviewedindustry concerns, and collected anyadditional questions, concerns andsuggestions from attendees.

Repairers are concerned over thepilot’s inclusion of a discounted manu-facturer’s suggested retail selling price(MSRP) column. Suppliers have the op-tion to provide a discounted MSRPalong with the margins of the part andthe quote price. If a supplier elects toprovide a discounted MSRP along witha quote for a part, it could result in lowerprofit margins on parts for the collisionrepair shop if that part is selected. StateFarm stated in July that it does not askfor discounts on parts but if a supplierprovides a discounted MSRP, this datais available to State Farm.

Repairers are responsible for rec-ommending suppliers and determin-ing their default OEM and preferredOEM suppliers. Once a Select Serv-ice shop requests a quote on an esti-mate, the quoting request is sent to allsuppliers whose application “prefer-ences” match the content of the esti-mate. Suppliers, just like repairers, areable to set preferences. Suppliers arealso responsible for setting their mar-ket area, parts type, and rates of de-livery. Meeting attendees questionedwhy State Farm is doing this, whathappens to repairers’ parts profits ifthis goes into effect, where is the effi-ciency, what State Farm sees as the fu-ture for collision claims and the sizeof their Select Service network—andthe reigning question overall—whereis the benefit to the collision repairersparticipating in the pilot?

“We continue to present to StateFarm the concerns of ASA members.If State Farm cannot provide datashowing how this application benefitscollision repairers (operationally/fi-nancially), ASA will respond appro-priately on behalf of repairers,” saidCaspersen. “ASA has provided StateFarm with a timeline for data and willbe meeting with State Farm to assessfuture actions.”


The Texas Independent AutomotiveAssociation continues to grow withnew members regularly joining, ac-cording to Hunter Hooge, Mem-bership Director. The associationrecently started their San Antoniocollision-specific chapter, which hasabout 20 members.

At its Sept. 19 meeting, the as-sociation hosted guest speaker JoeLeewright of Ellis and SalazarGarage & Body Shop, which hasbeen operating in Austin, TX, since1953. The body shop owner talkedabout having a mix of DRPs and pri-vate pay work and how shops work-ing together in the industry will makethings better for everyone.

In other news, the TIAA held itsannual family picnic on Sept. 29 atEisenhower State Park, in San Anto-nio. The event included a silent auc-tion, door prizes, raffle, kids gamesand adult tournaments. Friends andfamily of business owners, techni-cians, parts specialists, delivery driv-ers and warehouse workers wereinvited. The event was held as afundraiser for the John Pundt Memo-rial Scholarship Fund which givesscholarships to youth pursuing an ed-ucation in automotive repair.

TIAA Continues to Grow itsNew Collision Association

Express Autobody marks ServiceKing’s 50th location in Texas. DavidSchwartz will manage the 18,000-square-foot, 16-employee shop.

“Georgetown is a growing area andwe look forward to serving the needs ofcustomers and insurance partners byproviding the best service and collisionrepairs in town,” said Jeremy Lennox,vice president of Service King’s SouthTexas market. “We’re eager to provideService King’s renowned level offriendly and professional customer serv-ice. The quality of work by highly skilledand expertly trained body techniciansand painters carries a lifetime guarantee.We are also bringing top-notch health,retirement and career benefits to allGeorgetown teammates.”

Texas-based Service King cur-rently operates 23 collision repair lo-cations in Dallas, 12 in Houston, ninein San Antonio and six in Austin,Texas. The company has plans forcontinued growth after global alter-native asset manager The CarlyleGroup acquired majority ownershipof the company in August.

Service King previously ac-quired eight Autobody World centersin Arizona. See adjacent stories formore details.

Service King Acquires 50thLocation in Texas

Service King Collision Repair Cen-ters, a Texas-based operator of mul-tiple collision repair facilities in theDallas-Ft. Worth, San Antonio,Austin, and Houston markets, willpurchase Collision Specialists ofTexas, a collision repair center inMansfield, TX.

Collision Specialists becomesService King’s 51st location inTexas, and their 24th collision centerin the Dallas-Fort Worth market-place.

Brent McKinney, Vice Presi-dent of Service King’s DFW Marketstated, “Collision Specialists has areputation for quality repairs and ex-cellent customer service. ServiceKing is excited to be able to servicethe Mansfield and surrounding areaswith this new location. The state-of-the-art 37,000 square foot facilitywill allow Service King to service theMansfield market offering growthand promotional opportunities to ournew teammates.” Collision Special-ists will ultimately employ 40 team-mates. Service King will close on itsacquisition of eight Autobody Worldcenters in Arizona. in November, andwill open a brand new facility inLakeway, TX, early in 2013.

Service King Acquires 51stTexas Shop, in Mansfield

The Dallas Business Journal recentlyhonored 57 companies at a luncheonfor the 10th Annual Best Places toWork awards.

The top winners were ServiceKing Collision Repair Centersamong large companies, New YorkLife, Dallas General Office amongmidsize companies, and SouthwestSearch LLC among small compa-nies. The three grand championswere among 57 companies recog-nized at an Old West-themed lunchbanquet at the Westin Galleria.

Along with commemorativeplaques, the grand champions wereawarded with fancy silver Stetsoncowboy hats.

Silver Stetsons also were be-stowed on the three honorees who’vebeen recognized for nine years out ofthe competition’s 10-year history: in-surance company MHBT, law firmThompson & Knight and ServiceKing Collision Repair Centers.

Service King’s executives saidthey plan to keep participating in theannual competition going forward.

Jeff McFadden, Service Kingpresident, said “We’ve been in it fornine years and it continues to be amarker for our success.”

Service King Wins SilverStetson; Best Place to Work

Dwight Tanner Jr., a Lawton busi-nessman in Oklahoma, has an-nounced his candidacy for CentralDistrict Comanche County Commis-sioner.

Tanner prepared the followingstatement with his announcement:

“I am Dwight G. Tanner Jr. andI am an independent candidate forCentral District Comanche CountyCommissioner. I was born in Corsi-cana, TX, the fruitcake capital of theworld, minus a few of us. I moved toLawton in the late 1970s to live withmy mother. My stepfather, DanCox, was in the military and heowned an auto body and paint busi-ness. He taught me the trade of autobody and paint repair and I went intobusiness for myself in 1990.

“Since opening Tanner’s AutoBody 22 years ago, I have alsosuccessfully maintained a towingcompany and various real estateinvestments.

“I attended MacArthur HighSchool and am currently a part-timestudent at Cameron University. I ammarried and have five children. Theyare all good-looking and smart, justlike their daddy. I am very thankfulfor the blessings I have.”

Body Shop Owner Runs forCounty Commissioner

Service King Collision Repair Centershelped to raise $25,000 for the Helpinga Hero Organization through a charitygolf event in the San Antonio area.

Helping a Hero is a non-profit,non-partisan organization providingsupport for severely injured militarypersonnel. Their principal activity isto provide specially adapted homesfor qualifying service members, aswell as engaging the community toprovide services and resources forthem and their families.

“This was our first tournamentin San Antonio, and it was a hugesuccess,” Jeremy Lennox, Vice Pres-ident of the San Antonio market, said.“Our tournament came at a perfecttime, as they are awarding a home toa double amputee in two weeks.”

After the golf tournament, Serv-ice King had a live auction during aluncheon were local agents, vendorsand staff bid on donated items to raisemoney for this cause. Some donatedtheir live-auction items, so one herocould have his own “man cave” withsome fantastic sports memorabilia.

Service King will hose its 18thannual Dallas / Fort Worth golf tour-nament on Oct. 22 to raise money forInterfaith Housing Coalition.

Service King Helps ‘Helpinga Hero’ Program for Military


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Spring, TX, Auto Body Repair Expert Suggests Waysfor Consumers to Evaluate Body ShopsA Spring, TX, auto body repair spe-cialist says when it comes to qualityaccident collision repair, consumersshould evaluate the body repair shopto ensure they are getting the best re-pair services.

Don Ward, owner of A-1 Auto’sCarstar Auto Body Repair, said mostconsumers assume that all auto bodyrepair shops are the same but that isnot true.

“All auto body repair shops arenot the same. Consumers need toknow how to differentiate. They needto know how to find out if the shopthey are dealing with is good or not,”he said.

Ward advises consumers to con-sider a few things before settling onthe shop for their auto repair needs.

“How do you know if you’re get-ting the best work for your money?There are some common ways to tellif your auto body shop is worth themoney, and more importantly ifthey’re giving your vehicle the properattention to avoid problems in the fu-ture,” he said.

According to Ward, the firstthing consumers must do is ask theirfamily and friends for recommenda-tions.

“No matter how much money abusiness spends on advertising, it isalways best to do business with shopsthat have been recommended byfriends and family. That way youknow that your friends and family arehappy with the services they receivedfrom the shops,” Ward said.

The Texas auto body repair spe-cialist said consumers should alsoconsider smaller repair shops.

“Smaller repair shops tend togive more personalized services. Mosttimes, you meet the owners there orthe employees have worked there forso long and know a lot of people inthe community and that is an advan-tage to the customer,” he added.

Ward also advised that con-sumers use only licensed and in-sured auto body repair shops, readand understand the repair shop’swarranty, ask the shop the materialsthey will use to fix their cars andlook for clean shops with good cus-tomer service.

“These things may appear to besimple but they can make a difference.It could mean the difference betweenbeing satisfied with the services youreceive and being frustrated by poorquality service,” Ward added.

Texas Employers See 49% Drop in Workers’Compensation Insurance Premiums Since 2005Texas employers are seeing a major re-duction in workers’ compensation in-surance premiums, an insurance tradegroup reports.

The Insurance Council of Texas(ICT) says reforms in House Bill 7,passed in 2005, and earlier legislationhave improved the efficiency of theTexas workers’ compensation system.

The Texas Department of Insur-ance reports premiums for workers’compensation policies have seen a49% decline in rates since House Bill7 was passed.

The average premium was $1.38per $100 dollars of payroll in 2010 ascompared to $2.70 per $100 of pay-roll in 2004.

“HB 7, which was passed in 2005,was landmark legislation for the workerscompensation insurance system,” saidSteve Nichols, ICT workers’ compensa-tion manager. “The legislation directlyaddressed the problems the workers’compensation system faced and the re-sults have been an overall reduction inrates, costs, disputes and claims.”

The good news comes from anew study entitled “Premium RateRanking Summary” published by theOregon Department of Consumer andBusiness Services.

The study listed Texas as thestate with the most improvement inpremium costs since 2010. Texas’workers compensation premiums fellfrom a nationwide high ranking of 12down to 38.

HB 7 overhauled the Texas work-ers’ compensation system by provid-ing for the use of healthcare networks,strengthening medical treatment guide-lines, placing a greater emphasis on re-turn-to-work and restructuring theworkers’ compensation agency.

The biennial study ranks all 50states and Washington, D.C., based onrates that were in effect Jan. 1,2012.Alaska had the most expensiverates, followed by Connecticut. NorthDakota had the least expensive rates.California had the third-highest rates,followed by Washington at 13 andIdaho at 19.

Because states have variousmixes of industries, the study calcu-lates rates for each state using a stan-dard mix of the 50 industries with thehighest workers’ compensation claimscosts in Oregon.

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The Louisiana Department of Insur-ance (LDI) and the Louisiana Auto-mobile Theft and Insurance FraudPrevention Authority (LATIFPA) heldtheir biennial conference on Oct. 17 inBaton Rouge.

The 2012 Conference on Insur-ance Fraud and Vehicle Theft boasteda gathering of local and national in-surance industry experts and leadersand featured presentations on currenttrends, techniques and technologicaladvances used in the prevention of in-surance fraud and vehicle theft.

President and Chief Executive Of-ficer of the National Insurance CrimeBureau (NICB) Joseph H. Wehrle waskeynote speaker. Louisiana Commis-sioner of Insurance Jim Donelon de-livered opening and closing remarks.Insurance Fraud Chief Thomas Mc-Cormick with the Criminal Division ofthe Department of Justice, East BatonRouge Parish District Attorney HillarC. Moore and 19th Judicial DistrictCriminal District Judge Anthony J.Marabella, Jr. provided insight ontheir roles in the prosecution of insur-ance fraud.

Featured topics discussed in-cluded the impact of social media oninsurance fraud, as well as interviewand interrogation techniques used dur-

ing a fraud investigation. The confer-ence also included sessions on health-care insurance fraud, catastrophe fraudand vehicle theft and insurance fraudclaims.

According to the NICB, morethan 10% of the insurance claims sub-mitted each year are fraudulent, mak-ing insurance fraud the second mostcostly white-collar crime in Americaafter tax evasion. Insurance fraud ac-counts for as much as 10% of insur-ance premiums and the averagehousehold spends $950 a year in addi-tional premiums to cover the cost ofinsurance fraud in America.

“Louisiana is actively engaged inthe prevention of insurance fraud andvehicle theft,” said CommissionerDonelon. “By participating in anti-fraud legislation, public awarenesscampaigns and supporting the use ofbait cars, license plate readers and ed-ucational outreaches such as this con-ference, LDI and LATIFPA continueto diligently work towards reducingfraudulent claims and vehicle theft inLouisiana.”

Since its inception in 2004, LAT-IFPA has worked to reduce vehicletheft in Louisiana through various ini-tiatives. The number of auto theftsstatewide has declined by 37% from

15,640 in 2006 to 9,893 in 2010, thelatest year for which statistics areavailable.

The Louisiana Legislature hasalso ramped up efforts to combat thehigh cost of insurance fraud. The mostrecent of those efforts came during theLouisiana 2012 Regular LegislativeSession when two acts were passed toaddress insurance fraud.

Act 201 broadened the reportingrequirements of insurance fraud from“fraudulent insurance claims” to“fraudulent insurance acts,” which ex-pands the law to cover any suspectedfraud that will be, is being or has beencommitted.

Act 862, titled the “Sledge Jean-sonne Louisiana Insurance Fraud Pre-vention Act,” allows the AttorneyGeneral to file a civil action in BatonRouge District Court in order to re-cover losses from a “fraudulent insur-ance act.”

The legislation imposes a fine of$10,000 per occurrence, and recoveryof actual damages of three times theamount of the fraudulent insuranceact.

“It is our hope that these stiffmonetary penalties will be an addeddeterrent to insurance fraud,” saidCommissioner Donelon.

Louisiana Department of Insurance Holds Fraud and Vehicle Theft ConferenceCARSTAR Auto Body Repair Expertshas announced the addition of JD AutoCARSTAR Collision in Houston, TX, toits network of collision centers. NorthAmerica’s largest MSO network hassome 410 stores in the United Statesand Canada. As a member ofCARSTAR, JD Auto CARSTAR Col-lision will offer an array of services andproducts for collision repair, includingthe latest in repair technology, rentalvehicles, national warranties on repairsand turnkey service for customers. JDAuto CARSTAR Collision will takecare of the entire process of repairingthe vehicle for the vehicle owner, fromgetting the vehicle towed to the facilityto coordinating with the insurancecompany to restoring it to pre-accidentcondition. The new CARSTAR storewill benefit from the CARSTAR Man-agement Systems, which provide re-sources to improve key businessmetrics such as cycle time, participa-tion in CARSTAR’s 19 corporatelymanaged DRP programs, and im-proved purchasing power from 45 cor-porately managed purchasingprograms. “We are excited to welcomeMark Burris and JD Auto CARSTARCollision to the CARSTAR network,”said David Byers, CEO of CARSTAR.

CARSTAR Adds AnotherShop to Network in Houston

During his keynote address at the 2012International Autobody Congress &Exposition (NACE) in New Orleans,LA, former CARSTAR CEO DickCross offered his corollary to a Ma-hatma Gandhi quote by telling a crowdof 800 attendees, “A business is but theproduct of the CEO’s thoughts. Whatshe thinks, it becomes.”

It’s a concept NACE organizersthemselves may need to keep in mindas they acknowledged that while thisyear’s show offered “some big wins,”it also was down slightly in terms ofboth exhibitors and attendees.

Twenty minutes, three times a weekCross kicked off the event by sayingthat although the business successesthat he’s had that were cited in his in-troduction are true, his career has notbeen a “charmed path.”

“I have probably over two-and-a-half decades made every business mis-take that everyone in this audiences hasmade, and maybe even some of themthat you would never make,” Cross said.“Unintentionally, I have made decisionsthat have hurt business performance. Ihave failed to create circumstances thatwould allow everyone to make theircontribution to the cause. I have termi-nated people that I have wondered in theaftermath whether it was the right thingto do. There were times in my careerwhen I hesitated to lay my job as CEOon the line, to stand my ground for whatI knew was right. But as painful as allthose things are to remember and thinkabout, they are the things that drove myobsession to understand and to becomevery good at the job at the top.”

In addition to leading CARSTARfrom 2005–10, Cross has been broughtin by private equity firms to run a half-dozen other under-performing compa-nies, and through his consulting firm,he said he’s helped more than 150 otherCEOs improve their company’s per-formance. He said one of the biggestfailings he sees among many businessowners and CEOs is not regularly set-ting aside time to just think about thebusiness.

“For most of us in this room,thinking is the hardest work that wehave to do,” he said. “If there’s any-thing else to occupy our time besides

thinking, we’ll generally be doing it.My observation is that about 90% ofthe time, most of the CEOs in theUnited States are doing things thathave nothing to do with this job at thetop. But thinking helps you understandwhat the possibilities of your businesscould be, and helps you to understandgenerally how to make it happen.”

