autobody news february 2012 southwest edition

The city of Houston delayed voting onan ordinance to regulate the automo-tive repair and service industry affect-ing every type of business that touchesa car, whether it’s a body shop, an in-dependent auto repair shop, a dealer-ship or a big store like Wal-Mart.

The council rescheduled the votefor February 15, 2012, after more is-sues were raised at a hearing held onDecember 20, 2011, when the councilwas originally supposed to vote onthis ordinance.

This delay presents some newproblems to both sides lobbying overthe bill—they now have an entirelynew council, sworn in January 3,2012, to update on the issues and con-vince to vote one way or another.

A new list of council membersby district can be seen at www.au-

tobodynews.com, find out whichdistrict you reside in by visitinghttp://www.houstontx.gov/plan-ning/2011/index.html. The HoustonAuto Body Association (HABA)would like its members to reach outto the new council and make suretheir opinions on this matter areheard.

Kathryn van der Pol, Past Pres-ident of ASA, Houston Chapter, andco-owner of Adolf Hoepfl & SonGarage, is working with the HABAon writing their own version of the or-dinance, incorporating what’s goodabout the City’s version to present tothe new council since Houston MayorMayor Annise Parker, wants to passan ordinance on this issue. MayorParker also made some changes to the

Mike Causey, a sometime AutobodyNews columnist, announced his candi-dacy for North Carolina’s Commis-

sioner of Insuranceposition in Greens-boro in early Janu-ary. Causey choseDare County tolaunch his cam-paign he said,“…to bring focuson the problem ofinsurance in the

coastal counties. Premiums for house-hold insurance, especially windstorminsurance, have skyrocketed in recent

years in eastern North Carolina, worseyet in the coastal counties.”

Causey said he was urged byNorth Carolina Republican leaders toseek the office this year because ofwidespread and bipartisan criticism ofhow the State Office of Insurance hasbeen administered.

Causey is also known as a con-sumer advocate and lobbyist for the In-dependent Auto Body Association(IABA) as well as healthcare groupsand Organic farming and Healthy Eat-ing advocacy.

This will be Causey’s fourth at-

The Texas Independent AutomotiveAssociation (TIAA) held theirmonthly members meeting on January

19 at the Barn Door, 8400 N. NewBraunfels Ave. in San Antonio, TX.

Texas Independent Automotive Association(TIAA) Holds January Meeting

Mike Causey Announces Candidacy for Commis-sioner of Insurance Position in North Carolina

See Houston Ordinance, 5

See TIAA, Page 16

UPDATE: Houston City Council Delays Vote on AutoRepair Ordinance, Draft Not Favorable to Shops

See Causey, Page 36

by John Yoswick

A report at the Collision IndustryConference (CIC) on the findings of astudy into what consensus existswithin the industry about the devel-opment and implementation of for-malized repair standards led to asmuch discussion about the value andvalidity of the study as it did to dis-cussion of standards themselves.

“I do believe this has set us back-ward instead of forward,” DustyWomble of Roger Beasley CollisionCenter in Austin, Texas, said of thestudy. “I’m sorry, but honestly, I don’tsee any value in the research that hasbeen done.”

But Massachusetts shop ownerChuck Sulkala—who has not partic-ipated on the committee that organ-ized the study but was one of thoseinterviewed by the consultant con-ducting the research—said some at

CIC were incorrectly presuming thatthe committee was trying to makemore of the report than it was.

“Some of the conversations hereare getting us down into the weedsright now when I don’t think we’veeven gotten in the boat yet,” Sulkalasaid. “We’re still looking to see wherethe boat and lake is, to see what’sgoing on rather than trying to catchfish. I think we’re still in the very be-ginning stages.”

The Study and FindingsRuss Thrall of the Repair StandardsAdvisory Committee (an off-shoot ofCIC) was clear in presenting a portionof the study’s findings that it wasnever intended to be a statisticallyvalid survey of the industry.

“You can’t project the findings tothe industry as a whole,” he said.

Rather, he said, the committee hiredSee CIC Palm Springs, Page 32

‘Standards’ Replace Non-OEM Parts as Focusof Debate at Latest CIC

Mike Causey

Speaker Tom Hansis talks to the 50 or so attendees at the Texas Independent Automotive Associ-ation (TIAA) January meeting

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SouthwestPublisher & Editor: Jeremy Hayhurst

General Manager: Barbara DaviesAssistant Editor: Erica SchroederContributing Writers: Tom Franklin, John Yoswick, Lee Amaradio, Dan EspersenJanet Chaney, Toby Chess, Mike Causey, Tom McGee, David Brown, Rich Evans,Ed Attanasio, Chasidy SiskAdvertising Sales: Joe Momber, Sean Hartman (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.©2011 Adamantine Media LLC.