He offered several “big picture”ways that CEOs should think about thebusiness. For example, he said that busi-nesses are like products in that they havea life cycle; they begin with an idea, anembryo, and then some go on to growand mature. Whether they go on to con-tinued success or wither and die, Crosssaid, is often up to the person at the top,who can either get complacent andcoast—usually leading to the com-pany’s demise—or who can restart thecycle by finding a new set of customersfor the business or by finding other waysto serve the needs of existing customers.

Cross said good CEOs also recog-nize the difference between leadershipand management. Leadership, he said,sets in front of others very enticinggoals and helps make them want tohelp achieve those things. Managementis only about assembling the resourcesneeded to execute on that vision.

At CARSTAR, he cited as an ex-ample, he worked to help everyone inthe organization realize their purposewasn’t to just fix cars.

“The purpose of CARSTAR be-came: We help people though a crisisin their lives,” Cross said.

The kind of thinking that makes

companies succeed, Cross said, can beaccomplished by those at the top whoset aside 20 minutes a day, three daysa week, to tune out other day-to-daydistractions and just think about thebusiness.

“Running a business is not a full-time job,” Cross said. “You probablyspend most of your time doing otherstuff, stuff that others ought to be doingthemselves rather than having you do it.But you can do a great job running yourbusiness 20 minutes, a day three days aweek, thinking about those things.”

Show leaders offer their viewTwo years after shifting away from hold-ing NACE in Las Vegas each fall, eventorganizers cited a number of reasons at-tendance may have been down this year,from the still-slowly-recovering econ-omy to the New Orleans location, whichhas fewer shops than Orlando within aneasy-to-drive distance.

“Attendance at all the key (show)

events was up,” Lindsay Roberts ofHanley Wood, who manages the showfor its sponsor, the Automotive ServiceAssociation, said just hours before theshow closed. “We had some major play-ers who hadn’t exhibited at the show fora while. We got some of the paint com-panies back. We got some of the OEMsback. But we are a little disappointed.Total attendance is going to be down. It’spretty hard to compare to the Orlandolast year where we up over 20% from the2010 event. We had really hoped wewould see that growth through to thisyear. We’ll release final numbers proba-bly within the next five to seven days.But we do think we’re going to beslightly down over last year.”

But Roberts chiefly cited a con-tinued decline in the number of com-panies exhibiting at the show, whichis down about 17% from as recentlyas 2010.

“What we need is more product,


NACE Keynote Speech Focuses on Thinking about Business

Industry Insightwith John Yoswick

John Yoswick is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon, who has a body shop in thefamily and has been writing about the automotive industry since 1988. He is the editor of theweekly CRASH Network (for a free 4-week trial subscription, visit www.CrashNetwork.com).Contact him by email at [email protected].

Dick Cross, former CEO of CARSTAR, presentedconcepts from his book, “Just Run It!” Copieson display sold out quickly

See NACE Keynote Speech, Page 11

Collision repair professionals fromacross North America came together re-cently at NACE in New Orleans, LA,to network, see the latest and greatest inequipment and products, and to con-template a smaller but still high-qualityevent. Some 225 companies occupied50,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space but atten-dees were fewer in number from lastyear’s Orlando venue.

“It was a great pleasure to haveDick Cross open the 30th Anniver-sary general session,” said Ron Pyle,ASA president. “He delivered a prac-tical and easy-to-implement plan forsuccess. I am sure everyone in atten-dance agrees that he was extremelymotivational and an excellent choiceto kick off this very special ASRW.”

Leadership and Management TacticsNACE began October 10 with a seriesof seminars and lectures regardingsales tactics and innovation of paintand materials, including The Art of theDeal—Acquiring and DevelopingNew Locations; Marketing to Genera-tions X and Y; and Paint and Materi-als: The Paradigm Shift.

The afternoon sessions saw afocus on leadership, delegation andcustomer management tactics, aimedat retaining and appeasing your staffand customers. Seminars includedLeadership Best Practices—How toInspire, Delegate and Coach YourTeam to Success, by Mike Anderson;Calming and Retaining Angry Cus-tomers, by Margie Seyfer and Guiltby Association—Defining Your Image,by Tony Nethery. Kurt Lammon ofUrethane Supply Company instructedviewers on how to properly weld plas-tic with nitrogen, while Dan Espersenof ALLDATA taught the best practicalapplications of OEM Information.

I-CAR spokesmen Bob Zelanoand Jeff Poole ran afternoon seminarson Corrosion Protection and Haz-ardous Materials, Personal Safety andRefinish Safety, respectively.

The first day of NACE wascapped off with the Assembly, a con-fidential, closed-door forum for colli-sion repairers.

Profit BuildingNACE continued with tutorials,demonstrations and information per-taining to every aspect of the collisionrepair industry. The exposition portionof the event also opened at 10:00 am,offering the latest products, services

and technologies from industry leaders.The Profit Building Pavilion

portion of the exposition showcasedvendors with customer-driven prod-ucts, such as Autoshop Solutions, De-mandforce, Mudlick Mail Co. and NetDriven Media.

The morning of Oct. 10 saw sev-eral seminars headed by I-CAR. BobZelano ran a seminar on automotivefoams and Tony Nethery instructedparticipants on proper measuringmethods.

Educational highlights included I-CAR representative Shawn Collins’sworkshop on Blueprinting Process andDamage Discovery, (BLU01); I-CAR’sBob Zelano presenting the Steel Unit-

ized Structures Technologies and Repairclass and Bryan Dodge of Dodge De-velopment’s presentation on balancingyour work and life.

Blueprinting Process and Damage Dis-coveryThis new course provided an interac-tive training experience and was filledto capacity during both sessions. I-CAR offered special premiere pricingfor this course launch with a cost sav-ings of $56 for standard pricing.

The new Live Demo coursedemonstrates I-CAR’s commitmentto increased student interaction inthe classroom and uses an actual ve-hicle to demonstrate technique whileengaging students in the learningprocess.

Rich Southerland of Alldata at-tended the Thursday premiere of Blue-printing Process and DamageDiscovery and stated, “This is the bestI-CAR class I’ve attended. I couldn’timagine how this would not benefitany tech or shop employee.”

The course led students be-yond the disassembly of dam-aged parts to help themuncover hidden damage thatcan impact the repair processand provided a number ofdemonstrations, includingquick checks and implementa-tion tips. Students who at-tended the course gained anunderstanding of the definitionof the blueprinting process and

how the process can help improve re-pair quality through a standardized ap-proach to collision repair planning.

The day wound down with theASRW Welcome Party, sponsoredby CCC, and held at the iconic MardiGras World venue, basically a ware-house of larger-than-life charactersused on floats and in Mardi Grasthemed events. Attendees were touredthrough the warehouse where Mardi

Gras floats are manufactured, andended up at the Grand Oaks Mansionnext door where some excellent localdishes were offered.

NACE events on Oct. 11 endedwith the ASRW Industry Awardsceremony completing the second dayof NACE. The ceremony was held atthe National World War Two museum.

The NACE conference continuedon Oct. 11 with several I-CAR semi-nars, human resource tutorials andteam development clinics. TheASRW Collision Forum also tookplace in the morning.

MSO SymposiumThe ten-and-a-half-hour MSO(Multi-store operators) Symposiumhosted by Matthew Ohrnstein ofSymphony Advisors took place Fri-day. The symposium spanned theduration of the NACE Friday sched-ule and was comprised of five pan-els that aimed to help multi-storebusiness owners, many of whomtake over failing operations in orderto rejuvenate them, improve aspectsof their businesses including culture,branding, customer relations, lead-


NACE Sees Fewer People, But Quality Events

Ron Pyle, ASA President and ASRW Chair

Margie Seyfer presenting Calming andRetaining Angry Customers

more exhibitors on the show floor,”Roberts said. “We need to give atten-dees three days worth of product andpeople to network with. We need theexecutives from these major compa-nies who were here walking the aislesto have booth space on the show floorand to support the show.”

She did say that more than 40companies have already signed on fornext year’s event, up one-third from thenumber who had signed contracts forthis year’s show during the 2011 event.

But NACE organizers have alsogiven themselves the added challengeof holding the 2013 event in Las Vegasnext October 16–19—in the same cityjust two weeks before SEMA, whichhas been working to attract collisionrepair industry exhibitors and atten-dees.

That may have been one of thereasons NACE organizers took the un-precedented step of also announcingthat two years from now, NACE willagain be on the east coast, returning tothe city that hosted the very firstNACE back in 1983: Nashville, TN.

ership and finance.The MSO Symposium also in-

cluded networking opportunities forowners, and ended with a networkingreception in the evening.

Shawn Collins held his secondseminar on Blueprinting Process andDamage Discovery, while Bob Ze-lano taught the second StructuralStraightening Steel seminar, bothhosted by I-CAR. The seminars wereadd-on educational seminars avail-able on both Thursday and Friday.OEMs including General Motors,Toyota and Nissan all sponsoredbooths during the show, offeringpromotional giveaways and show-casing new products.

Expo FloorSome highlights from the on-floor demoarea included exhibits from InnovaElectronics Corp. on how their CarScantools benefit shops and CAS of NewEngland revealing The Truth About Pro-gramming in Today’s Vehicles.

Kaeser Compressors created an in-formative technical (not sales-oriented)presentation titled “Compressed Air Re-quirements for Waterborne Paints.” Itwas held October 10 to help repairersmake practical choices for their shops.

Topics included: sources of moistureand contaminants, air system compo-nents that affect paints and finishes, theimpact of air amplifiers and more.

Some workshops on Friday after-noon focused on the financial aspectof collision repair. Mike Anderson ofCollisonAdvice.com spoke on meas-uring performance in Financial BestPractices. Dan Stander of FIX AutoHighland Ranch moderated The Keysto Successful Estimating! panel, inwhich data providers addressed audi-ence questions.

Denise Caspersen of ASA andMelissa Miller of CARSTAR encour-aged women to be courageous leadersin their seminar, one of several in theWomen’s Professional Development

track of NACE. (See story this issue.)

Twenty 2.0 peer benchmarkingA new-to-NACE-this-year, Twenty 2.0peer benchmarking event was attendedby about 20 repairers and ran on Fri-day afternoon hosted by keynotespeaker Dick Cross.

Twenty 2.0 is/was a peer bench-marking/virtual 20 group concept, ap-plicable to both mechanicalservice/repair and collision repairshop owners focused on doing “thejob at the top.” The 90-minute sessionbegan with a half hour introductorysession, followed by an hour-longbreakout session. All participants hadthe opportunity to enroll in the formal(ongoing) Twenty 2.0 virtual 20 groupat the conclusion of the session.

“Shop owners interested in ob-taining the value of participating in a20 group process with a non-tradi-tional time or financial investmentwon’t want to miss this unique ses-sion,” said ASA president Ron Pyle inadvance of the event. “We’ve takenthe 20 group concept and upgraded itto the digital age. Participants whoformally enroll will receive all thebenefits of belonging to a 20 group,with a virtual twist.”


Mike Anderson, CollisionAdvice.com spoke onFinancial Best Practices

Continued from Page 8

NACE Keynote Speech


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The purpose of the annual con-ference and workshop is to certify K9teams in specialized areas, such asnarcotics, cadaver, search and rescue,obedience, and accelerants. NAP-WDA Master Trainer, Matthew De-vaney, the U.S. Department ofHomeland Security Customs and Bor-der Protection Canine Center andSFMO Deputy State Fire Marshal andAccelerant Detection Canine Instruc-tor, Tommy Pleasant, lead the accel-erant detection canine training.

Canine teams participate in ac-celerant detection tests designed toduplicate field conditions in a varietyof realistic search scenarios a team

may encounter. Once the canine teampasses the tests, their certification isvalid for one year from the date ofissue. Accelerant detection canines re-ceive NAPWDA and SFMO certifica-tion. A chemist is onsite to provideand verify accelerant samples usedduring certification.

The State Fire Marshal’s Officehas five accelerant detection canineteams. According to Pleasant, “AllSFMO ADCs are European dogs thatare trained on 14 accelerants, fromwhich we get over 60 brand names ofignitable liquids. The SFMO ADCsare play reward dogs which meansthey work off of their natural drives.”

The conference provides freetraining and certification to police andfire canine teams. Section ChiefDebra Mullins with the Dallas Fire-Rescue Department says “having cer-tification from a nationally recognizedagency adds credibility to in-housecanine programs for court purposes.”

For more information about TheSFMO Canine Teams, The Texas Ca-nine Conference or the NAPWDAWorkshop contact Rachel Moreno at(979) 277-4278 or [email protected].

Oklahoma State Rep. Joe Dormanwants to find out what insurance op-tions could be made available for ca-reer technology students in Oklahoma.

In an announcement released bythe Oklahoma House of Representa-tives, Dorman, D-Rush Springs, saidhis interest was spurred by a call fromconstituent whose son attends a careertechnical school that, unlike manycolleges and universities, offered nogroup health insurance to students.

Eighteen higher education insti-tutions, including the state’s largestuniversities, provide a health facilityon campus while 12 institutions donot provide a facility. Only nine insti-tutions provide a path or forum forprivate insurance companies to edu-cate students about insurance oppor-tunities.

Insurance coverage is providedto all student athletes and some insti-tutions make healthcare plans and in-formation available to all students.NCAA athletes have the option to pur-chase a policy through that organiza-tion.

Dorman said his intent is not torun legislation, but to instead workwith career tech officials to create

more opportunities for students. If noaffordable policy can be worked outfor a group rate, then options such asexpanding coverage to Insure Okla-homa could be examined.

“Ultimately, we would like tohave the option available for studentsto have the most affordable policyavailable,” said Dorman. “With thechanges in insurance we have seen atthe federal level and the allowance forparents to keep their kids on theirpolicies up to age 26, we must nowlook at how to best offer coverage tothose non-traditional students whowant affordable insurance.”

Source: Oklahoma House ofRepresentatives

Oklahoma State Rep Wants InsuranceOptions for Career Tech Students

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As a follow-up to the CCRE legalseminar held in March 2012—whichI attended and wrote about in Auto-body News (search “CCRE” at auto-bodynews.com)—the PennsylvaniaCollision Trade Guild (PCTG) hostedthe Coalition for Collision Repair Ex-

cellence for the second event in thisseries of seminars.

CCRE’s 2012 Fall Seminar washeld Friday and Saturday, September21–22 at the Airport Embassy Suites inPhiladelphia, PA. PCTG decided tohost CCRE again due to the over-whelmingly positive responses they re-ceived on the 2012 Spring Seminar. Anaudience of nearly 50 came to Philadel-phia from as far away as Alaska.

Attorneys Erica Eversman andJohn Parese joined the CCRE’s legalseminar as featured speakers to sharetheir legal expertise on the collisionrepair industry.

In his welcome and introductionspeech, Steve Behrendt, president ofPCTG and CCRE Board Member, ad-dressed the importance of understand-ing adhesion, or more specifically, anadhesion contract. [Editor’s note: Anadhesion contract is one which is im-balanced in favor of one party over theother so that there is a strong likeli-

hood it was not freely negotiated.Example: a rich landlord dealing

with a poor tenant who has no otheroptions and must accept all terms of a

lease, no matter how restrictive or bur-densome, because the tenant cannotafford to move. An adhesion contractcan give a “little guy” the opportunityto claim in court that the contract withthe “big shot” is invalid. This doctrineshould be used and applied moreoften, but the same big guy-little guyinequity may apply in the ability to af-

ford a trial or find and pay a resource-ful lawyer.]

Behrendt explained how a rela-tionship with a third party (i.e., the in-surance company) triggers a legal andbinding contract which exploits ashop’s ability to do business individu-ally. Behrendt said that avoiding ad-hesion will help collision repair shopsoperate independently by providingthem with the freedom to be paidbased on the services performed as ad-hesion can influence a court’s decisionagainst a shop as it regards their rela-tionship with a third party. In contrast,an authorization to repair form pro-tects a shop’s independence, their re-lationship with the customer, and theirneed to make a profit by distancingthem from the insurance company.Through adhesion, third parties try tomake the reserve estimate part of ashop’s repair process by utilizing theirestimate as a method of payment, butthe estimate is only the third party’s


CCRE’s Fall Seminar Covers Adhesion, Warranties, and Much More

with Chasidy Rae SiskNortheast News

Chasidy Rae Sisk is a freelance technical writer from Wilmington, Delaware,who writes on a variety of fields and subjects, and grew up in a family ofNASCAR fans. She can be contacted at [email protected].

Steve Behrendt addresses the contract ofadhesion

Attorneys Erica Eversman and John Parese

guess at the cost of the repair, not ablueprint for the repair.

The insurance company’s estimateis created to verify that there is a legiti-mate claim and to set a claims reservewhich is money earmarked for eventualclaim payment. Shops need to find away to eliminate this estimate in orderto prevent insurance companies fromcontrolling their business. One way todo this is by stamping all third partydocuments as “for informational pur-poses only.” This preserves the shop’sindependence by avoiding adhesion andany type of agreed-price scenario. Italso allows shops to distance their busi-ness from a third party’s control and be-havior. Shops should prepare and workoff of their own repair blueprint andanalysis, and this is what should be usedfor the repair and the final invoice.Shops should properly prepare andclose their final invoice based on theshop’s job costing and gross profit,handing the invoice to the insurancecompany for final payment.

Moving from a collision re-pairer’s point of view to a legal pointof view, attorney Erica Eversman tookthe floor to discuss repair contracts andauthorization to repair which was verysimilar to the presentation she gave in

March of this year. Discussing the dif-ferences between the two contracts ina non-DRP relationship compared tothe three contracts that make up a DRPrelationship, she noted that “insurerslike to think they’re in charge of every-thing. They want all of the control andnone of the responsibility.” In a DRPrelationship, two informed partieshave an agreement about how to sat-isfy the obligations of their individualcontracts to the customer, usually be-fore a collision actually occurs. In thecurrent aberration for individual shops,the insurer acts as if the repairer hasduties to this third party which is whyit is so important for shops to utilize awritten repair contract. A classic ex-ample of a contract of adhesion isfound in insurance policies as oneparty has more power than the othersince consumers are legally required tohave auto insurance. This is the onlyindustry where consumers do not re-ally have the ability to negotiate theircontracts or even see the terms beforethey purchase it, which is why thisbinding contract can be cancelled.

In the relationship between a re-pairer and a consumer, the repairer’sresponsibility is to inform the cus-tomer, acquire authorization and repair

the vehicle, while the consumer shouldreceive information, approve the re-pairs and pay. Repairers have no rightto expect payment from the insurancecompany as they should expect pay-ment from the consumer, but thoughit’s important to provide customerswith an estimate of the repair cost, con-sumers are more concerned with howtheir car gets fixed since the insurancecompany actually pays the bill. This iswhy Erica recommends getting thecustomer’s informed consent after therepair process has been fully explainedto them so they understand what isgoing on with their vehicle.

A repair contract should definethe customer, the shop’s duties, whattype of parts will be used, the damagesto the vehicle and the repairer’s pro-fessional judgment. A wise inclusion isthe right to expectancy damages whichwill entitle the collision shop to getpaid for costs accrued if the customeropts to take their car to a differentshop. This also includes reimburse-ment for loss of work if the insurancecompany persuades the consumer tohave their vehicle repaired at a DRPshop. Additionally, this encompassesthe preparations that the shop hasmade, such as ordering parts and allo-

cating time and personnel. This canalso include opportunity cost, definedas potential business that may havebeen turned away because the shop’sresources had already been dedicated.This will help to establish recoveryfrom tortuous interference. The signedcontract ensures that the shop has theright to sue for expectancy damages.

The repair contact is designed toemphasize that the repairer is the pro-fessional and that repairs are based onthe repairer’s professional judgment.When there is a conflict in the opinionsof the repairer and the insurance com-pany regarding what is right to do, therepairer’s opinion should take prece-dence because they are the profes-sional. Erica believes this is importantfor developing a better public relationsstanding regarding how complicatedcollision work is since there are manyvariables that come into play; unfortu-nately, the collision industry is losingthe public relations war because insur-ance companies spend a lot of moneyadvertising about how they repair ve-hicles, leaving consumers with themisconception that their insurancecompany will fix their car, through theinsurer only pays for the repair.


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A NACE panel of three representa-tives from top auto insurers discussedindustry consolidation, technologyand future trends during the CollisionIndustry Forum insurance panel dis-cussion Oct. 12. Speaking on a panelmoderated by Dan Stander of FixAuto Highlands Ranch in Littleton,CO, the insurers responded to the no-ticeable consolidation trend affectingboth repairers and insurers, specifi-cally the growth of several MSOssuch as The Boyd Group, ABRA,CARSTAR, Service King and CaliberCollision—but also that of smaller re-gional MSOs.

“MSOs that can replicate qualityprocedures are attractive as a group,”George Avery of State Farm said.“Using a score card to rate MSOsacross the board represents an inter-esting opportunity. But just like inde-pendent shops, they must perform tostay on our system.”

Avery said that any MSOs ontheir DRPs are measured as individ-ual shops and must compete to per-form on that basis. He recalled StateFarms’s experience with M2, the 27-shop consolidator in California that

closed abruptly back in 2005, rein-forced his company’s interest in find-ing top-performing individual shops,whether stand-alone or part of anMSO.

“State Farm maintains that whetheryou are an independent or an MSO, youshould be able to compete, and so StateFarm evaluates even MSOs as individ-ual repairers,” Avery said. “I’m not dis-counting [the MSOs’] ability, but I amsaying that those with individual repairfacilities have skin in the game, and thatcan have a lot of value on the customerservice side, which we’re all after.”

Rob Knott of Nationwide con-curred. “We think the mom-and-popsstill have a place,” Knott said. “Someof the challenges that the MSOs haveis over-saturation in certain market-

places, so you’re not going to put (alltheir shops in a market) on (the directrepair program). And then there’s theconsistency issue, when they expandtoo fast and aren’t able to maintain thesame service levels and quality.”

Randy Hansen of Allstate alsosaid each facility on his company’sDRP, even if part of an MSO, has tostand on its own performance.

But the three acknowledged thatMSOs can offer some appealing serv-ices such as call centers, extendedhours and a single point-of-contact.Hanson said the collision repair in-dustry suffers from a “tremendousamount of inefficiency” that consoli-dation alone cannot cure. Instead,shops should consider expanding theirhours of operation or finding other

ways to better utilize their facilitiesand equipment.

Consolidation in the insurance in-dustry is likely to continue as compa-nies seek to grow. “The only otherway to grow is by taking another com-pany’s customers,” Knott said, andthose are costly acquisitions becauseacquiring a new customer is seventimes more costly than retaining theirown customer, he said.

Avery added that MSOs presentan “interesting platform” in which toexperiment with a change on a largebut not national scale.

“You hear people talk about howthe model is broken,” Avery said.“There are components [of change]that could be perhaps introduced intoan MSO that you couldn’t quite intro-duce companywide. So I feel com-pelled to tell you, not to make anyonenervous about MSOs taking over, butI do have to say that is a place whereyou could possibly go and say, ‘Look,we’d like to try something different.’”Avery suggested later in the discus-sion that attendees think like a youngdriver using her mobile device to findout what to do after a minor accident.


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Insurers Talk MSOs, Consolidation, the Cloud, and Tech Trends

Insurance Representatives on panel (l to r): Moderator Dan Stander, State Farm’s George Avery,Nationwide’s Rob Knott, and Allstate’s Randy Hansen.

“What can we do together? Can wework together to offer her a 48-hourrepair?” Avery asked. “You might say,‘Yeah, if you quit making me take allthese pictures and jump through thesehoops.’ And I might say, ‘Okay, I’llstop that.’ So as we look at the future,I’m leaning toward partnering andsaying, look, that customer is going toleave us and go somewhere else. Sheis not going to tolerate inefficiency.”

Cloud Computing and Data OwnershipKnott said technology changes soquickly that it’s hard for insurers andrepair shops to keep up. “Our cus-tomers are pushing insurance compa-nies to evolve with technology and achallenge is how fast can we adopt newtechnology. But if we don’t change wewill be left behind.”

Allstate has consolidated 100legacy systems into one delivery plat-form, Hanson said. “It was tremen-dously complex and we spent hundredsof millions of dollars to implement it.We recently adopted cloud computing.It is very flexible and offers more ap-plications and options.”

With cloud computing conven-ience comes the more complex issueof data ownership.

“Cloud computing is great be-cause it allows you to access your dataanywhere,” Knott said. “However,there is great concern over data own-ership and who has access to the data.Hanson said the issue of data owner-ship is clear to Allstate. “We view itas the customer’s data, not the shop’sor the insurance company’s. It is ourobligation to keep it secure and pro-tect it. State Farm is developing itsown cloud and securing the data isone of the most important initiatives,according to Avery.

Advancing OEM technology is atrend that concerns repairers and insur-ers. Stander asked: “If cars won’t becrashing into each other due to acci-dent avoidance technology, what doesthat mean for repairers and insurers?”

Avery said that accident avoid-ance technology won’t be fully im-plemented for 15 to 20 years. “Withor without that technology, we need tofigure out a way to help our customersin the future. Customers will not tol-erate inefficiency. They will find whatthey want with or without us.”

Hanson said the new OEM tech-nology has the potential to change theway insurers do business, but it’s notclear what those changes will be.


GCIA Succeeds in Getting Allstate to Reverse Decision about Sales Tax ReimbursementThe Georgia Collision Industry Asso-ciation (GCIA) announced that it hasbeen successful in getting Allstate toreverse its decision that it would nolonger reimburse shops for the salestax charged to consumers on paint andmaterials. Several weeks ago, Allstatehad communicated this change in pol-icy to many GCIA members.

GCIA then contacted the GeorgiaDepartment of Revenue, which citedRegulation 560-12-2-.08:

In general, regulation [560-12-2-.08] provides that the sale of autopainting can be structured as either

1) the sale of painting services,where the auto painter must pay taxon all tangible personal property usedto perform his service and will bill hiscustomer for painting services only;

or 2) the retail sale of paint withpainting labor, where the auto bodyshop will purchase the paint exempt forresale, and then bill his customer for thepaint and repair/painting labor, and thencollect tax on the sale to the customer.

Of course, the labor charge willbe exempt if itemized on the cus-tomer’s invoice. Regulation 560-12-2-.08 supports both types of transactions.The Department can only require thatthe tax be applied correctly to the type

of transaction chosen by the seller andbuyer.

After communications with theGeorgia Department of Revenue andAllstate regarding this issue, the GCIAreceived word from Allstate that theirstand on this issue had been reversed.

On Sept. 25, Dan Risley, marketmanager (south) for Allstate, spoke toHoward Batchelor, executive direc-tor of GCIA, and told him that All-state will pay sales tax on paint andmaterials.

However, GCIA is attempting toobtain an official written statementfrom Allstate.

In addition, GCIA is working onguidelines for members as to howshops should pay, collect and remit thesales tax on paint and material items.

Anyone wishing to assist in writ-ing these guidelines should contactHoward Batchelor at (770) 367-9816or [email protected].

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perfect world by numbers.’ Moreoften than not, in this industry, realityis much different than the perfectworld. Reports/scorecards of repairersare formed through a perfect worldcomputerized format. For example:new parts can and are often damagedin shipping, causing returns and de-lays; used parts often are not of qual-ity to be used in the repair process;vehicle owners often leave their vehi-cles (that are safe to drive) at repair-ers on Fridays because a claimsrepresentative has ok’d a rental. Theseexamples are only a few that come tomind that can affect a repairer’s score-card. Some of the numbers/averageson the scorecard include formulas thathave key performance indicators in aweighted format that could never beexplained as how the particular num-ber/average score was determined.Not a comfortable situation when at-tempting to discuss a repairer’s per-formance considering we do not livein a perfect world.

ABN: What do you think of the Part-sTrader pilot program?Plier: My opinion of the Partstraderprogram is not positive. The informa-tion provided to me by repairers onthe program, from individuals thatwere in meetings with State Farm em-ployees during the test pilot roll out inAlabama, the information that is beingprovided by the many different publi-cations and the information providedby State Farm Consultant GeorgeAvery at the recent Georgia CollisionIndustry Association meeting indicateto me there are a lot of questions thatState Farm and/or PartsTrader eitherrefuse to answer or do not have an an-swer for. I would suggest everyone toconsider if something is mandated,why is it being mandated? Items, pro-grams, actions, etc. that have to bemandated usually have a lot more badfor a large multiple sectored groupthan good. Is this the reason the por-tion of the Select Service agreement isbeing actively enforced on this pro-gram? Any repairer on the SelectService program agreed if re-quested/required by State Farm to usea parts locating/procurement programthey would. There are several otherssections within the Select Serviceagreement with the same type lan-guage that repairers have agreed to.

ABN: Why do you think State Farmintroduced this program? Where doyou think State Farm is going withit?Plier: I feel there are multiple rea-sons. First and for the immediatetime, I feel State Farm was aware ofmanufacturers offering parts pricingmatch programs and believed the im-plementation of a program such asPartsTrader could lead to supplierstaking an aggressive approach to ex-pand business by reducing prices in abid/quote program such as this. How-ever, I believe the bigger purposehere is if successfully implemented,this would open the door to the othersections of the Select Service agree-ment requiring additional actionsfrom repairers as agreed to such asthis.

ABN: How do you think the programwill affect the industry? Repairers aresaying this pilot program is inefficientand costs them more than its worth.Plier: I feel if State Farm is successfulwith this program resulting in man-dated use of locating and procurementsystems, the balance of the insuranceindustry will quickly follow with thesame or similar programs. My opinionis this will not be good news for theconsumer. I know State Farm is say-ing this is intended to be focused onclaims expense and no one should beagainst anything that might result inreduced cost, and according to StateFarm, a possible reduction in premi-ums for policyholders. I am currentlya State Farm policyholder; I definitelywant my premiums to be as cheap aspossible, but even more importantly, Iwant my vehicle repaired properly.For repairers to keep up with the ever-changing technology, training is amust. Equipment requirements mustbe maintained so if programs such asthis affect industry members’ ability tomeet these needs it is not good. I haveread and heard Mr. Avery say StateFarm does not want to tell repairerswho to buy from, but I have not heardState Farm address the actual ineffi-ciencies that to date I have seen thisprogram cause to repairers and otherinefficiencies I have been told of byrepairers. There does not seem to beany concern from State Farm and/orPartstrader that this program does in-deed have an additional labor and ad-ministrative time/expense associatedto it for the repairer and supplier. Iread in an article, that according to thewriter, the repairers they had spoken

with suggested an average additional30 minutes per day. The repairers Ihave spoken with in Birmingham sug-gest to me they approximate spendingan average of an additional 30 minutesper claim. Birmingham repairers noteyou may have some claims that onlyrequire an additional five to ten min-utes of additional time, but you alsohave those claims they may require anadditional hour of administrative time.I have not spoken specifically withany parts suppliers on the PartsTraderlist, but feel any supplier on the Part-strader list is also incurring additionaladministrative time and expenses ifthey are following the rules of the pro-gram.

ABN: Does this program offer anybenefits to the repairers?Plier: Based on the current informa-tion provided and from the feedbackreceived from Birmingham area re-pairers, I have not been able to iden-tify what I would consider a benefitfor a repairer on the program. StateFarm has stated they have receivedpositive feedback from their evalua-tions, the only thing is, to my knowl-edge, State Farm has not to this dateprovided a single item with the indus-

try that can be viewed as positivefeedback. If there has been anythingpositive for the repairer, I have notheard nor have I read about it.

ABN: With repairers highly wary ofthe program, what do you think the so-lution is?Plier: I feel the distrust and con-frontational nature of this industry be-tween the two parties are much deeperthan this program. I am not sure thereis a simple solution for this issue if allsides must benefit. If attempts aremade to identify efficient alternatives,both sides must work together to iden-tify the many different possibilities.There already exist electronic order-ing opportunities used by many re-pairers, so if there is ever to be asolution that all sides agree to, I feelthere will be multiple businesses/venders to choose from. I do not feelmandating a particular program is theanswer.

ABN: Was State Farm too aggressivein launching this program?Plier: Considering the informationthat has been provided to the industry,‘yes.’ I do not believe the details had


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Steve Plier

See Steve Plier, Page 20

been thoroughly reviewed and con-sidered.

ABN: What does it suggest to youwhen State Farm can’t come up with asingle benefit to repairers?Plier: Maybe because there is not asingle benefit associated to the shopin regards to this program. I believe ifState Farm had identified benefits forthe shops and or the suppliers, wewould all have heard about them bynow.

ABN: What kind of damage controlcould State Farm do now?Plier: I’m not sure there is a definitesingle thing that could be focused onhere. There are many issues in the re-pair industry that need to be addressedfor the “RIGHT REASON”—the con-sumer. Many of these issues have beenaround for many years, but have neverbeen addressed. As rules identified inrepair agreements continue to expand,the magnification of the many issuesgrow. For example: the need for an in-dependent third-party survey process

to identify a competitive pricing range;the agreement that the repair proce-dure pages are not pick and choose,but will be honored completely at alltimes, just to name a couple.

ABN: What should affected shops bedoing right now about PartsTrader?Plier: My recommendation would befor each and every repairer on the Se-lect Service repair program or any re-pair program to review their programagreements and then reread themagain. List questions or concerns iden-tified in the agreements and contactthe particular insurance company todiscuss any questions or concerns.After any discussions, make a busi-ness decision based on considerationof all factors of what you feel is in thebest interest of your business.

ABN:What is the background of StateFarm’s previous efforts on this issue?Plier: State Farm had a trial programin California and Indiana in 2009, butdiscontinued the program afterChrysler filed for bankruptcy and GMaccepted a government bailout in2009. The trial was structured differ-ently then as compared to the Part-sTrader program now.

About CAREPlier started his business, CARE, in2010 after leaving State Farm. Hisgoal, focus and efforts with Con-sumer Auto Repair Excellence, Inc.has been to assist repair facility own-ers and manager with a better under-standing of simple businessprinciples, such as understandingtheir business operating cost and theimportance of quality control pro-grams, and to understand simplethings involved in the repair process,that if itemized, they should andcould be compensated for by the ma-jority of the insurance companies.

The services provided by CAREalso involve assistance to repairers byinvestigating issues and questions thatrepairers encounter and providingdocumentation to back the recom-mended positions. Plier assists repair-ers with identifying possible solutionsthat would be beneficial to the indus-try and in particular focused on whatis appropriate and in the best interestof the consumer.

Steve Plier, PresidentConsumer Auto Repair ExcellenceInc. www.consumerautocare.com205-623-9307


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Steve PlierSeminar on Damage Analysis toSupport the Blueprinting Process.