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

Autoland Scientech. . . . . . . . . . . . . 23BMW Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 33CCC Information Services . . . . . . . . 9Chevyland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Classic BMW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Classifieds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38CSS USA, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Dallas Dodge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40David McDavid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Equalizer Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Ford Wholesale Parts DealersTX, OK, LA, NM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Fowler I-240 Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge. 11Garmat USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Gene Messer Hyundai . . . . . . . . . . 31GM Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . 37Honda-Acura Wholesale PartsDealers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20-21

Huffines Hyundai Plano . . . . . . . . . 10Hyundai Wholesale Parts Dealers . 30Kia Motors Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

LKQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Mazda Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 36Mercedes-Benz of Oklahoma. . . . . 28Mike Calvert Toyota. . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Mitsubishi Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

MOPAR Wholesale Parts Dealers . . 17Nissan Genuine Parts . . . . . . . . . . . 13Ray Huffines Chevrolet . . . . . . . . . . . 5RealParts.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Replica Plastics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Russell & Smith Ford-Mazda . . . . . 26Safety Regulations Strategies. . . . . 28Scoggin-Dickey Buick . . . . . . . . . . 14Solution Finish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34South Pointe Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge . 7Toyota of Fort Worth . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Toyota Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 37Volkswagen Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Volvo Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 35Young Chevrolet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Inde

xofAdvertisers

REGIONAL

ANPAC Responds to Texas DOI . . . . . . . . 14

Caliber Collision Centers Opens San Antonio,

TX Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Caliber Collision Expands Coverage in the

Houston Area. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

CARSTAR Expands in Texas With 3

New Stores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Founder of El Paso’s Shamaley Auto

Dealerships Passes Away at 91 . . . . . . . 4

GM to Close Truck Plants for 21 Weeks,

Including Arlington. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Louisiana Cracks Down on Left-Lane

Law Enforcement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Red Light Runners Increasing in

Albuquerque, New Mexico Due

to Camera Light Shut-Downs . . . . . . . . . 6

Service King Founder Appoints New

Leadership Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Texas Independent Automotive Association

(TIAA) Hosts January Meeting . . . . . . . . 1

UPDATE: Houston City Council Delays

Vote on Auto Repair Ordinance, Draft

Not Favorable to Shops . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Van Tuyl Group to Hold Charity Super Bowl

Event in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area

Super Bowl Weekend, Autobody News

to Participate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

COLUMNISTS

Evans - Doing a Charity Build for Patriot

Outreach on a Donated Mustang . . . . . 34

Franklin - Creating a Readable

Advertising Piece. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

I-CAR - Accessing and Repairing Body

Mount Cage Nuts for the Ford F-150 . . 18

Insurance Insider - Legislating the “Bible”

Not the Answer for Shops Tired of

Being Told “No” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Weaver - Check Engine Light Paranoia . . . 23

Williams - Florida’s South Motors Automotive

Group—Anything But Apathetic . . . . . . 24

NATIONAL

‘Standards’ Replace Non-OEM Parts as

Focus of Debate at Latest CIC . . . . . . . . 1

40 Technicians Honored at ASE 2011

Annual Meeting in Charlotte, NC. . . . . . 26

ASE Announces New Officers, Governors

for 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Automakers Forecasted to Add Thousands

of Plant Manufacturing Jobs Over the

Next 3 Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

BMW Announces Nearly $900 Million

Investment, Adding 300 Jobs at its

South Carolina Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

CIECA Announces New Board of Trustees

for 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Diamond Standard Announces “Security

Shield” Extends Product Liability

Protection to Shops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Erie Insurance Earns I-CAR Gold Class

Professionals Badge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Hitting the Streets with the G & C Auto Body

Meter Beaters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Meguiar’s Makes $600K Product Donation

to Collision Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Mike Causey Announces Candidacy for

Commissioner of Insurance Position

in North Carolina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Mitchell Parts Index Sheds Light on Parts

Trends Post Japan’s Tsunami. . . . . . . . 12

Oregon Shop’s Parts Manager Performs

Heroic Deed to Save a Life . . . . . . . . . . 30

PCI Says Auto Body Legislation will be

Priority for 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Polk Says Average Age of Vehicles is at

Record High . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

West Virginia v. Liberty Mutual Salvage

Parts Lawsuit Moved to Federal Court . 22

Women’s Industry Network Accepting

2012 Board Applications . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Contents

www.autobodynews.com | FEBRUARY 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 3