Car-O-Liner®, a leading globalprovider of collision repair equipmentto the automotive aftermarket, has re-tained Larry Montanez of P&LConsultants, LLC, to develop andpresent a hands-on workshop entitled“Fast Tracking Vehicle Repairs.”

The seminar debuted at thisyear’s NACE show in New Orleans,LA, and will also be presented at thisyear’s SEMA show in Las Vegas, NV.

The presentation will coverdamage analysis to include quickchecks, damage classification, pre-measuring, and how Car-O-Linerequipment aids in the Triage andBlueprinting process. Classes willbe held in the Car-O-Liner booth ateach show.

“This is an important topic inthe collision repair industry and weare happy that Larry Montanez willbe partnering with us to present thisinformation in our booth this year,”said Doug Bortz, National SalesManager for Car-O-Liner Company.

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Start Fixing“The RightWay”

Dave McBroomFebruary 16, 1945 – October 11, 2012

The collision repair industry is mourn-ing the loss of Dave McBroom, pres-ident of the Florida AutobodyCollision Alliance, and friend, brotherand mentor to countless people whoselives he touched.

William David “Dave” McB-room passed away peacefully on Oc-tober 11, 2012 in Jacksonville, FL, atthe age of 67. A native of Cookeville,TN, and a graduate of the Universityof Tennessee, Dave served in the U.S.Army for 21 years and was a deco-rated helicopter pilot in Vietnam be-fore retiring as a Colonel.

Dave was also president of Sun-beam Autobody in Jacksonville andwas committed to raising the profes-sional image of the collision repair in-dustry. Through Dave’s leadership andpassion, the Florida Autobody Colli-sion Alliance was formed and grewfrom three body shop owners havingcoffee once a month to more than 400members in six chapters throughoutthe state.

“FACA’s members and board ofdirectors grieve Dave’s untimely deathand extend our deepest condolences tohis wife Terri and his entire family,”

said Cathy Mills, FACA’s executivedirector. “Dave was an absolute rolemodel—a caring friend, a supportivehusband and loving father and grand-father, and a passionate industry ad-vocate. Our lives will be foreverchanged with his passing.”

“I have lost a very dear friend,”said Chuck Sulkala, executive direc-

tor of the NationalAuto Body Coun-cil. “Dave’s everpresent greetingof ‘what can I doto help you today’will be my pleas-ure to ask of oth-ers I now meet. Iam sad beyondbelief and he will

be missed deeply. May Dave’s legacybe with us forever.”

“Dave McBroom was an amaz-ing, inspiring individual,” sharedSCRS executive director AaronSchulenburg. “His membership, hispeers, and his friends flocked to him.He had a lifetime of well earned expe-riences that gave him the apt ability totell an inspiring tale on just about anysubject matter, and a compelling kind-ness in his disposition that offered acharisma held by few. His passion for

the industry, for what is right, and forliving life to its fullest was unparal-leled and it is an immeasurable loss forall of us.”

Dave leaves behind his wifeTerese “Terri” Walker McBroom,sister Marilyn Joyce “Joby” Clouti-aux; children Kevin McBroom (Pam)of St. Augustine, FL, Stephanie Nel-son (John) of Cookeville, TN andAmy Helms (Alan) of South Carolina;niece Shayne Harris (Kirk), nephewRobin Trousdale (Sonia); grandnieceand nephew Ashley Pelfrey and Clay-ton Hopper. As “Pap,” he will bemissed by his adoring grandchildrenAndrew, Isaac, Kingston, Winston,Ally, Abby, Lily, Lyla, William, Ash-lyn, and Lexy.

Funeral services were held Oct.18 in the Chapel of Hardage-Gid-dens Funeral Home of Mandarin.Interment will be held at a later datein Double Springs Cemetery ofCookeville, TN.

In lieu of flowers, the family re-quests donations be made in memoryof Dave McBroom to Hubbard HouseWomen’s Shelter, Attn: Development,P.O. Box 4909, Jacksonville, FL32201, or Concerns of Police Sur-vivors (C.O.P.S) 5530 Beach Blvd,Jacksonville, FL 32207.

Collision Repair Industry Loses a Legend and a Friend; McBroom Passed Away Oct. 11

Dave McBroom

The second largest energy cost in theaverage automotive shop is generat-ing and maintaining compressed air.A new Prevost ALR aluminum airpiping system can pay for itself inless than two years in lower energycosts while extending the life of com-ponents and pneumatic tools. PrevostALR comes in seven sizes from 20mm to 80 mm diameter.

The key to the cost saving arethe smooth walls of the piping, alu-minum’s excellent corrosion resist-ance and the system’s “bubble tight”compression connectors.

Another major benefit of PrevostALR piping is installation cost savings.According to the MCAA Labor Man-ual, installation time for a 300-foot alu-minum looped header system is 20hours compared to 63 hours for blackiron and 74 hours for copper. The sys-tem can be easily installed or modifiedby shop staff without threading, sweat-ing or gluing and produces “bubbletight” connections. And the system caneasily be reconfigured or dismantledand moved to another location.

For more information on Pre-vost ALR Aluminum Air Piping Sys-tems, call 800-845-7220 or visitwww.prevostusa.com.

Prevost ALR Aluminum AirPiping is an Easy System

For many collision shops, spray paint-ing with compressed air means deal-ing with uncontrollable or difficult tocontrol variables, including tempera-ture, humidity and pressure.

“Compressed air is a problem be-cause air changes based on tempera-ture, altitude, and other variables thatcannot be readily controlled,” saysMichael Haydell, president of Hay-dell Industries. As a result, the viscos-ity of painting material also changeswith each use due to moisture andtemperature, as well as the build-up ofstatic electricity. Static makes the ma-terial do what it wants to do, not whatthe painter wants it to do.

Haydell Industries offers a solu-tion to this dilemma in the form oftheir NitroTech Spray Generator.Their vision is to “be the premierprovider of innovative solutions andsystems for customers’ productivity,”and they achieve this through theirvalues of integrity, excellence, com-

munication and accountability.Haydell Industries was founded in

1986 by Michael Haydell as a manu-facturing representative company. Buttheir focus changed to the productionand distribution of nitrogen-based spraysystems in 2005. They also now sell avariety of shop equipment, includingindustrial paint booths and filters.

The use of inert nitrogen offerspainters a gas to spray with, providinga more consistent finish. This leads toa reduction in the use of wet materi-als, an increase in booth throughput,and a decrease in the cost of booth ex-haust filters. As an added bonus, theNitroTech Spray Generator is also en-vironmentally friendly as it signifi-cantly reduces the VOCs and HAPsreleased into the air.

Haydell Industries separates theimpurities at a gas level to redirect theair’s properties, and by controlling thetemperature through their hose, theyare also able to control viscosity, while

using ionization processes to eliminatestatic electricity. This uses less paint asthe nitrogen allows the substrate to befully covered in fewer coats than canbe accomplished using compressed air.

Though an air compressor is stillnecessary to supply the NitroTechSpray Generator with compressed air,the compressed air is replaced by a per-fect fluid carrier of Nitrogen, Argonand/or Carbon Dioxide. The system caneasily be integrated into a shop’s exist-ing system without changing sprayequipment, processes or the preferredcoating. The only maintenance requiredfor Haydell’s Nitrogen system is achange of inlet air filters once a year.

Since Haydell Industries’ Ni-troTech Spray Generators reduce the useof materials by 30–50%, collision shopscan save up to 20–30% in material costsby integrating this technology into theirrepairs. Nitrogen spray also reduces ap-plication time by 30–50%, providingeven more savings in man hours.

Haydell Industries received theirpatent for the third generation of theirNitrogen Technology in May 2012.Michael Haydell proudly states, “Ournewest generation uses 250% lesscompressed air than the first genera-tion, making it 250% more efficient.”

Haydell Industries’ impressivelist of clientele includes Boeing, Mer-cedes-Benz and Hendricks MotorSports. Their website claims, “we aregaining momentum, ensuring we re-main in the forefront of any competi-tion, as we keep a firm hold onAdvanced Application Technologiesthrough our nationwide distributionnetwork...

Haydell Industries can be reached at:163 Pellerin RoadLafayette, LA 705601-800-877-43621-337-989-0307 (fax)[email protected]


The NitroTech Spray Generator Controls the Uncontrollable

with Chasidy Rae SiskCompany Connections

Chasidy Rae Sisk is a freelance technical writer from Wilmington, Delaware,who writes on a variety of fields and subjects, and grew up in a family ofNASCAR fans. She can be contacted at [email protected].

Emphasizing that shops “must re-member that the insurance company isnot their customer,” Erica reiteratedher lesson from March about the threeoptions that insurers have when han-dling a claim and how a DRP relation-ship allows them to control the repairwithout accepting liability. She dis-cussed the usefulness of addressing re-plevin in the repair contract. Replevin,sometimes known as “claim and de-livery,” is a legal remedy which allowsthe recovery of goods unlawfully with-held from possession via a legalprocess in which a court may require adefendant to return specific goods tothe plaintiff at the outset of the action(i.e. before judgment). Replevin grantsthe shop the right to a possessory lien,allowing them to retain the vehicleuntil payment is received. Erica ex-plained the benefits of an Assignmentof Proceeds and other documents.

Another useful document is theAcknowledgement Terminating RepairContract and Releasing of Motor Ve-hicle which is designed to protect col-lision shops by giving them the

chance to retain business by inform-ing the customer of what is going onand by improving a shop’s chancesshould they decide to take the case tocourt. A Customer Notice of InsuranceDeficiency informs the customer oftheir insurance company’s refusal to

fully pay to properly and safely repairthe vehicle. This helps in the publicrelations battle as it shows the shop’srefusal to breach their repair contractby adhering to the insurer’s pressureto provide an unsafe repair.

A Customer Notice of InsurerDelay keeps the customer informedregarding their repair by alerting themto delays caused by their insurancecompany. Shops can also provide theircustomers with the Vehicle DamageInsurance Election form which they

can send to their insurer demanding toknow how they plan to pay for the re-pair. Though it is highly unlikely thatany insurance company will sign thisdocument, the insured has the right todemand a response from their insur-ance provider. A Notice of Additional

Cost can also be sent to the insurancecompany to inform them of additionalcosts incurred during the repair. Thisdocument helps independent collisionshops avoid third party interference byrefusing to permit the insurer to causeinefficiency and by giving the impres-sion that the insurer must respond tothe shop, reiterating the point that therepairer is in control of the repair.

Erica Eversman also recom-mended providing consumers with aParts Notice and Authorization docu-

ment, which she plans to publish onautoepi.org for distribution, in order tohelp consumers understand the vari-ous types of parts that may be used torepair their vehicle. She ended thispresentation by repeating her opinionof the dangers of aftermarket and sal-vage parts and discussing what shopsshould and should not warrant, em-phasizing that shops should not offer awarranty on anything other than theirworkmanship.

Next, John Parese, Esq., dis-cussed the definition and uses of an as-signment. An assignment is a transferof property or another right from oneperson to another which confers a com-plete and present right in the subjectmatter. As a contract between these twoparties, an assignment is subject to con-tract law and interpretation. Causes ofaction issuing from a wrong whichcauses injury to the property or fromtort by which the property is dimin-ished or damaged are generally assign-able, and a party may assign their rightto recover damages to the propertywithout conveying title to the property.A valid assignment requires clear evi-dence of the intent to transfer rights anda description of the subject matter of


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Honda has developed some new tech-nology for vehicle construction, andthey have applied it for the first timein the world to a mass-production ve-hicle; and not just any mass-produc-tion vehicle, the Honda Accord, one ofthe top-five selling vehicles in theUnited States.

The newly redesigned 2013Honda Accord went on sale in theUnited States on September 19, and itsconstruction is the result of Honda’snext-generation Advanced Compati-bility Engineering (ACE) body struc-ture which utilizes the new weldingtechnique as well as hot-stamped andother ultra-high strength steels to buildits cabin structure.

The Accord’s subframe is madewith a combination of steel and alu-minum joined together with a processcalled Friction Stir Welding (FSW).The continuous weld technology gen-erates a stable metallic bond betweensteel and aluminum by moving a ro-

tating tool on the top of the aluminumwhich is lapped over the steel withhigh pressure. Honda says the result-ing weld strength is equal to or greaterthan conventional MIG welding.

Honda also developed a non-de-structive inspection system for qualitycontrol that uses a highly-sensitive in-frared camera and laser beam to in-spect every unit. The carmaker saysthe Friction Stir Welding system it de-veloped for this process can be also beused for aluminum-to-aluminumwelding and could be used for pro-duction of a full-aluminum subframe.

The subframe however, shouldnot cause many repairability issues ac-cording to I-CAR Technical Director

Jason Bartanen, asHonda provides no re-pair procedures at all forthe part, and specifiescomplete replacementonly.

“What will cause someissues is the high strengthsteel used in this car’sbody structure,” saidBartanen speaking fromthe I-CAR Tech Centre inAppleton, Wisconsin.

The newly redesigned2013 Accord body uses

55.8% high-tensile steel, more than inany previous Accord. And 17.2-per-cent of the steel is grade 780, 980 and1,500 MPa, extremely high gradesthat have never before been used inany Accord, and in fact, very fewother cars, according to Bartanen.

“This is one of the first cars touse such high strength steel (1500MPa) in its body structure,” says Bar-tanen. “Most applications only use itonly for bumper beams. But the new

Accord uses ultra-high strength steelin its A pillar and B pillar reinforce-ments as well as its rocker reinforce-ments. Honda is requiring MIGbrazing only in these areas.

While Honda is not the very firstto build such a body structure, none ofthe previous vehicles even come closeto the sales volume of the Accord.“The Volvo XC60 is also using similarultra-high strength steel (1,500 MPa)in the structure,” Bartanen noted.

The Accord has historically soldbetween 250,000 and 400,000 units ayear compared to XC60 sales of ap-proximately 25,000.

Bartanen said I-CAR is currentlyupdating its Honda andAcura training avail-able online. The newAccord will be coveredin I-CAR’s CollisionRepair Overview forHonda and Acura Vehi-cles (HON01) andshould be availablewithin the next fewmonths.

“We have an Ac-cord body in white on

its way here right now,” Bartanennoted. “We are going to paint it toshow the various steels used in this carand prepare it for display at the SEMAshow.”

The ninth generation Accord,which also contains Forward CollisionWarning and Lane Departure Warningtechnologies, officially debuted atdealerships across the U.S. on Sep-tember 19 at a base price of $21,680plus destination charge.


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Honda Develops New Welding Technology, UHSS Structure for 2013 Accord

Matrix Electronic Measuring, Inc. Awarded Two PatentsMatrix Electronic Measuring Inc., adeveloper of advanced measuring de-vices for the automotive collision re-pair industry, has obtained two patentsfor its new vehicle measurement sys-tem called the Matrix Wand.

Rob Bailey, director of sales en-gineering and business developmentfor Matrix Electronic Measuring Inc.,details how the Matrix Wand adds ef-ficiency and quality to shop estimat-ing procedures. Watch now »

The Matrix Wand is a handheldvehicle measurement device used forestimating structural collision damage.The tool, which was publicly launchedin April, uses two cameras that capturethree-dimensional images of vehicledamage. Estimators can use the imagesto measure all damage on a vehicle’sbody and engine components, revealhidden damage, verify repair qualityand enable predictive wheel alignment.

Matrix has been awarded twopatents for the measurement systemand method, which was developedby Guidelight Business Solutions, aglobal business and enterprise appli-cation development company basedin Austin, TX. Matrix has two morepatents pending on the tool, whichthe company expects to be awardedsoon.

With ownership of the patents,Guidelight said Matrix will be able toreduce the number of competitors inthe market and obtain revenue from li-censing.

“The patented innovations Guide-light has developed for Matrix pushesthe Matrix Wand to the forefront of theburgeoning marketing of vision sys-tems and augmented reality,” saidGeorge Stevens, CEO of Guidelight.

For more information about theMatrix Wand, visit thematrixwand.com.


American Honda Motor Co, Inc. an-nounced the launch of the ProFirstbody shop recognition program onOct. 15. Open to both dealer-ownedand independent collision repair shops,the program is designed to promote thecorrect, complete, and safe repair ofHonda and Acura vehicles and providesupport to shops that have demon-strated a commitment to a high level ofcustomer care and satisfaction.

To qualify, shops must conduct aminimum number of transactionsusing OEConnection’s Collision-Link software, be a designated I-CAR Gold Class Professionals®

business, and have at least one per-son presently employed by the shopwho has completed the I-CAR course,Collision Repair for Honda and AcuraVehicles (HON01).

“CollisionLink is a component ofthe ProFirst program because of thenumerous benefits it provides to bothshops and dealers, said Bill Lopez,Director of OEM Program Develop-ment at OEConnection. “ThroughCollisionLink, shops can take advan-tage of Honda’s Collision Select partsprogram, which enables them to usemore genuine Honda and Acura partswhile managing their overall repaircosts.” Lopez added, “CollisionLinkalso helps to increase efficiencies and

parts ordering accuracy, which meansfewer returns, faster cycle times and,ultimately, more satisfied customers”

John Van Alstyne, I-CAR CEO& President stated, “The ProFirst bodyshop recognition program, in conjunc-tion with the I-CAR Gold Class Pro-fessionals designation, will alignparticipating shops with a training pro-gram that is meant to elevate the cus-tomer experience and enable shopemployees to work up to their full po-

tential.” Van Alstyne added, “Trainingand knowledge provide a platform forbusiness and personal excellence, gen-erating benefits for both the organiza-tion and the customer, includingincreased operational efficiencies, re-duced cycle times, minimized repairmistakes, and most importantly, com-plete and safe repairs.”

Qualifying shops will receive ahandsome plaque, a place on the shop-locator tool on the recently-launchedAmerican Honda consumer web site,free access to the Honda and Acuraparts catalog, parts bulletins, serviceand repair information, and more.

Shops will benefit through in-creased recognition of the shop’s pro-fessionalism, increased opportunity toreach more customers and the promo-tion of customer confidence and loy-alty.

To see full program details, go toprofirst.honda.com or profirst.acura.com.

Each shop must enroll as a sepa-rate entity at its place of business asthe ProFirst web site will manage the

shop’s access to the parts catalogsand service information.

Jim Roach, Senior Vice Presi-dent for American Honda’s Parts &Service Division noted, “We arepleased to be working with OECon-

nection and I-CAR for the ProFirstprogram. As the industry changes andautomotive technology changes, wemust make changes in our programs tokeep pace. ProFirst, and our associa-tion with both OEConnection and I-CAR, is a step in the right direction.ProFirst is a win / win for all involved,especially for Honda and Acura own-ers.”

For more information on the I-CARGold Class Professionals® program, visitthe I-CAR website (www.i-car.com) andclick on “Collision Repair Gold ClassProfessionals® “ under the “Training andRecognition” tab.

American Honda Launches ProFirst Shop Recognition Program

WIZARDS® Products is proud to an-nounce the addition of MYSTICSPRAY WAX™ (Part #01235) totheir ever growing line of superiorprofessional detailing and finishingproducts. The company that broughttop-selling MIST-N-SHINE™ to themarketplace has combined recently-developed nano-technology with theirproprietary synthetic formula to raisethe bar and take detailing products farbeyond outdated carnauba waxes.Developed to be more compatiblewith today’s advanced clearcoats,MYSTIC SPRAY WAX™ performsexcellent on all paint types providingan instant bond with incredible glossand depth after application and sus-tained water beading and slicknesswash after wash. This easy applica-tion spray eliminates hazing andwhite filmy residues. In addition togiving a showroom shine, MYSTICSPRAY WAX™ can be used on anyhard surfaces including glass,chrome, polycarbonate, fiberglass,gel-coat, plastics and rubber trim tosafely removes dust, bugs, bird drop-pings, road grime, oily fingerprintsand light water spotting.

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the assignment; it must be clear and un-equivocal, and it must be noticed to theobligor. While there are no formal re-quirements for an assignment, the lan-guage used must indicate the owner’sintention to transfer the claim.

Valuable consideration is essen-tial to support an assignment, andthough the word “consideration” doesnot necessarily have to appear on theassignment, Parese recommends it. Anassignment requires an exchange,such as allowing a customer to taketheir vehicle without the shop receiv-ing payment if they sign the assign-ment. An Assignment for Money Dueshould identify the customer, facility,vehicle and loss. The document doesnot need to be notarized and should beenforceable without defects. Paresealso advises shops to have all cus-tomers sign a repair contract. Pareseended his presentation by using clipsfrom “Hot Coffee” and several insur-ance commercials to reiterate his mes-sage about public relations from theMarch seminar.

Tony Lombardozzi, President of

CCRE, followed with a brief talk onthe need to change the mindset of col-lision repairers and to send a messageof whose business the insurer is visit-ing. In the collision industry, “we op-erate every day on fear”, Lombardozziclaimed, continuing to elaborate thatshops fear losing business and beingsubjected to steering.

On Saturday, John Parese beganthe seminar with a presentation entitledTen Steps to Consider When Filing aLawsuit. The first step is to provideproper documentation, including asigned repair contract and the final in-voice. Noting that “the insurance com-pany doesn’t like being sued,” Paresereminded attendees that the insurer’sestimate is just a guess on the likelydamages and is not reliable. The sec-ond step is to verify that all work wascompleted and billed correctly. Be-cause lawsuits result in hyper scrutinyon both ends, it is imperative that therepairer did everything they claim theydid during the vehicle’s repair.

Step 3 requires the use of a properAssignment of Claim which will allowthe shop to stand in the customer’sshoes to acquire payment. The fourthstep involves choosing a reasonablecustomer, and it is important to lay the

proper foundation of information assurprises in the courtroom are a badidea. The case a shop chooses to fightin court should involve a cooperativeand informed consumer.

Step 5 is to establish liability withthe information to prove the basis of theclaim. Parese notes that “you have toestablish negligence in order to proveliability”, but on short pay cases, it canbe argued that the insurance companyaccepted liability by paying on the dam-ages, even if they did not pay in full.

Step 6 requires securing all nec-essary documents, including the policereport, proof of liability and all infor-mation about the parties involved. Pro-viding all of this will make the processas easy as possible on the lawyer.While shops may not win every singlecase, each small victory affects busi-ness since it will dissuade insuranceadjusters from harassing the shop. Theseventh step involves finding an attor-ney to take the case, and Parese notesthat small cases are often combinedinto one larger case. Step 8 is to createa labor rate survey by surveying 12–20local shops to disprove the insurancecompany’s common claim that a shophas the highest labor rates in the area.This survey can help justify the claim

that your rates are reasonable, and thegoal is for your posted rates to fallsomewhere in the middle of the shopsincluded in the survey; however, it isimportant not to share this informationto avoid accusations of conspiring withothers to increase labor rates.

Step 9 is to provide several exam-ples of being paid your labor rate,proving your posted rate is reasonableand fair. This is critical as the insurershould be paying the same rate as acustomer off the street. The tenth stepis to stamp all documents with “ac-cepted under protest as partial paymentonly for property damage.” Repairersshould appear at court dressed profes-sionally and with a business-like ap-proach in order to show the judge thatthey are taking the case seriously, andthis will help overturn preconceivedmisconceptions and stereotypes aboutthe industry as well as to show that therepairer is not trying to take advantageof anyone but is trying to stop gettingtaken advantage of.

Parese ended his presentation bydiscussing tortuous interference withthe repair contract and how to provethe insurance company intentionallysought to interfere with the contract


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AUTOMAKER, OEM, AND RECALLAUTOMAKER, OEM, AND RECALL

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Honda Recalls 820,000 Civics,Pilots Over Headlight ProblemHonda recently expanded itsMarch recall of vehicles with alow-beam headlight wiring issue toinclude 820,000 Civics and Pilotsin North America, its second bigexpansion of a recall in recentdays.

“[A] potential failure with thewiring of the headlight switch ...may cause the low-beam head-lights to become inoperative” inthe model-year 2002-2003 Civicsedans and 2004-2005 Pilot sportsutility vehicles that have beenadded to the recall, the carmakersaid in a statement. Meanwhile,some 550,000 model-year 2002-2004 CR-Vs and 2003 Pilots werethe vehicles named in the initial re-call in March.

Honda said the low-beamproblem could “increase the risk ofa crash,” but stated that “no crashesor injuries have been reported re-lated to this issue.” The companyadvised owners of the models inquestion to take their cars to author-ized Honda dealers for inspectionand replacement of components inthe headlight wiring system if nec-essary.

Honda also recently expandeda May recall related to a leakypower steering hose to include572,000 model-year 2003-2007Accord V6 cars in the U.S., in ad-dition to the 2007-2008 Acura TLmodels in the original recall.

High temperatures under thehood on those models can causethe power steering hose to crackand leak fluid that could causesmoke or even a fire. Honda saidone engine fire had been reportedbut no reported accidents or in-juries had occurred as a result ofthe problem.

The carmaker said owners ofvehicles being recalled for thepower steering hose issue wouldn'tbe able to have their cars fixeduntil early 2013 due to a shortageof parts.

The company said it beganmailing customers about the low-beam recall in late September.

General Motors Co. is recalling about41,000 Chevrolet, Pontiac and Saturncars in the United States because ofconcerns that a defective plastic partmight cause a fuel leak, according tothe National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration. GM’s latest movefollows the company’s recall of473,841 Chevrolet, Pontiac and Sat-urns in September to fix a conditionthat could lead the cars to move whenthe drivers think they are in park. Po-tentially, 40,859 vehicles sold inArkansas, Arizona, California,Florida, Nevada, Oklahoma, or Texascould be affected in the latest recall.

GM Recalls 41,000 Chevy, Pon-tiac and Saturns Over Fuel Leak

Chrysler Halts Tests Plug-insAfter Batteries OverheatChrysler Group LLC temporarily sus-pended testing of its fleet of advancedplug-in hybrid electric vehicles afterthree of the pickups were damagedwhen their prototype lithium-ion bat-teries overheated.

The trucks were unoccupiedwhen the incidents occurred, and noone was injured. But the automakerwill replace the batteries in the testvehicles with units that use a differentchemistry.

“Hiccups happen. We’re disap-pointed, but it by no means spells theend of the program,” said Chryslerspokesman Eric Mayne.

The pickups are part of a fleet of109 trucks being evaluated by theAuburn Hills automaker and a group ofutility companies and municipalitiesacross 20 states. It is part of a programjointly funded by Chrysler and the U.S.Department of Energy.

They include the first-ever factory-produced vehicles capable of reversepower flow. The experimental systemwould allow fleet operators to use theirplug-in hybrids to supply electricity fora building during a power outage, re-duce power usage when electric ratesare high or even sell electricity back totheir utility company.

“You can link them all togetherand establish your own mini grid,”Mayne said.

Chevy Dealer Sells Car forWrong Price, Buyer ArrestedA Virginia man spent four hours in jailafter purchasing a Chevrolet Traversefrom Priority Chevrolet in Chesa-peake, VA. The dealer’s sales staff ac-cidentally sold the SUV to DannySawyer for $5,600 less than theyshould have, and when Sawyer re-fused to sign a new, more expensivecontract for the correct amount, thedealership called the local police al-leging the buyer had stolen the vehi-cle. Law enforcement then pickedSawyer up and held him for four hoursbefore getting the situation straight.

Dennis Ellmer, president of Pri-ority Chevrolet, says he owes Sawyeran apology on behalf of the dealership,and had intended to do right by thebuyer by letting him have the vehicleat the agreed-upon price. But Sawyer’slawyer says it’s a little too late for say-ing sorry. The briefly-incarceratedowner has filed two lawsuits againstthe dealer, accusing the business of ma-licious prosecution, slander, defama-tion and abuse of process. All told, thesuits seek a total of $2.2 million indamages, plus attorney fees. That$5,600 seems awfully cheap now.

GM Recalls SaturnsGeneral Motors is recalling certainmodel year 2007-2010 Saturn Auraand model year 2008-2010 ChevroletMalibu and Pontiac G6 vehicles,equipped with a 4-speed automatictransmission. On these vehicles, thetabs on the transmission shift cableend may fracture and separate.

If the tabs were to fracture andseparate, the shift lever and the actualposition of the transmission gear maynot match. The driver would be ableto move the shifter to PARK and re-move the ignition key, but the trans-mission gear may not be in PARK.The vehicle may not be able to berestarted and the vehicle could rollaway after the driver has exited thevehicle, resulting in a possible crashwithout prior warning. GM will no-tify owners, and dealers will install aretainer over the cable end or replacethe shift cable as necessary. This serv-ice will be performed free of charge.

Dodge Charger As All-WheelDrive Enters Police MarketChrysler Group is upping the ante in thebattle for the police cruiser market, of-fering a new all-wheel-drive version ofits Dodge Charger Pursuit sedanequipped with a powerful 5.7-literHEMI V-8.

“Adding available all-wheel-drivecapability to the already popular DodgeCharger Pursuit will broaden theCharger’s appeal to police departmentsthat are accustomed to dealing withrough winters and adverse weather con-ditions,” said Peter Grady, vice presi-dent in charge of fleet operations for theAuburn Hills automaker.

“With the Charger Pursuit now of-fering dual capability of both rear- andall-wheel-drive, we’ll be able to meetthe needs of our police fleet customersacross the country.”

The all-wheel-drive version willbe equipped with the same engine as theHEMI-powered rear-wheel-drivemodel that achieved the fastest-ever laptime at the 2012 Michigan State Police’sVehicle Evaluation Test at GrattanRaceway in Michigan. The engine de-livers 370 horsepower and 390 lb.-ft. oftorque.

GM Recalling Some SonicsGeneral Motors is recalling certainmodel year 2013 Chevrolet Sonic ve-hicles manufactured from May 29,2012, through August 29, 2012.When a turn signal lamp fails to op-erate, the Body Control Module inthese vehicles does not detect thiscondition and will not indicate thecondition to the driver. These vehiclesfail to conform to Federal Motor Ve-hicle Safety Standard No. 108,“Lamps, Reflective Devices, and As-sociated Equipment.”

If the driver is not aware that theturn signal is not functioning anddoes not have the light repaired, otherdrivers may not be alerted that the ve-hicle is turning, increasing the risk ofa crash. GM will notify owners, anddealers will reprogram the BCM andthe vehicle’s key fobs, free of charge.The safety recall began on October 3,2012.


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Chrysler Sales Up for Smalland Mid-Sized CarsStrong sales of small and mid-sizedcars propelled Chrysler Group to itsbest September since 2007 and its30th consecutive month of year-over-year sales gains.

The automaker sold 142,041units last month, up 12% from Sep-tember 2011.

Car sales rose 27% to 42,050,while sales of light trucks climbed6% to 99,991.

Through September, ChryslerGroup’s sales totaled 1,250,670, up24%.

All of the automaker’s brandsposted gains in September, with Ramrecording the smallest gain at 4% andFiat the largest at 51%. Chrysler saidsix of its vehicles had record Sep-tember sales.

“With our current productlineup, record low interest rates anda stable U.S. economy, we remainoptimistic about the health of theU.S. new vehicle sales industry andour position in it,” Reid Bigland,Chrysler’s head of U.S. sales, said ina statement.

The Dodge Avenger recordedthe largest gain last month, up 89%to 8,716 units. Sales of the Fiat 500also rose sharply, climbing 51%.

General Motors said it will hire 3,000Hewlett-Packard Co. employees aspart of its ongoing effort to bringmost information-technology workback in-house.

The hiring will be part of a newmulti-year software and servicesagreement between the two compa-nies. GM described the deal as “cost-neutral,” but it did not provide anyadditional details on the size or lengthof the contract or where the workerswill be located.

The employees being hired al-ready work on GM’s business at HPand are expected to be on GM’s pay-roll within six months. An undis-closed number of HP employeescurrently assigned to GM are not af-fected, the companies said.

“These agreements with HP willenable us to accelerate the progress ofour IT transformation by delivering in-creased innovation and speed of deliv-ery to our GM business partners, andreduce the cost of ongoing IT opera-tions,” Randy Mott, GM’s chief in-formation officer, said in the statement.

GM Will Hire 3,000 HP Workers toBring Info Tech Work in-house

Toyota to Add 21 New Hybridsin Next Three YearsToyota Motor Corp. is boosting itsgreen vehicle lineup, with 21 new hy-brids in the next three years, a newelectric car later this year and a fuel cellvehicle by 2015. Japan’s top automakeroutlined its green vehicle plans amidgrowing concerns about global warm-ing and surging gas prices. Toyota willoffer an electric compact called eQ,based on its iQ model, in Japan and theU.S. in December though the numberof the vehicles made will be extremelylimited —about 100. The fuel cell ve-hicle, which runs on hydrogen, will beoffered from 2015.

U.S. Sales Up, GM & Ford DownU.S. auto sales, led by Toyota, Kia,American Honda and Volkswagen,rose 13% last month as the annualizedpace of sales accelerated to 14.9 mil-lion—the highest rate since March2008. The overall results topped ana-lysts’ expectations and signaled theauto industry is poised to continueovercoming mixed economic reportsto finish the year on a strong note.

VW Beetle Convertible to GetPlatform Shared with Jetta, GolfThe convertible version of the Volk-swagen Beetle will get its debut at theLos Angeles auto show in late No-vember, shortly before the car goes onsale in the United States. The launchof the 2013 VW Beetle convertibletrails the arrival of the redesigned Bee-tle coupe by about a year in the U.S.,where Volkswagen expects to gain amajority of sales. Both Beetles useVW’s PQ35 front-drive platform thatis shared with the current Jetta andGolf. VW says the Beetle convertible’sfolding cloth top can be raised or low-ered in about 10 seconds. Safetyequipment includes rollover bars con-cealed behind the back bench seat. Ifthe car’s safety system senses a crash,the rollover bars are deployed.

Maserati Recall: Brake LightsMaserati is recalling almost 1,800 ofits 2008-10 GranTurismo coupes andconvertibles for what it calls a “devi-ation” in the manufacture of taillightassemblies. The assemblies’ bulbs,including those in the brake lights,may fail, the automaker informed theNational Highway Traffic Safety Ad-ministration.

Maserati said it investigatedafter noticing a large number of war-ranty claims. The high-centered brakelight, it noted, was not affected.



The Georgia Collision Industry Asso-ciation met on Sept. 20 and hostedguest speaker George Avery, StateFarm’s claims consultant. Avery gaveinformation about the PartsTraderparts procurement pilot program to acrowd of approximately 130, some ofwhom had traveled to the meetingfrom Birmingham, AL, one of the testmarkets.