Manufacturer Jan 2012 Jan 2011 YOY% Jan2012

Jan2011 YOY%

General Motors 169,200 178,887 5.4% 18.8% 21.8% -3.0%

Ford MotorCompany 144,900 126,981 14.1% 16.1% 15.5% 0.6%

Toyota MotorCorp. 121,500 115,856 4.9% 13.5% 14.1% -0.6%

Chrysler Group 93,600 70,993 31.8% 10.4% 8.7% 1.7%

American HondaMotor Co. 81,000 76,268 6.2% 9.0% 9.3% -0.3%

Hyundai-Kia 80,100 65,002 23.2% 8.9% 7.9% 1.0%

Nissan NorthAmerica 79,200 71,847 10.2% 8.8% 8.8% 0.0%

Total: 900,000* 819,394 9.8% — — —

Kelley Blue Book Forecasts 10 Percent Year-Over-YearIncrease In January New-Car Sales

Approximately 900,000 Units Expected for Month, 13.2 MillionSeasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate

January Sales to Improve Nearly 10 Percent Year-Over-Year

Sales Volume Market Share

*Includes projections for brands not shown


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Caliber Collision Centers, a multiple-shop operation with locations in Cal-ifornia, Arizona, Nevada and Texas,announced its continued expansion inthe Houston region with the openingof a new collision repair facility lo-cated in Cypress, Texas.

“Today’s announcement is the lat-est example of how Caliber continues toexpand our capacity to meet the needsof our customers and insurance clientsin high growth markets across the stateof Texas,” said Steve Grimshaw, Cal-iber Collision Centers CEO.

The Houston-area suburban lo-cation is Caliber’s 94th location in thesouthwest and 47th in Texas.

“This new opening further rein-forces Caliber’s position as thelargest collision repair provider inTexas truly committed to becomingthe collision repair provider of choicein every community we serve,” addedMark Sanders, COO for CaliberCollision Centers.

The new 25,000-square-foot Cy-press center will be located at 23266N.W. Freeway, Cypress, Texas andmanaged by James Loftin. The build-ing used to house a Collision Expertslocation.

Caliber Collision ExpandsCoverage in the Houston Area Recently, three of the country’s top in-

dependent auto body repair centersaround the country have joined theCARSTAR Nation to provide theircustomers and community memberseven better service and support.

CARSTAR Auto Body RepairExperts are North America’s largestgroup of auto body repair experts withsome 400 stores in the United Statesand Canada—and growing. As amember of CARSTAR, these newfranchisees will offer a new array ofservices and products for collision re-pair, including the latest in repairtechnology, rental vehicles, nationalwarranties on repairs, and turnkeyservice for their customers.

As part of CARSTAR’s commit-ment to customer service, CARSTARcan take care of the entire process ofrepairing the vehicle for the vehicleowner, from getting the vehicle towedto the facility to coordinating with theinsurance company to restoring it topre-accident condition.

The new CARSTAR franchiseeswill benefit from the CARSTAR Man-agement Systems, which provide re-sources to improve key businessmetrics such as cycle time, participationin CARSTAR’s 17 corporately man-

aged DRP programs, and improved pur-chasing power from 44 corporatelymanaged purchasing programs.

The three newest stores in theCARSTAR Nation include:● CARSTAR Collision King, Hous-ton, Texas. Owned by AllenSuleiman, CARSTAR Collision Kinghas been serving the Houston marketfor more than a decade.● Auto Masters CARSTAR Collision,San Antonio, Texas● Auto Masters CARSTAR Collision,Victoria, Texas. Owned by DanielBaker, Auto Masters CARSTARCollision is a multi shop owner thathas been serving the San Antonio re-gion for 36 years.

“We are extremely pleased towelcome these new members to theCARSTAR Nation and expand ourpresence in the Houston and San An-tonio markets,” said David Byers,Chief Executive Officer ofCARSTAR. “They all run great busi-nesses and have strong histories ofquality customer service. We’re look-ing forward to building their businesstogether, helping local car owners getback on the road with fast, reliablecollision repairs, and giving back tothe community at the same time.”

CARSTAR Expands in Texas With 3 New Stores

Founder of one of El Paso’s most suc-cessful auto dealerships, Lee JosephShamaley Sr., passed away on De-cember 26 at the age of 91.

Funeral services were held De-cember 30, 2011 at St. Pius X Catholicchurch in El Paso. Burial followed at

Fort Bliss Na-tional Cemetery.

Shamaley, ac-cording to the ElPaso Times, re-tired from theauto business atthe age of 85 afterhis family’s long-time dealershipshad become a

household name to South Texans.The Shamaley family owned its

namesake dealerships until June of2011, when Shamaley Ford andShamaley Buick-GMC were sold toGroup 1 Automotive Inc., a Houstoncompany with more than 100 new-cardealerships.