“Mr. Avery gave an overview ofthe PartsTrader program and whythey started the pilot program,” saidGCIA Executive Director HowardBatchelor. “He said that they spendroughly $3 billion a year on parts andneeded a way to control the cost. Themeeting was mainly subdued until theQ&A session at the end. Many of theattendees wanted to know how thisbenefits the shops. There [was con-cern about] additional administrativeduties for both the suppliers and theshops.”

Avery also talked about some ofthe enhancements State Farm has cre-ated since the pilot began. “The esti-mating systems have created aninterface that will update the prices onthe estimate. They have also cut the

time to respond from two hours downto 30 minutes.

Several shops from Alabama alsoattended and said that PartsTraderneeded to work out some of the bugsbefore they implement the program inother areas. Some of the attendees alsomentioned they are willing to try theprogram but asked ‘If this programdoes not work for me, am I able to quitusing it?’ and George replied that‘This is a business decision that eachshop should review and evaluate on itsown merits,’” Batchelor reported.

Steve Plier, President of Con-sumer Auto Repair Excellence, Inc.(CARE), a consulting company basedin Birmingham, AL, was also in at-tendance taking notes. (See interviewwith Plier this issue.) CARE is a com-pany focused on the auto repair indus-try with its primary focus assistingrepair facilities with basic fundamen-tals and basic business principals that

are often overlooked resulting in di-minished compensation and profits forthe repair facility.

Plier said the first number listedin Avery’s PowerPoint presentationwas “$3 billion” which Avery statedwas the amount State Farm ‘gives’ tothe repair industry for parts in a year.Later, during the Q&A, a member ofthe audience spoke up and said hetook offense to Avery’s statement of“giving” as the $3 billion actuallyrefers to the amount of parts pur-chased, not given.

Avery’s slide presentation indi-cated that State Farm holds 41 millionautomobile policies and the insurerhandles an average of 32,000 claimseach day. State Farm had 20,000 Serv-ice First repairers at the peak of theold Service First program comparedwith approximately 10,300 SelectService providers in the Select Serv-ice program today.

Avery noted that 63% of allclaims are handled through SelectService, with the lowest percentage of17% of claims being handled throughSelect Service in Long Island, NY.

“Mr. Avery spoke of meeting withdifferent large providers discussingwhere the majority of delays occurredand noted the response centered onparts delays and that by assisting theindustry and improving cycle time toreduce the time of repairs by one daywould reduce State Farm’s rental ex-pense by $43 million for each day ofcycle time reduced,” Plier reported.

State Farm originally piloted aparts procurement program back in2008/2009 but it was discontinuedwhen Chrysler filed for bankruptcyand GM accepted government bailoutfunds. However, during that pilot theydiscovered by their numbers a partsreturn percentage between 14–17%,and based on this fact, the decisionwas made to search for additional op-tions after shutting down the pilot.Shortly after the program was discon-tinued, State Farm filed a request forproposal and PartsTrader was selectedfrom this process.


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“Mr. Avery eventually admitted that shops’margins were ‘not guaranteed’ to remain

what they currently are”

“Per Mr. Avery, State Farm wantsto assist the industry (use of Part-sTrader and a parts locating/procure-ment program) by reducing totalsbecause of parts competitiveness re-ducing repair cost. He says this wouldbe an assistance to all (the consumer,the OE manufacturer, the insurancecompany, and the repair facilities),”reported Plier.

During his presentation, Averystated only suppliers nominated by Se-lect Service repairers are and will be onthe PartsTrader list. Avery also said thatPartsTrader is continuing to make im-provements in the electronic processand two of the test market areas now areoperating on a 30-minute bid window.

Avery also noted that the numberof repairers in the Chicago metro area,the fifth and final test market who areexpected to test the PartsTrader pro-gram in December, will outnumberthe total number of repairers currentlyon the pilot in the other four test mar-kets combined.

Plier reported that during theQ&A, the first question asked camefrom a frustrated individual about aslide from Avery’s presentation show-ing a PartsTrader screen shot that in-dicated parts, days of delivery and the

shop cost, but not the price that wouldbe listed on the estimate. After severalother attempts by members of the au-dience to get clear answers on listprice, “Mr. Avery eventually admittedthat the shops’ margins were not guar-anteed to remain what they currentlyare,” Plier reported.

Another sticking point in themeeting centered around whether ornot repairers in test markets were giv-ing positive feedback.

“Mr. Avery stated State Farm hadreceived positive feedback from theevaluation from the four current testareas, but he gave no specific exam-ples of positives,” Plier said. The eval-uations indicated there must be abetter training process and that isbeing addressed by PartsTrader. “Mr.Avery noted State Farm and Part-sTrader are hand-in-hand in thisprocess and PartsTrader must proveand provide a value to the industry.”

As Avery was saying the evalua-tions had returned positive informa-tion, Dave McBroom, director of theFlorida Automotive Collision Associ-ation, spoke up to disagree. [Editor’sNote: Dave McBroom, passed awayon Oct. 11. Read his obituary on page21.]

“Mr. McBroom told the partici-pants he had flown in from Tucsonthat afternoon so he could be a part ofthe meeting. Mr. McBroom noted tothe group he had been in Tucson for aweek and had spent time in repair fa-cilities on the program and had com-pleted the steps to sending out thebids, and then went to the parts sup-pliers to see how the program workedon both sides,” Plier said.

“Mr. McBroom then began nam-ing different repairers and supplierswho had removed themselves fromthe PartsTrader program. At this point,Mr. Avery spoke up and stated he didnot feel this was fair. The audience be-came vocal enough that Mr. Avery al-lowed Mr. McBroom to continue fora few additional statements.”

In general, members of the audi-ence felt that much of the informationprovided by Avery was very much thesame information that has been pub-lished since the pilot program wasstarted, and that the only new infor-mation he provided was related towhy State Farm was attempting an-other parts procurement program.

“At no time did or could Mr.Avery provide how this program wouldbenefit a repairer and/or a supplier,”

Plier said. He also reported that severalof the audience questions were repeti-tive in nature because Avery avoidedgiving specific answers. The meetingended late at 9:45 p.m. Before closing,Batchelor invited shop owners fromAlabama to return for another meetinglater this year to allow GCIA membersto hear their side of the story now thatthey had heard from State Farm.

Special thanks from AutobodyNews to Steve Plier for providingnotes on the meeting.


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Sherwin-Williams A-Plus Net-work Hosted Digital MarketingSherwin-Williams Automotive Fin-ishes’ A-Plus Network Universityhosted its new Digital Marketing forCollision Repair facilities program onOct. 17 in Austin, Texas, and Oct. 18in Houston, Texas. The program wasgiven in conjunction with SummitSoftware and Marketing’s Frank Ter-lep, CEO and Lead Sherpa of SummitSoftware and Marketing Solutions.The program reviewed the challengesbody shop decision-makers face intoday’s rapidly changing digital andinformation age. The workshop is forall collision shop owners and man-agers, and those involved with mar-keting shop services to customers.

“I wish I had a nickel for every timethat happened.”

Yes, that’s an overly-used ex-pression, but it applies to so manythings. How rich would you be, forexample, if you could charge a nickeltoll for every worthless adjuster thatwalked through your door? I’m guess-ing that you are now imagining your-self as Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.

Well, if you’ve read any of myprevious columns, you know that I amnow going to give you the other sideof that tollway coin. Yes, the one youjust collected from one of my knowl-edgeable adjusters.

I personally believe adjusters arean underappreciated segment in thisindustry, especially as it relates to theperception of the body shop. Moreoften than not, the lowly adjuster isviewed solely as a gate-keeper, stand-ing between you and the pot of goldthat insurance companies report mak-ing each year.

Truthfully speaking, we realizeour house isn’t always in order interms of adjusters, which is the rea-

son we spend so much time, moneyand effort to train, develop and retainstaff. Although you may view our ef-forts as pathetic or perhaps only“window dressing,” we view your in-

dustry’s corresponding efforts asnon-existent.

Think about it: While we may notalways do an excep-tional job, the personmost impacted byour lack of experi-enced adjusters isour own company.The cost of an inac-curate insurance esti-mate theoreticallydoesn’t cost yourbusiness money, pro-vided you don’t as-sume the insuranceestimate is 100 per-cent accurate. Mostshops will use the in-surance estimate as a

baseline and make adjustments. Othermore independent thinking shops willrefuse to use it at all and write their owninstead. So the biggest cost to a shopfrom an inexperienced insurance ad-

juster is probably the price of percep-tion: If the adjuster doesn’t prepare athorough estimate and there is a largesupplement, the consumer may ques-tion the shop’s integrity.

I don’t want to undermine theprice you have to pay for our inexpe-rienced adjusters, but the price we payfor YOUR inexperienced “adjusters”can’t be measured. There’s a financialcost as well as the tremendous nega-tive impact it has to CSI results.

We realize our house isn’t in order,but have you seen the mess in yours?Adjusters may seem like easy targets asshops lash out against insurers. I guessto some extent it’s understandable. Iwould be frustrated too if I was contin-ually arguing why I needed time to do aspecific labor operation. But before youthrow a stone at the window of ourhouse, take a look inside yours. I cansee inside and you are in dire need ofMartha Stewart, Better Homes and Gar-dens and a Bob Villa make-over.

Clean Up Your Own House Before You Gripe About Someone Else’s

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]


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The topic of inexperience orpoorly-trained shop “adjusters” is oneI’ve never seen discussed in any trademagazine or at any industry even. I’mnot sure why. Maybe because writinga proper estimate, speaking profes-sionally to a customer, and handling aclaim from start-to-finish is consid-ered Body Shop Estimating 101. Toput it in school terms, it’s a prerequi-site to do the job. If you classify your-self as a shop estimator, you can do allof those things. right?

Wrong. Similar to our adjusters,shop “adjusters” come in all shapes andsizes. Finding someone that has that tri-fecta of shop estimating skills is as rareas a Buffalo Nickel. If you have one,consider yourself lucky. I know howdifficult it is. That’s why we insurers in-vest so heavily in training. (Please holdyour laughter. Yes, we do invest a lot.)

I apologize for being cynical, butI wonder why shops spend so littletime training their adjusters. Is it ad-vantageous to have an inexperiencedperson writing estimates? Assumingthat there is no financial gain, the lackof attention to the details of customerservice is reprehensible in a day andage where customer service is a hugepriority in any business. Your inexpe-

rienced adjusters hurt our businessand the performance of your shop.

I can assure you that a shop withoutstanding KPIs (key performanceindicators) is usually the direct resultof a high-quality shop “adjuster.” Poorperforming shops are usually rife withinexperienced adjusters, high turnoverand a lack of employee ownership ofthe customer experience and opera-tional results.

Insurers are inherently processoriented. We can’t understand whyshops have no problem seeing ourdirty laundry but can’t see the clotheson the floor of their house that theyjust tripped over.

Please train your people andaudit your staff like we do. If you do,all three of us win.

Got a comment or question you’dlike to see the Insider address in a fu-ture column? Email him at [email protected].


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Pink Car Tribute to Breast Cancer SurvivorsWillie Robinson of North Carolinawanted to find a way to support hismother after her diagnosis of breastcancer, and he hit upon an unusualidea: painting a Crown Victoria pinkto honor her and other breast cancerpatients and survivors.

“I will do this for my mother, andfor all women with breast cancer,”said Robinson, 25. “They will knowthat someone is thinking about them.”

Robinson approached his friend,Dave Moore, who runs an auto bodyshop, Southside Rides. Moore alsoruns a non-profit related to his busi-ness, dedicated to teaching at-riskteens about auto body custom paint-ing.

“I told (Willie), put away yourmoney; I will do this,” Moore said.“We want to make this a survivalcar.”

Larkins Paint in High Point do-nated the paint, and Lewisville MotorCo. donated some car parts to fix upthe car, which had been wrecked.

The car was spray-painted pink,then detailed with drawings of pinkribbons, hearts and angels.

The car was featured in afundraising march in honor of womenwho have had breast cancer. At theend of the march, breast cancer sur-vivors were encouraged to write theirnames and a message of inspiration onthe car.

The money raised by the walkerswill go to Susan G. Komen For theCure, a national organization dedi-cated to raising funds for breast can-cer research and treatment, and somewill go directly to Pamela Robinson,Willie’s mother, to help pay her med-ical bills.

Pamela Robinson, 44, who wasdiagnosed in June, said she is over-whelmed at what her son has done.

“I think he is doing this so Iwon’t quit, so I won’t give up,”Pamela Robinson said. “He knows aslong as I will see this pink car everyday, I’ll get through it.”

Follow us on Twitter:@autobodynews

Accept no Substitutes!

This Crown Victoria is about to be decoratedby David Moore’s Southside Rides AutoBody shop for cancer survivor PamelaRobinson. The shop is donating the work

For some months now, people keepasking me why I haven’t recently con-tributed to Autobody News. The an-swer is simple, I didn’t feel I hadanything interesting or of value towrite about. This changed a few weeksago.

As a paint manufacturer’s rep,there is not a month that goes by with-out being put in the middle of colli-sion repairers and insurers, expectedto chime in on a dispute about what isnecessary for a proper repair.

One of my customers called andinformed me that an insurance agentdeclined to pay for priming or seal-ing new e-coated parts. The agenttold my customer that sealing orpriming new parts wasn’t a necessarystep in a proper repair process. Any-body that knows me well will not besurprised to learn that I got very ex-cited about this statement. How cansomeone in our industry make suchan irresponsible statement? And thenI leaned back and thought about thisfor a moment.

During the course of a year, Ivisit hundreds of shops and have wit-nessed this exact procedure per-formed more often than I cared toadmit. By simply looking around ourindustry, an insurance agent thatlikely never had to repair a vehicle fora living could easily get the impres-sion that sealing or priming new partsis an optional, but not a necessarystep in a repair process. I feel com-fortable about the fact that most, if notall major paint manufacturers willagree with me, painting directly overe-coat is not a recommended repairprocess. Furthermore, paint failure asa result of this practice would not becovered by most manufacturer’s war-ranties.

There are several problems withpainting directly over e-coated parts.Although OEM e-coat is an excellentcorrosion protection coating (not sureabout some of the aftermarket parts),

e-coat contains no UV protectionpackage. E-coat is generally epoxybased and unless completely shieldedfrom UV rays, its surface can becomeunstable. Resulting in paint layer sep-aration and peeling. Some of thenewbies in our industry may not re-member the early 90’, but many of usdo. How many GM and Chrysler fac-tory paint peelers did you repair inyour professional career? These carsand trucks peeled for the same rea-son, UV exposure to the e-coated sur-face.

If you repaired one of these vehi-cles, you likely remember that the sur-face of the vehicle was powdery afteryou peeled of the paint layer. Thispowdery subtends that easily rubbedoff onto your fingers was the top layerof deteriorated e-coat.

Just put enough paint on it andyou should be fine, right? I wish itwere that easy. The first problem withthis thought process is: how much isenough? Are you thinking 4, 5, or 6coats of paint? Eight to 10 coats onsome reds? The truth is that no oneknows when full coverage is achievedduring the paint process. Take a pieceof glass and paint it with basecoat andclear. After it cured completely, holdit up to the sun and see if any lightpenetrates through.

Attempting this exercise willquickly demonstrate that this ap-proach doesn’t work. It takes muchmore paint than anticipated before100% coverage is achieved throughbasecoat application. Protecting theintegrity of your work through sealingor priming instantly emerges as amore cost effective solution. And ifcost wouldn’t be a factor, the resultinghigh film build of basecoat colorwould present a paint problem of itsown.

The next issue with painting di-rectly over e-coat is stone ship resist-ance. E-coat is a very hard coating.The difference in hardness between e-

coat and basecoat is too great for along lasting paint finish. The applica-tion of a primer or sealer to the e-coatwill bridge this cap. Although there isno way of fully preventing rock chipsfrom happening, a sealed or primedsurface will outperform an e-coatedsurface after impact by a large mar-gin.

The last point I like to make is thesurface prep. E-coat is a hard surfaceand sanding it can be a workout.Ninety percent of shops will use a DAsander to prep the e-coated surface. Ifyou don’t seal or prime the part, howdo you know if you left enough e-coatbehind for proper corrosion protec-tion? Most e-coat layers are only 0.5to 1 mil to start with. My observationssuggest that 70% of all sanded e-coatsurfaces display some level of trans-parency or bare metal surfaces. Un-fortunately, I have seen people paintright over that too.

When asked why, the most fre-

quent explanation I receive fromshops that paint directly over e-coat iscycle time. Shops don’t feel that theycan afford to give up the time to sealparts in the booth. While I appreciatethe value of cycle time and boothhours, it is no excuse for painting di-rectly over e-coat. Nobody says youhave to do it as a part of your finalpaint work, in a matter of fact, Istrongly advice against it. I proposesealing parts ahead of time, ideally aspart of the cut-in process. Put onegood coat of sealer on the outside ofthe part, let it flash off to a point thatyou can safely turn them over and cut-in the rest. All the shop has to do afterhanging the part is giving the sealer alight scuff by hand for adhesion, cleanand paint. This process allows theshop to maintain booth KPIs and putout a quality repair at the same time.As an added bonus, you will also im-prove coverage and color match aswell.


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E-Coated Parts Procedure

with Rick WhiteShop Management

with Stefan GesterkampPaint Management

with Gonzo WeaverGonzo’s Toolbox

with Richard ArnoldJobber Journal

Mainstream Media

with Dale DelmegeAsk Dale

Mainstream Media

Automakers’ Actions and Analysisby Autobody News Staff

Shop Showcaseby Autobody News Staff

with Ed AttanasioShop and Product Showcase

with Ed AttanasioConsumer Callout

with Walter DanalevichShop Strategies for Savings

with The Insurance InsiderInside Insurance

with Rich EvansCustom Corner

with Chasidy Rae SiskCompany Connections

with Chasidy Rae SiskNortheast News

with Chasidy Rae SiskShop Showcase

with Erica SchroederShop Showcase

with Erica SchroederShop Snapshot

Stefan Gesterkamp is a Master Craftsman and BASF representative who has been inthe automotive paint industry for 27 years. He started his career in a custom shopbefore turning to collision repair. Stefan graduated from the University of Coatingsand Colorants in Germany and is the author of “How to Paint Your Show Car.”

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While thinking through some socialmedia topics recently I realized thatthe original and still current championof real social media is the simplephone call.

In the past several years, I’vecalled literally hundreds of bodyshops, vendors and collision-relatedbusinesses over the phone to interviewthem for articles I write for AutobodyNews. And every time I encounter astrange phone experience when call-ing a body shop I’m surprised. In anybusiness, the phone is usually the firstcontact you’re going to be makingwith the public, and that’s why it’s soimportant. And in the collision indus-try it’s even more crucial.

Think about it. Your potential cus-tomer gets in an accident. They getthree or four names of body shops intheir area from their insurer and theystart calling them. If they’re left onhold or the person answering thephone is rude or inattentive, manypeople will simply hang up and callthe next shop on their list. So the bigquestion is—do you give good phoneor are you currently losing business byfalling short in this important area ofcustomer service?

Although e-mail and text messag-ing have become more popular waysof communication, we still use ourtelephones almost constantly for bothpersonal and business reasons. Itseems that good telephone mannersare common sense, but my recent ex-periences have led me to believe thatthere are many lessons to be learnedby body shops in the arena of tele-phone etiquette.

The topic of phone protocol andhow some body shops don’t seem tovalue the importance of it becamemore apparent recently when I wascalling a body shop to interview theowner for an upcoming ABN article.First, the phone rang at least 12 timesbefore someone picked up. Okay, I’mthinking, they’re a busy shop, noproblem. It happens.

Then, I heard a voice, but for justa millisecond. “Hold.” It made me feellike I was ordering a pizza for deliv-ery. Without a simple “hello” or “I’mreally busy, can I get back to you injust a minute?” I sat on hold for at

least five minutes, and then the callwent directly to voicemail (or in thiscase, I call it “voice jail’) without anyexplanation. No greeting, just a beep.

So, I hung up and called back sothat the painful process could resumeall over again. This second time, thewoman answering the phone shoutedout “Bill’s.” Not “Bill’s Collision,”which is the actual name of the busi-ness.

But at least this time around wehad a brief conversation. I could hearher chewing gum and her indifferenceto my inquiry was immediately evi-dent. “Is Bill there?” I asked. “No,”she replied. “Do you know when he’llbe returning?” After a long sigh, shesaid, “No idea. Do you want his voice-mail?” Been there, done that, Ithought. “We’re really busy rightnow,” she added. And without any fur-ther warning—boom, I was back onhold.

At that point, I hung up oncemore and decided to try again later.But each time I called, I got the sameperson and each time she seemed evenmore bored than the time before. Icould almost hear her eyes rolling!

The other call I hate is the onewhere the receptionist grills you andafter a series of questions you mightbe allowed talk to the boss. I can un-derstand, because most body shops re-ceive 10-15 sales calls every day, soscreening out the wannabes is crucialand a good phone person is adept at it.But, when you feel like they’re inter-rogating you in the process, that’s badphone protocol. Hey, I’m not trying toreach Obama, it’s a body shopowner—so why are you making mefeel like I’m the paparazzi chasingyour boss down? It’s all about the waythings are said and when a reception-ist gets too protective of his/her boss,it’s a real turn-off.

So, how should body shop em-ployees act on the phone? I asked anexpert on the subject. Her name isCynthia Grosso, a business consult-ant, etiquette coach and author of theowner of the Charleston School ofProtocol and Etiquette in Charleston,SC. She gave me a very simple list ofdo’s and don’ts about phone manners:● Never call someone “Honey,

sweetie, or darling” on the phone, es-pecially if you don’t know them. It’stoo personal and unprofessional.● Be conscious of the tone of yourvoice, especially when you answer thephone. (If you’re having a bad day,please keep it to yourself.)● Be sure to identify yourself imme-diately when the person you are call-ing answers. Dead air will kill a callevery time.● If you happen to be screening calls,do it gracefully without acting like abodyguard and offending the personwho is calling.● Do not eat while talking on thephone. That’s why lunch breaks wereinvented.● Always return phone calls. Make apoint to find the time. It only takes afew seconds to call someone back orto send an email explaining that youwill call them back when you areavailable. Not returning a phone callis the worst offense and inexcusable.

The rule on returning phone calls iswithin 24 hours and the standard foremails is 48 hours for a return re-sponse.

“Phone communication is allabout finding a common language,”Rosso explained. “Everyone wants tofeel important, and keeping that inmind is key to any successful phoneinteraction from a customer perspec-tive. Don’t leave people on hold formore than 30 seconds without check-ing in. And remember this—the tele-phone is your front other door and anextremely valuable component of howto run your business.”


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North State sued Progressiveunder New York’s deceptive acts andpractices statute, General Business Lawsection 349, for misleading consumersinto taking their damaged vehiclesaway from North State to competingbody shops within Progressive’s “net-work.” North State’s suit alleges thatthe insurance company coaxed cus-tomers away by maligning the shop’swork and pricing.

In North State Autobahn v. Pro-gressive Insurance, the Second Depart-ment’s ruling, denying Progressive’smotion for summary judgment and al-lowing North State’s suit to go forward,confirmed a business’ standing to re-cover for direct harm caused to it byanother business’ deceptive acts andpractices—even if that business is acompetitor.

Justice Robert Miller, writing for aunanimous panel, held that North State’sallegations concerning Progressive’s actsdepriving consumers of their choice ofbody shop satisfied the statute’s require-ment that the deceptive acts at issue havean impact on consumers at large. The

court further held that the law does notrequire that North State identify specificconsumers who were harmed.

The court also rejected Progres-sive’s argument that North State’s in-jury was merely derivative of that of theinjured consumers, finding that NorthState adequately alleged direct harm theinstant customers were misled into tak-ing their vehicles to a network shop, re-gardless of whether such customersultimately suffered pecuniary injury.The fact that North State was a businesscompetitor and not the consumer in thetransaction was held to be irrelevant forpurposes of standing under the statute,under which punitive damages and at-torneys’ fees are recoverable.

“This is a significant decision thatenables businesses to pursue ‘deceptiveacts and practices’ claims in business-to-business disputes—even betweencompetitors—that have an impact onconsumers at large,” said DennisArtese, a shareholder at Anderson Kill& Olick who represented North State.“That’s critically important because itallows well-funded businesses to policedeceptive practices where the state at-torney general does not, and where in-dividual consumers cannot, becausethey just do not have the financial

means to fight an insurance goliath likeProgressive in the legal system.”

Along with Artese, North Statewas represented by Finley Harckhamof Anderson, Kill & Olick and solopractitioners Anthony J. Mamo, Jr.and Richard P. Stone.

The Progressive Group was repre-sented by Nelson Levine de Luca &Horst, LLC, New York, N.Y. (MichaelR. Nelson, Kymberly Kochis, and Fran-cis X. Nolan IV of counsel), for appel-lants.

BackgroundIn 2007, North State Autobahn, Inc.commenced this action against the Pro-gressive defendants and a number ofProgressive employees, including thedefendant Nicholas Stanton. Assertedin the complaint, was that the Progres-sive defendants had violated GeneralBusiness Law §349. Specifically, thecomplaint alleged that the Progressivedefendants deceived claimants whosought to have their vehicles repaired atthe plaintiffs’ and other repair shops thatdid not participate in their DRP by mak-ing misrepresentations as to [Coccaro’sshop’s] workmanship, price, timelinessof service, and character. North Statealso alleged that the Progressive defen-

dants issued damage repair appraisalswell below fair-market value at aboutone-half the estimate of the plaintiffs’estimate, and that the Progressive de-fendants represented to claimants thatthe plaintiffs would make only partialpayments for repairs which would nec-essarily require claimants who had theirvehicles repaired by the plaintiffs orother independent shops to incur out-of-pocket expenses.

The plaintiffs further alleged thatthe Progressive defendants engaged insuch deceptive practices in order tomislead customers of the plaintiffs andother independent shops to believe thatthey must have their vehicles repairedat repair shops that were members ofthe DRP. The Progressive defendantsallegedly failed to inform theseclaimants that the repair shops that par-ticipated in the DRP used inferior after-market parts, or were not registered orqualified to work on specific vehiclemodels. As a result of the Progressivedefendants’ actions, the plaintiffs al-leged that they sustained direct eco-nomic loss in the form of more than $5million in lost business sales, and thatthe public at large sustained other dam-ages. For more on the case, search on“Coccaro” at www.autobodynews.com.


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Continued from Cover

Greg Coccaro

by Melanie Anderson

Steve Trapp, Program Manager atDuPont Performance Services andDuPont Performance Alliance, pre-sented Strategies for ImplementingBest Practices for SOPs in CollisionRepair at NACE on Oct. 13. Trapp,who runs a value-added program forDuPont, helped build standard operat-ing procedures for his company.

Trapp opened the session with thequestion, Where should you focusSOPs? And quickly answered it, “On

the area where youare having prob-lems in the busi-ness. It could besales or reducingcosts or in anotherarea.” He cau-tioned againstwriting standard

operating procedures for the entirebusiness if other areas are workingjust fine.

In a nutshell, standard operatingprocedures (SOPs) is a way of saying“this is how we want to do this, everytime.”

Trapp says the best way to writeSOPs is to use a flipchart and let thewhole team get involved, so you havetheir buy in when it comes time to fol-low the SOPs.

The benefits of SOPs means min-imizing waste: such as work not beingdone right the first time, being over

productive, waiting on people or hav-ing vehicles sit idle, not consultingothers, not having enough or properinventory.

Because changes occur daily,your SOPs also may change.

“Can you think of an example ofa recent change our largest customershave asked us to embrace with limitedpreparation?” Trapp asked. “Thebiggest change affecting the industryis the insurer scorecard.”

The challenge of SOPs, Trappcontinued, is that they will changeevery couple of months. “We are lit-erally learning things at a pace we’ve

never had to learn at before. Thingsare changing all the time. If we don’tchange, we will perish.”

The benefits of standard operatingprocedures include consistency ofquality, improved and leveled dailythroughput, improved productivityand efficiency, and cost and expense

control. It also means being able toproperly train new hires and cross-train the entire staff with less re-workneeded and better morale. New em-ployees come in expecting to betrained in the shop’s process. If theyaren’t trained, they will revert to doingthings the way they did at their lastplace of employment.

“We like order, we prefer it,”Trapp said. “People like a standard.The key is that staff need to be a partof the process. if they are a victim ofit, they feel trapped.”

Trapp suggests that SOPs be usedas labels, stickers on the floor or in

posters because many people are vi-sual learners.

Brainstorming meetings shouldbe one to two hours with a flip chartor white board available. And al-ways, keep the meeting positive.“Attack the process, not the person!”Trapp said. Ask staff to honestly as-sess the process for waste and definequality standards in the eyes of acustomer.

Trapp suggests the following for-mula for improving the brainstormingsession. Called ‘3-5-1’ the processasks for participants to write downthree ideas in five minutes, and thenas a group, focusing on the one ideathat comes out on top.


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In the early ‘90s, the term “Piggy-back marketing” meant that the trial ofa new product on the market waslinked to another product that alreadyhad wide acceptance in the market-place. The intent was that this weakernew product would be “piggy-backed” on the strength of the “car-rier” product. Soon the practice wasexpanded so that many products were“piggy-backed” on products alreadybeing used. You see this all the timewhen you receive a credit card bill orgasoline credit card bill and find of-fers inside to buy a wide range ofproducts. You know this must be asuccessful strategy because it has con-tinued on so long.

The question is how can a fixedservice like collision repair, use“piggy-backing” to increase sales andbusiness volume? Marketing guru JayAbraham, in his great book GettingEverything You Can Out of All You’veGot, calls this a “host-beneficiary” re-lationship. Greatly simplified, it’s sortof a co-operative marketing planwhereby two (or more) companiesthat are non-competitive but possiblycomplement one another’s products orservices, can either bring customersand sales to one another’s businesses,or bring some other value.

Collision repair facilities engagein this kind of relationship all the time,but probably don’t think of it in thoseterms. DRP relationships are the bestexample. Insurance companies sendcustomers to the shop. The value theyreceive in return mainly consists oflower labor and parts and materialscosts. Dealership relationships andfleet management company relation-ships operate similarly. Some shopsalso have a more direct exchange re-lationship with a towing firm, pin-striping and graphics service, car

rental company, transmission repairshop, personal liability attorney or carwash.

As valuable as these relationshipsmay be, often a few major shops havemost of the best relationships in anarea locked up so that many othershops are out looking for business thehard way. For them, it may be time toengage in some creative thinkingabout other possible “piggy-back” orco-operative arrangements. Eventhough the SEMA Show in Las Vegasis becoming a major gathering placefor collision repair professionals, fewshops have yet to take advantage ofthe vast accessory marketplace. Deal-erships, of course, have entire acces-sory showrooms and enjoy asubstantial profit flow from accessorysales. But few shops can afford to in-vest in a similar showroom, and onlya few push for add-on accessory sales.An obvious “piggy-back” relationshipwould be with one or more accessorystores in the area. But less obvious areother retail establishments that offeraudio-video products or cosmetic ele-ments that car owners should find at-tractive. Some printers now offerwraps for cars. Since vision is impor-tant for safe driving, an optometristmight be interested in a co-op referralarrangement.

A common arrangement is cashfor referrals—especially with a tow-ing company or new and used cardealership. But this is mainly a one-way street and can be very expensive.The ideal co-op arrangement is onewhere the shop also refers business toits co-operative partner. The easiestway to do this is through promotionalprograms. Obviously website linksand other web-based connections areeasy to arrange, but if a shop alsosends out a newsletter or sends sum-

maries of completed work with enclo-sures there is an opportunity to refermany other kinds of businesses, muchas your credit card companies do. If areferring business also has on-lineand/or mail promotions, the arrange-ment would have your shop informa-tion (or even literature) included withtheirs.

Mailing a summary of com-pleted work after a vehicle has beendelivered is a very inexpensive wayto establish a longer-term relation-ship with customers. If a vehicleowner resells or trades-in the vehicle,having a summary of work done onthe vehicle may help keep the pur-chase price higher. Along with send-ing the summary, a promotional offerfor a discounted detail or cosmeticimprovement should be included,plus perhaps a specified discount fora friend, family member or businessassociate in need of vehicle body re-pair. For a shop with deeper pockets,

sending a before and after photoalong with the summary would beappreciated.

A more in-depth approach to theco-op referral partnership can extendto events, educational seminars orworkshops and more. Driving schoolswould be a good candidate for this.New drivers are brought to the shopfor a walk-through to see the damagethat may have been done to vehiclesbecause of careless or reckless driving.And if the driving school has a weeklyor monthly group presentation, theshop should always have someonethere to answer questions. Many shopsnow do exchange events with insur-ance agents and auto dealerships, butthis should only be a beginning. Thepossibilities of piggybacking on thesuccess of other businesses and enter-ing into cooperative promotionalschemes will only be limited by theimagination and ingenuity of a shopowner or manager.


The New Co-Op Marketing

Custom Cornerwith Rich Evans

On Creative Marketingwith Thomas Franklin

Action Countswith Lee Amaradio Jr.

with Sheila LoftusYour Turn

Opinions Countwith Dick Strom

Shop Showcasewith Janet Chaney

Industry Overviewwith Janet Chaney

Industry Interviewwith Janet Chaney


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

PartsTrader announced that in two ofthe four markets where the system isbeing used, the minimum time a shopcan give vendors to quote prices onparts has been reduced to 30 minutes,rather than the previous one-hourminimum. The change is designed toimprove the efficiency of using thesystem for shops, the company said.

Suppliers can still quote prices in“overtime” but only until the shop be-gins review of submitted quotes. Thesystem also allows the shop to extendthe deadline in 30-minute incrementsif they wish to receive more quotes, orto use “placeholder quotes” for OEMdealers with which they have estab-lished relationships.

PartsTrader Reduces Minimum Quote Time to 30 mins

between the repairer and the customer.In order to show that the defendant’sconduct is tortuous, the plaintiff mustprove improper motive and willfulmalice. This sends the message thatthe insurer is not above the law andthat they can and will be sued for re-fusal to comply with the Code ofEthics and other laws.

Once Parese concluded, KurtLundgren, an attorney in the medicalinsurance industry, presented about thesimilarities between the automotiveand medical insurance industries andtheir issues. He noted that it is naive forcollision repairers to believe they areimmune to the insurance companies,but repairers are in the business of fix-ing vehicles and providing customerservice to make money, so they shouldget to the bill when dealing with insur-ers. He pointed out that “this is all agame for the insurance company, butthis isn’t a game for you guys.”

Lundgren noted that in both theauto and medical insurance industries,proof is required to prosecute, but heurged repairers to recognize and em-

phasize that they are doing this to helpthe consumer. He also praised atten-dees for being on the right track abouthow they deal with insurers, agreeingthat shops should not negotiate withinsurance companies.