Lee Shamaley was born in ElPaso in 1920. He served in the U.S.Army-Air Force during World War II,his obituary stated. In addition to asuccessful auto business, Lee Shama-ley had also owned the Ben Franklinvariety store and real estate during hiscareer.

Founder of El Paso’s Shamaley AutoDealerships Passes Away at 91

GM spokesman Chris Lee told Auto-motive News that 21 weeks of plantshutdowns will be spread across thethree full-size pickup truck plants inRoanoke, Indiana, Flint, Michiagan,and Arlington, Texas for 2012.

The plant closings, expected tobe held in one week increments, willbe spread over several months in2012 to allow for teams to upgradeand rennovate the production ma-chinery in order to produce the newGM full-size trucks, due out in 2013,according to the Chicago Tribune.

GM reports they’ve been buildingup supply of the current model full-sizetrucks to accomodate the staggered plantclosing so dealerships should not haveto deal with strained product supply.

The company has said it’s tar-geting inventory of about 200,000full-size pickups, or about 90 dayssupply, before the shut-downs begin.

Scheduled down time for GM’splant in Silao, Mexico, that alsomakes full-size vehicles will be final-ized after January 1, Lee said.

GM to Close Truck Plants for21 Weeks, Including Arlington

A new law in the state of Louisiana hasState Police troopers cracking down ondrivers on the state highways who re-fuse to move from the left lane andallow other traffic to pass. Louisianalaw dictates that slower traffic mustkeep to the right and allow faster trafficto pass on multilane highways.Accord-ing to the LA State Police, not doing sopromotes road rage, encourages unsafedriving practices, impedes the flow oftraffic and delays response by first re-sponders to highway emergencies.

According to Insurance Journal,the law went into effect Aug. 15, 2009,and was revised to state that motoristsare not allowed to travel in the left laneof multilane highways unless they arepassing another vehicle on controlled-access highways such as Interstate 10,or passing or preparing to turn on mul-tilane highways that are not controlled-access such as U.S. 165 and U.S. 171.

Shortly after this revision wentinto effect, the Louisiana Departmentof Transportation erected roadsidesigns advising motorists of the changein the law. Nine other states currentlyhave a comparable law. In a recent left-lane enforcement detail on Interstate10 between Sulphur and the Texasstate line, troopers from LouisianaState Police Troop D issued a total of42 citations in two hours.

Louisiana Cracks Down on Left-LaneLaw Enforcement

Lee JosephShamaley Sr.

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The Van Tuyl Group, an Irving, Texas-based company with more than 70 au-tomotive dealerships across thecountry, has announced the first annual

Charity SuperBowl flag footballtournament to beheld in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The event willbe held Saturday,February 4, 2012at the Stampede

Sports Complex in Southlake, Texas—the day before Super Bowl XLVI takesplace in Indianapolis.

The Charity Super Bowl will beco-sponsored by the Van Tuyl Group,PPG, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car®. Allproceeds are to benefit Trinity RiverMission, a volunteer-based, commu-nity learning center dedicated to sup-porting the development of educationalsuccess in the children, youth, and fam-ilies of West Dallas.

The day-long Charity SuperBowl will feature 30 4-on-4 teams

competing in a double-eliminationtournament. There is an entry fee of$350 per team, with each team al-lowed to carry a roster of up to eightplayers. An awards presentation willbe held at the end of the day. In addi-tion to enjoying the games, fans at-tending the Charity Super Bowl canwin raffle prizes and participate in asilent auction.

“This is one of the most excitingweekends of the year for footballlovers,” said Darren Huggins, na-tional collision director, Van TuylGroup. “We wanted to take that foot-ball frenzy and give something back tothe community, especially to a charitythat does so much good and needs oursupport. We’ll play 59 games in about10 hours. We’ve even invited our com-petitors to take part, and they’ve ac-cepted the challenge. Fans can comeout and have a great time cheering onthe teams, all while knowing they’rehelping a worthy organization. This isgoing to be a great—and very compet-itive—day.”

The Van Tuyl Group has longbeen associated with PPG. Today,PPG Automotive Refinish suppliesthe company with a wide variety of

innovative coatingproducts for itsdealerships.KristenFelderof

collisionhub.comwillco-host the bowl’sbroadcast withAuto-body News’Ed At-tanasio.

For details about the first annual Char-ity Super Bowl, call 972-670-2948.

To learn more about Trinity RiverMission, visit www.trinityrivermis-sion.org. For more information aboutPPG, call (800) 647-6050 or visitwww.ppgrefinish.com.


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Red light cameras in Albuquerque,N.M., were turned off in mid-Decem-ber and local police are reporting anuptick in drivers who run red lights.

Cmdr. Eric Garcia told the Al-buquerque Journal he worries moredrivers will ignore red lights and in-crease the number of crashes.

Garcia says the department isgoing on the offensive, and warnsred-light-running drivers that motor-cycle units will be deployed to someof the city’s most dangerous intersec-tions to patrol and cite these drivers.School resource officers will alsomonitor intersections around schools,according to the Associated Press.

Red light cameras have been acontentious issue in Albuquerquesince they were installed seven yearsago. The state last year ordered allcameras on state roads be shuttered.

Red Light Runners Increasing inAlbuquerque, New Mexico Dueto Camera Light Shut-Downs

Ed Attanasio Kristen Felder

Caliber Collision Centers announced theopening of its newest location, a 22,500squarefoot facilityat619BroadwayStreetin SanAntonio, Texas, on January 16.“Today’s announcement is just the begin-

ningofadditional2012growththroughac-quisitions and the development of newbrownfield locations across TX, CA, AZand NV,” said Steve Grimshaw, CaliberCollisionCenters’ChiefExecutiveOfficer.

Caliber Collision Centers Opens San Antonio, TX Location

When the repair industry (later thanmost) finally moved into the 21st cen-tury and started writing estimates bycomputer, shops and insurance com-panies alike likened computerized es-timating to the advent of the washingmachine. Why a washing machine?

Some of you might be oldenough to remember the days ofwashing your clothes by hand. Al-though I never had the pleasure, I re-

call my parents talking about thepainstaking process of washingclothes in a bucket when they werekids. It was an arduous process thatconsumed a lot of your time if you didit right.

I did write estimates by hand andI can assure you that it too was a longpainful process. What made handwrit-ten estimates worse was having to goback and try to translate what youscribbled while clutching a clipboard.

If you are a member of Genera-tion X or Y (or any other letter of thealphabet), you probably can’t relate tothese old-man war stories. That said,I will try to offer a correlation you canappreciate. That’s what we’re sup-posed to do with the younger genera-tion, right? Entertain them and cater tothem and give them a ribbon just forparticipating even if they finished inlast place. So for them: Handwrittenestimates is like having to get up andchange the channel on the TV becauseyou can’t find the remote control.

If you read the title you probablyare wondering what legislation and

the Bible have to do with this article?Well, the Bible is exactly the term re-pairers often use to affectionately referto the estimating guides. Ooops, Imean estimating systems.

If you didn’t understand my at-tempt at sarcasm, then reread the lastsentence. Repairers affectionately re-ferring to the “estimating systems” asthe Bible is my best impression of adisheveled body shop owner who isn’t

getting paid enough to repair a vehi-cle. Let’s be honest: Have you evercomplained about an adjuster holdingthe line on a labor time because that’swhat the estimating system says it is?If I had a nickel for every time a shopcomplained to me about one of mystaff upholding the estimating sys-tems’ labor time, I would already beretired. (Don’t worry: I won’t be ableto retire for a few more years, whichtranslates into more Insider articles foryour reading pleasure.)

When there is a conflict about thelabor time on an estimate, the Biblebecomes the deciding factor. The HolyEstimating System tells shops and in-surers an approximate time to com-plete a specific repair operation. If theshop wants more time, the adjustersays no. Why? Because the estimatingsystem says so. Do you question thealmighty written word?

Shops hate insurance companiesfor holding the line on the time for aspecific labor operation becauseeveryone knows it’s just a guide. Eventhe estimating system providers will

tell you that they produce merely aguide and not the word of God. Insur-ers should be working with the shopsto discuss and negotiate discrepanciesinstead of hiding behind scripture.

But for every shop who insists it’sa guide and not the Bible (and com-plaining when it’s used against them),others are saying the same thing buttalking out of both sides of theirmouths. How? Through legislation.

That’s right. Over the past severalyears, shops in some states haveworked fervently to legislate the guideas the Bible. The thing that repairerscurse and despise is actually being putinto law in a few states. Is this thework of a evil genius, a mad scientistor just short-sighted repairers? If wewere on American Idol, I would beasking you to text 3 to vote for short-sighted repairers.

Under some state legislation, theestimating system will serve as the

final answer to all questions and dis-crepancies. The legislation states thatone can’t deviate from the informa-tion provided in the estimating sys-tem.

Why would anyone want to man-date legislatively something that isonly a guide, especially consideringthe information about inaccurate labortimes in the guides that has beenbrought to light in the past few years?There are examples of labor times thateventually have been increased by asmuch as 100 percent from the originaltimes in the guide.