Tony Lombardozzi led a discus-sion about the audience’s experiences.He urged attendees not to put anythingon paper or online that they are not pre-pared to defend in court. Though he ad-mits that the industry can be depressingat times, he insists that repairers canhave fun with fighting the insurers, aswell as making money, because it is ex-citing to make the insurance companiesjustify their actions. He believes thatshops “need to see that the processworks and they can have fun with it.”

Discussing how insurers havetheir own versions of estimating soft-ware that provides a lower estimatethan the shop’s version, Tony notedthat everything insurers do is based onthis estimate, so repairers need to takethat tool out of their hands by remov-ing the insurance company’s estimatefrom the equation. Tony added that theinsurers “constantly have their hand inour pocket… and come at us in somany ways that it’s hard to keep upwith them.”

Tony noted that the insurancecompanies have spent 30 years brain-washing repairers to believe they arethe insurer’s servants, but in reality,collision shops only need to allow ad-justers to look at the vehicle, completetheir paperwork and go home. Ericachimed in, encouraging attendees to“make it painful for [the insurancecompanies] by doing it your way, theright way... make it clear to them thatyou’re not going to be the one whochanges.” She went on to state that in-surance companies have no right toexpect collision repairers to stop theirprocess just because the insurer hasadopted another bizarre practice. In-surance companies are great at propa-ganda and brainwashing, but whenthey try to dictate what a shop can andcannot do, it is necessary to ask whyor who says so. Erica stressed, “theycan’t make you do anything becauseyou don’t work for them.”

For the final segment, Tony intro-duced the Stump the Layers panelwhich consisted of Erica Eversman,John Parese and Kurt Lundgren. Re-sponding to questions from the audi-ence, the three attorneys and theseminar attendees discussed topics suchas liens, total loss, consumer fraud, re-

pair contracts, unfair claims, how tohandle estimates, supplementals, courtcases, invoices, short pay, explainingthings to customers, codes of ethics andbringing claims. As he wrapped theevent up, Tony explained that he wantseveryone to understand that collisionshops do not need to keep operating theway the insurance companies wantthem to. His goal is to show independ-ent collision shops how to successfullyoperate their shops without outside in-fluence by focusing on the legal aspectsof running their business without in-surer interference.

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RX-8 2012

by Melanie Anderson

Two strong women presented “Coura-geous Leadership” at NACE in NewOrleans on Oct. 12. Sponsored byWIN, Women’s Industry Network,Denise Caspersen, ASA Collision Di-vision Manager, and Melissa Miller,CARSTAR Sr. Operational Manager,talked with a group of women aboutwhat it takes to be brave in the work-place and in their lives.

Having courage is not the same asbeing fearless. Courage is the abilityto do the right thing, despite feelingsof fear or discomfort when facing sit-uations of pain, risk, opportunity, un-certainty, hardship or intimidation.

Caspersen and Miller describedthree different types of courage anddiscussed the impact fear has on per-sonal and organizational performance,and how by tapping into your own‘courage history’ you can use yourpast to strengthen your future.

“We’re not all born with courage,but we’re born with the capacity to becourageous,” Caspersen said.

However, acting with courage isoften avoided because of fear, because

it’s easier, people are afraid of embar-rassing themselves or they don’t wanta confrontation. But the benefits couldresult in growth, better communica-tion, advancement, innovation andhappier employees.

The cost of fear is high. Accord-ing to Human Resource ExecutiveMagazine (2008), a third of U.S. em-ployees waste at least 20 hours ofwork time each month complainingabout their bosses. Stress-related ill-nesses account for 1/3 of worker ab-senteeism, and 37% of Americanworkers report being bullied on thejob. Fearful workers are twice aslikely to be depressed and 33% aremore likely to report exhaustion andsleep disorders.

Ways that employees display fearin the workplace could include hostil-ity, hiding mistakes, being distracted,and playing it safe versus taking a cre-ative approach.

Ways to combat fear includelooking for ways to build your confi-dence, not obsessing about things thatfrighten you, gathering facts, seekingmentoring and developing new skills.

“If we can address fear, little by

little, every day, it becomes a habit,”said Caspersen.

Caspersen and Miller asked thegroup of women what they thoughtcourage was and the answers werevaried: willing to take a risk, standingup for yourself, standing up for yourbeliefs, finishing what you started, notgiving up, speaking your truth, andbeing true to yourself.

Caspersen pointed out that weoften make mistakes to learn by.Something her parents told her stillrings loud today: “You always have achoice, but you have to live with theoutcome.”

When considering taking a risk,consider these factors: passion, pur-pose, principle, prerogative, andprofit. These are the right reasons totake a risk. Can you suffer through theanguishing moments that accompany ‘right risks’ while caring intensely?Can you harness that passion and stayfocused and headed in the right direc-tion? Do you have the right set of val-ues? Do you have the power tochoose? And, profit, is only to be con-sidered lastly.

Three different types of courage

were described as: ‘try,’ ‘trust’ and‘tell.’ Those who ‘try’ step up andmake the first attempts to take action.Those who ‘trust’ follow the lead ofothers and let go of control. Thosewho ‘tell’ are those who speak out, as-sert one’s voice, and tell the truth. Andthere are always risks. Your actionsmay harm others. Other people’s ac-tions may harm you. Or, you could becast out of the group for truth telling.

“The ‘tell’ type of courage can bethe most difficult as you may saythings the other person doesn’t wantto hear,” said Miller. “There is alwaysa difference between being respectfuland being offensive. Always make itabout the process, not the person.”

Caspersen and Miller also de-scribed two leadership styles. The firstis called ‘spillers’ — those who relyon fear as a motivator, are negativeduring times of challenge, or who dis-courage others who try to grow.

The other leadership style is‘fillers’ — those who build other peo-ple’s confidence, provide support dur-ing challenges, and encourage othersto grow.

Which kind of leader are you?

How to be a ‘Courageous Leader,’ Presented at NACE

Esurance recently honored threeCARSTAR facilities with Auto BodyRepair Expert of the Year awards dur-ing CARSTAR’s annual conference inSan Antonio. CARSTAR said Es-urance presents the CARSTAR AutoBody Repair Expert of the Year awardto the top performing stores in threeU.S. regions. The award is based onseveral key performance indicators,such as estimate cycle time, compli-ance with Esurance’s direct repair pro-gram, re-inspection variance, I-CARGold status and customer service. Theaward was created to recognize the topshops and technicians in the industryfor customer service excellence andcontinuation of technological educa-tion, CARSTAR said. The award-win-ning facilities include the following:● Ace Sullins CARSTAR in Miramar,FL, owned by Kyle Wharff.● Hunter’s CARSTAR in Norwood,PA, owned by Gary Hunter.● Jungerman CARSTAR in St. Peters,MO, owned by Kerry and BobbieWoodson.

“I congratulate them for earningthe titles, and I thank Esurance for itscontinued campaign to educate tech-nicians in this industry,” said DavidByers, CEO of CARSTAR.

Esurance recognizes ThreeCARSTAR shops with awards

Martin Senour Kicks Off 4QTraining Program The Martin Senour Company kickedoff its fourth quarter training sessionin October, offering courses to colli-sion center professionals on techni-cal skills, estimating solutions, newtechnologies, and updated applica-tion techniques required for collisioncenter profitability. The Fall 2012course lineup, which is held at vari-ous Martin Senour training locationsnationwide, includes an emphasis onsustainable operations from both abusiness and technical standpoint.

“We seek to help collision repairowners, managers and technicians bet-ter practice profitable and more pro-ductive thinking and hands-on doing,”says Jeff Green, Martin Senour Di-rector of Sales. “We also have seensignificant interest for classes regard-ing waterborne technologies, applica-tion certification, and lean practices, sowe’ve provided additional coursesspecific to those practices.” MartinSenour professionals will be providinginstruction on a number of class topicsincluding its VORTEX® waterborne,Tec/Base® and Pro//Base™ refinishsystems, painter certification, andcolor adjustment and blending. Visitmartinsenour-autopaint.com or call 1-800-526-6704 for schedule.


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BASF Showcases Newest Additionsto VisionPlus Online Tools at NACEDuring the 2012 International Auto-body Congress and Exposition at theMorial Convention Center in New Or-leans, LA, Oct. 10-13, BASF Auto-motive Refinish Solutions showcasedtheir latest software tools to improvecollision center productivity.

The Business Analyzer Tool, partof the VisionPLUS online suite ofelectronic tools and systems, gives

body shops the ability to measurethemselves against industry standardsby tracking their costs, sales, and per-formance. Used as a sales marketingtool, the Business Analyzer Toolbreaks down the numbers of a shop’scosts, sales and profit based on sev-eral key indicators, such as paint andmaterial costs, said Vitor Margaro-

nis, Marketing Director of BASFCoatings Solutions.

“We use the tool to help cus-tomers grow their businesses in theareas of improvement they want tofocus on,” said Margaronis. “From abusiness standpoint, we go above andbeyond a paint company. It’s not justabout paint. It's about profits, growth,cost control, and overall better man-

agement of their business.”The Business Analyzer Tool

is available as a mobile app.According to BASF, Vision-

PLUS Online allows collisionrepair centers to track, analyzeand improve their business inreal time so repair facilities candiscover and act on improve-ment immediately, withouthaving to wait for the usualend-of-month reports.

BASF produces coatingsfor the automotive, commercialfleet and collision repair markets.Some of the refinish solutions fromBASF are Limco, R-M and Glasuritpaint products. The offering is sup-ported by advanced color informa-tion systems, technical trainingprograms and business managementseminars.

Collision damage experts Larry Mon-tanez and Arthur Harris presented “TheKeys to Successful Estimating!” duringNACE in New Orleans, LA, on Oct. 12.

The focus of their presentation cen-tered on DEG, Database EnhancementGateway, a free service funded by theSociety of Collision Repair Specialists,the Automotive Service Association andthe Alliance of Automotive ServiceProviders. The DEG is an advocate foraccurate collision data and acts as a go-between for shops and informationproviders—CCC, Mitchell and Audatex.The DEG was developed to improve thequality and accuracy of collision repairestimates by those who use collision re-pair estimating databases to providefeedback to information providers.

“The DEG was created becausethere was a disconnect with infor-mation providers and DEG was cre-ated to bridge that gap,” said Harris,

DEG Administrator.The DEG public database has

been around for five years, said Harris,who has been with the company for

two years. He describes his job as “fa-cilitating the gap between informationproviders and the estimate user.”

Collision repairers and insurersmay submit questions and inquiries or

ask for assistance with a particularproblem and DEG will work with theinformation provider to reach a resolu-tion. Often, this can result in changes tothe database or P-Pages. Shops are alsoencouraged to submit pictures or shortvideos with technicians performing atask in regards to a question or problemthat arises, said Montanez, a collisiondamage analyst with P&L Consultants.

To submit an inquiry, log on towww.degweb.org and fill out an onlineworksheet.

“The DEG is free and people shouldsend in their inquiries. It helps everyoneget questions answered,” said Montanez.

The DEG database is a valuabletool for the collision repair industry asit provides valuable feedback on miss-ing, unclear or potentially inaccuratedata within the estimate systems, Har-ris said. He adds that the DEG providestimely responses on both the status on

an inquiry and the response from the in-formation provider in question. Userscan also read all other inquiries madeby other repairers and see how the issuewas resolved.

Through feedback by repairers, theDEG can help fix footnotes, inaccuratelabor times, missing parts, incorrect partnumbers, and substrate identification.

In addition, Harris advised thosein attendance at the NACE presenta-tion not to print out the P-Pages, or es-timating guides as he called them,because they could be outdated. Mon-tanez says he downloads the P-Pagesonce a month to replace the older ver-sion from the previous month.

“The P-Pages aren’t guides. Theestimates aren’t suggested. It is themanual,” said Montanez. “The P-Pagesare not open to interpretation.”

For more information on theDEG, go to www.degweb.org.

DEG & the Keys to Successful Estimating Presented in New Orleans

Larry Montanez (l) and Arthur Harris (r) talkedabout the DEG at NACE on Oct. 12

DEG DATABASE INQUIRY 10/15/2012

Track_# EstimatingPlatform

InquiryCategory

Year MakeModel

ResolutionStatus

OriginationDate

SubmissionDate

ResolutionDate

Total Timeto Resolve

4889 Audatex - RefinishOperations

2012Lincoln MKS Resolved 9/11/2012

6:15:07 PM9/14/20129:02:00 AM

9/14/201212:38:00 PM 00 Days

Inquiry Description Resolution DescriptionPaint CodeSection6_IssueSummaryCRYSTAL CHAMPAGNE PRL Paint codeJZ decoded as a two stage but it is a three stage

Estimated Fix September 2012The paint code JZ has been updated to display as a threestage application in the paint table. The change will appearon the September 2012 release.

by Melanie Anderson

The National Auto Body Councilgifted six vehicles to needy familiesthrough its Recycled Rides program atNACE on Oct. 11.

Four local shops in the New Or-leans area donated their time to refur-bish the vehicles:• Car Craft Collision Centers (2 cars)• Champ’s Collision Centers (2 cars)• Collision Xperts• Fradella’s Collision Center

Seven years ago, in the wake ofHurricane Katrina, these shops re-ceived assistance from NABC withbasic necessities, such as householdgoods, clothing and technician tools.Now, these shops paid it forward toothers in need.

Recycled Rides is a national ini-tiative through which National AutoBody Council members refurbish do-nated vehicles and gift them to fami-lies in need. In addition to body shopsdonating their labor, insurers, paintsuppliers, parts vendors and rental carcompanies contribute as well.

At the NACE event, five insurancecompanies donated vehicles for refur-bishing: Allstate, Esurance, GEICO,Progressive and State Farm. EnterpriseRent-A-Car donated a vehicle as well.

The Maltese family received aFord Escape refurbished by Car CraftCollision Center and donated by En-terprise.

The Jiles family lost their vehi-cles in Hurricane Isaac and received aHonda CRV, refurbished by Champ’sCollision Center and donated byGEICO.

The Easley family received aDodge pickup truck, refurbished byCollision Xperts and donated by Pro-gressive.

Brenda Kenna was overjoyed toreceive a Toyota Camry that was re-furbished by Car Craft Collision Cen-ter and donated by Esurance.

Carolyn Gagliano, a retiredteacher, is thankful for her newChevrolet Impala refurbished byFradella’s Collision Center and do-nated by State Farm.

David Marlowe is retired and hasmajor health issues. He will benefitfrom the Ford Explorer that was re-furbished by Champ’s Collision Cen-ter and donated by Allstate.

“This car is giving me my lifeback,” said Marlowe. “You lose yourlast vestige of independence when youlose your transportation.”

For Calvin Schenck, owner ofCar Craft Collision Centers, partici-

pating in the RecycledRides Program meanspaying it forward.

“This journeystarted seven years agoas a result of the largestnational disaster thatthe United States hadever experienced. Thatdisaster was namedHurricane Katrina,”Schenck said. “No onecould have expectedthe amount of physical,financial and emotionaldamage that one eventcould cause. Thousands

of people were left jobless, homelessand directionless. We were part of thatgroup.

“As we struggled to get our livesand businesses back together, we werecontacted by people in our industry,who told us that they were ready toroll up their sleeves and help, and thatthey did. We were given hope thatthere were people out there who cared.Help arrived in the form of tool re-placements and emotional support,”Schenck said.

“Before we knew it, we werebeginning to heal. Had it not beenfor the help of these people, wedon’t know if we could have madeit. Because of this, we have decidedto pay it forward. The cars givenaway are part of a project that hasrequired us to complete all neces-sary repairs to these vehicles, someof which we have equipped withnew tires and paint jobs. We wouldalso like to thank Mike n’ Jerry’sPaint and Supply, Lamarque Ford

and Gulf States Glass for the sup-plies they donated.”

Car Craft Collision Centers do-nated body and paint work to a 2007Toyota Camry. “We put four newtires on this vehicle and an align-ment, as well as completing an oilchange and a complete analysis ofthe proper function of the vehicleand servicing the A/C system,” saidSchenck.

Champ’s Collision Centers, ownedby Tim and Danny Kingston, workedon two cars, a 2002 Ford Explorer anda 2004 Honda CRV. The cars were do-nated by Allstate and GEICO.

“Both cars have under 100,000miles and should provide safe and re-liable transportation for years,” saidTim Kingston. “Champ’s is proud tohave had the opportunity to contributeto such a great cause benefitting ourcommunity.”

Fradella’s Collision Centers re-furbished a 2007 Impala donated byState Farm. According to Fradella’sVice President Al Waller, the shop re-paired small dents and scratches, re-placed the front bearing, brought itsmaintenance up to date and detailedthe vehicle inside and out.

“The goal is to help people helpthemselves,” said Chuck Sulkala, theexecutive director of the NABC. “Andall of the industry segments commit toplaying a part in seeing that happens.Most that participate find it a life-changing experience.”

The Recycled Rides program wasborn in 2007. Since then, 150 cars aregiven away every year throughout thecountry, said Liz Stein, VP of Indus-try Relations, Assured PerformanceNetwork and VP of NABC. “Imaginethe impact this would be in your com-munity if more people did this.”


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NABC Gifts 6 Vehicles to Needy New Orleans Families at NACE

Brenda Kenna received a 2007 Camry at NACE, thanks to theNABC Recycled Rides program and the collision centers, insurersand other businesses that donated their time, labor, services andproducts

november 2012 southwest edition

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