Why would repairers do this tothemselves? If you were on FamilyFeud, Richard Dawson would shout,“The survey says: The P-Pages.”

Repairers are fighting back. Theyhave grown tired of being told by in-surers that they don’t pay to mask thedoor jambs or any other non-included


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Legislating the “Bible” Not the Answer for Shops Tired of Being Told “No”with The Insurance Insider

Inside 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]

See Insurance Insider, Page 10

I recently received an advertisingbooklet in the mail. Most of the ads inthe booklet were for local cleaners andvarious personal and home services.There was also one ad for a collisionrepair shop, but the shop was locatedmany miles from my mail servicewhere I received the booklet.

The shop owner had obviouslybeen pressured into buying an ad thatwas being delivered far out of his ef-fective neighborhood. And evenworse than that, it was buried in abooklet that is mostly read by house-wives looking for household deals atlocal businesses. The shop’s ad didn’teven have a coupon that might havegotten at least a couple of people tonotice it. The odds of the shop gettinga single job out of this ad were proba-bly as remote as the chance of win-ning the Publisher’s Sweepstakes.

Unfortunately, even if this ad hadappeared in a newspaper or otherwidely read publication, it was stillunlikely to get many people reading it.There were several reasons for this.First of all, most of the print was tootiny for mature readers to read with-out a magnifying glass. In a spacethree and a half inches wide by one-inch deep, fifty-two words werecrammed closely together. The shopowner had probably provided the ad-vertiser with a list of services hewanted included in the ad. Ad salespeople just want to sell the ad. They’repractically never professional ad de-sign people, so they’ll cram anythinginto the ad the buyer says he wants.

There could have been morespace for showing the shop’s manyservices if half the ad hadn’t consistedof a huge photo of a late model newcar.

A quick glance at the ad (whichis all most people would give it)would suggest the ad was selling a latemodel vehicle. There was not even aslight indication that this car neededor had ever had collision repair. In thespace allocated to this vehicle, therecould have been two photos of thesame vehicle showing it before andafter repairs. Given the brief attentionspan of most people today, any photohas to tell the desired story veryquickly. A good choice of photosmight actually have compensated forthe poor quality of the print message.

The next problem with the adwas the choice of colors. The letteringspelling out the shop’s services wasred on a blue-black background. Re-verse type can be very effective, butunless the type is huge, only white oryellow or some tint in-between willstand out enough to be easy to read.Blue type would have been almost in-visible and the red wasn’t much bet-ter.

Ad composition has to take intoaccount the wide variety of peoplewho will read it. Older people willgenerally have a problem with smallprint. Men are often slightly color-blind. The colored type would be dou-bly difficult to read for an older manwho might be a likely prospect withan expensive vehicle to repair. One

modification could make red, blue orgreen stand out on a dark background:That would be a slightly larger outlinetype in white or yellow behind thedarker lettering putting a bright out-line around each letter. But this is afairly complex type process, probablynot even known to this advertiser.Publications always send a copy of anad before printing it for the buyer toproofread. But shop owners are oftenrushed and would probably not takemuch more than a quick look at it. It’sunlikely this shop owner gave this admuch thought or looked it over at all.

Print advertising, whether onpaper or displayed in a website, mustbe instantly readable and provide acompelling reason for the reader to re-spond to the ad and come in for a serv-ice. A restaurant can send out a menulisting all of the selections they offer,but a list of a shop’s services isn’t anad—it’s a menu and belongs in a

brochure, not an ad. Ad readers aremotivated by price, speed of service orquality. For a body shop, price is onlyrelevant for self-pay services, butspeed of service can be very important.The quality of a collision repair is as-sumed to be good if one’s insurancecompany is paying for it. When qual-ity is mentioned, the reader’s questionwill be, “Compared to what?”

To establish quality, an ad couldrefer to on-line reviews, prior cus-tomer comments or even just thelength of the shop’s warranty, butthese would require a much larger adthan one-by-three inches. When itcomes to print ads, less is more. Ifsomeone can be enticed to read an adwith fifty words or less (and that is al-ready doubtful), those words had bet-ter convince the reader that this is aunique shop, so significantly betterthan the competition that he or shewould be a fool to go anyplace else.


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labor operation. You can almost hearone repairer saying, “Dammit, wewant our 0.2 to mask the jambs,” oranother one stating, “You can’t pickand choose what you want to payfor!”

Their answer to all of this mad-ness: We’ll legislate the use of the es-timating systems. Now insurers willhave to pay us exactly what’s in theestimating system. I could swear I’mwatching, “Shop Owners Gone Wild.”

I offer these words of advice afterdecades of committed service to theinsurance industry: Be careful whatyou ask for, because you just mightget it. You can legislate adding pen-nies to your estimates and lose dollarsin the process.

Instead, advocate for getting paidfor what you do. Don’t advocate leg-islating something that is as accurateas the last estimate you wrote only tohave to add a $3,000 supplement.

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

Creating a Readable Advertising Piece

On Creative Marketingwith Thomas Franklin

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

Continued from Page 8

Insurance Insider

by Greg Horn, Vice PresidentIndustry Relations Mitchell International

When we createdthe Mitchell Colli-sion Parts PriceIndex (or MCPPI)a few years back,it was to serve as abarometer tomeasure parts in-flation both in ag-

gregate and split out by part type andvehicle country of origin. TheMCPPI was created with the Con-sumer Price Index as its model as theConsumer Price Index (CPI) is bestknown to most Americans as the gen-eral rate of inflation.

The CPI is one of the mostclosely watched economic indicatorsbecause it tracks the rate of inflationfor a wide sampling of goods we rou-tinely buy. Just in the way the CPImeasures a “basket” of goods andservices and compares the pricesmonth to month. This basket contains

hundreds of different types of goodsand services ranging from the inex-pensive to very expensive.

In creating the Mitchell Colli-sion Parts Price index, we used a sim-ilar approach of taking a collision

‘market basket. We selected the top20 most replaced collision parts forthe following categories: Hood, fend-ers, headlamps, turn signals and sidemarker lamps. We pulled data from2003 through the third quarter of2011. We then created weighted av-erage prices for these parts in aggre-gate, setting the base year at 2003and equal to 100. This allows us tocompare inflationary trends by parttype. All part types are retail prices,in the case of LKQ/used parts, arecalculated with the mark up includedin the pricing.”

In the most recent edition of theIndustry Trends Report, this usefultool also allowed us to evaluate theimpact of the Japanese Tsunami on

collision parts prices.What we found wasthat despite some in-dustry experts pre-dicting partsshortages, repair de-lays and hoarding ofused parts, there wasvirtually no impacton collision partsprices.

What always in-trigues me as I evalu-ate the data from this

index, is that there are several otherfactors in play. When I looked at theoverall index over time, what is in-teresting is the rapid increase in re-cycled parts prices for all vehicletypes, and that salvage parts and af-termarket parts, drove the inflationindex for 2011. OEM parts pricing,

by contrast; decreased in the aggre-gate.

How did the OEM parts indexdecrease? It was in large part a resultof the expansion by auto makers‘match the competition’ programs,

wherein they will match or adjusttheir pricing to compete with top sell-ing aftermarket parts. The primaryaim of the OEM’s to match the com-petition is to maintain parts sales andstem the tide of aftermarket parts usein collision repairs.

Have they been effective? As ev-idenced by chart 3, showing the num-

ber of collision parts used by parttype, the increase in matching pro-grams has not stemmed the decline inOEM parts use, but interestingly; af-termarket parts use also declined dur-ing the same period. By looking at therepair labor hours for the same period,

we see an increase in the number ofaverage repair hours, indicating a shiftto repairing panels rather than replac-ing them. An increase of repair hoursis good news for collision repairers,and it remains to be seen if this in-crease is sustainable.

Let’s examine recycled parts aswell. The MCPPI shows an increase

in pricing of recycled parts, starting in2009 and accelerating rapidly in 2010,but still below the base year of 2003.What is behind this phenomenon?

If we look back, the recycledparts distribution channel experienced


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Last month we reported that JohnBorek, General Manager of AutocraftBodywerks in Austin, Texas, has fileda complaint with the Texas Depart-ment of Insurance against AmericanNational Property and Casualty Com-pany (ANPAC) and a claims servicescompany, American Claims Services,alleging that they “knowingly used afraudulent document to justify theirshort-pay” of a claim.

In filing his complaint with theTexas DOI Property and CasualtyComplaint Department, Borek wrote:“We believe that based on this docu-ment, ANPAC/ American Claim Serv-ice is knowingly using a fraudulentdocument to justify their short pay tolimit the price paid for repairs to [the]automobile. By not performing thesenecessary operations, it will result inan incomplete repair. I have spokentoday with the field appraiser assignedto this file and he confirmed that heput the needed repair operations onthe original estimate although a doc-ument generated from ANPAC/Amer-ican Claim Service shows a zero byall these operations.

In a letter of response to theTexas Department of Insurance,ANPAC said an appraiser working onits behalf used “an outdated docu-ment” when denying a supplement forcolor sand and buff from AutocraftBodywerks in Austin, Texas, and thatthe supplement has now been paid.John Borek of Autocraft filed a com-plaint with the regulator last monthafter receiving a document that theAmerican Claims Services appraiserindicated was from Audatex showingthat color sand and buff is included inrefinish times.

In his complaint, Borek calledthe document “fraudulent” given thatAudatex, after searching its “Data-base Reference Manuals” back to1993, concluded that the document is“most certainly not from ADP/Auda-tex.”

After a call asking for an updateor comment on the complaint, the De-partment of Insurance sent Borek acopy of ANPAC’s December 27 ini-tial response letter, saying it will no-tify him “once we receive additionalinformation that was requested.”


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ANPAC Responds to Texas DOI Polk Says Average Age of Vehicles is at Record HighThe average age of cars and lighttrucks currently in operation in theUnited State has increased to 10.8years, according to Polk, an auto-motive market intelligence firm.Passenger cars showed a modest in-crease in age since 2010, from 11years to 11.1 years at the end of June2011.

Light trucks (including pickupsand SUVs) show a more sizeable gainin the same time frame, from 10.1years to 10.4 years. Overall, averagevehicle age has been increasingquickly over the past five years. Polkreports average age based on ananalysis of national vehicle registra-tion data.

The slowdown of the aging ofpassenger cars directly correlates tothe low sales volumes and the mix ofcar and truck sales in the U.S. marketin 2008 and 2009, a time in whichmore trucks than cars were registered.While more trucks were sold over thesame timeframe, they showed a fasteraging rate. Polk expects this trendmay change in the coming years asCUV and small SUV populations inthe U.S. market have risen in 2010and 2011 due to their continued suc-cess in the market.

Additionally, the rebound in newvehicle sales in 2011 and for the nextcouple of years will most likely slowdown the aging rate seen in the mar-ket over the past three years, accord-ing to Polk.

“The increasing age of the vehi-cle fleet, together with the increasinglength of ownership, offers signifi-cant business growth opportunity forthe automotive aftermarket,” saidMark Seng, global aftermarket prac-tice leader at Polk. “Dealer servicedepartments and independent repairfacilities, as well as aftermarket partssuppliers, will see increased businessopportunity with customers in need ofvehicle service.”

Year-over-year Light VehiclePopulation Declines Come to an End

2011 marked the end of the U.S.vehicle population decline that hasoccurred annually since 2008. Ac-cording to Polk, the total vehicles inoperation (VIO) in July 2011 was justover 240.5 million, an increase of500,000 units over July in the previ-ous year, and nearly equal to 2009VIO. The highest VIO on record wasachieved in July 2008, when morethan 242 million passenger cars andlight trucks were on America’s roads.


ordinance, and the version that will bevoted on February 15, 2012, can beviewed in its entirety at www.autobo-dynews.com.

“While this ordinance has goodintentions, it paints the entire industrywith one stroke. The proposed ordi-nance stems from an effort to elimi-nate a problem that comes from asmall percentage of unscrupulous col-lision-repair shops, which is one seg-ment of the automotive repair trade.This attempt at a solution will wrap analready difficult business in more redtape,” says van der Pol.

Writing in the Houston Chroni-cle, Van der Pol says there are somegood features for the consumer in thisordinance:

“The ordinance will require allauto-repair facilities to post their li-cense number on their advertising andinvoices so that the consumer willknow which companies are city-li-censed repair facilities.

“It will also require auto-repairfacilities to carry a minimum amountof liability insurance. Currently, thereis no local or state law that requires arepair shop to have insurance. In anuninsured shop, car owners are liablefor anything the garage owner doeswith their car. Good shops alreadypurchase insurance, but virtually allshops that lack integrity will also lackinsurance.

“Giving approval over the phonefor any collision work will be illegaland limits will be placed on certainfees charged by collision shops. Thereis a good reason for this. Repairs re-sulting from accidents usually costthousands of dollars. While we arehesitant to say that the city should setpricing for any private business trans-action, we agree every approval forcollision repair should be in writing.

The ordinance includes pagesand pages that regulate how recordswill be kept, how repair shops maygain approvals from customers and es-tablishes fines for sometimes honestmistakes that must be paid to the city.

If this new law takes effect,phone approvals for mechanical workwill be allowed only if the customerprovides a third signature permittingan estimate either to be given orally,in person, or over the phone. Recordsof that approval have to be maintainedfor two years. Automotive profession-

als are concerned about this for a fewreasons.

“Our main concern,” continuesvan der Pol, “is that if your car istowed in to a mechanical shop, the fa-cility can’t even look at the car untilthe owner comes in or faxes or emailsa signature. If you are a businessowner with a fleet account, you willhave to email, fax or come to the shopto give approval of authorization or tosign a waiver. This will slow down therepair process and be an inconven-ience for everyone involved.

“Mechanical work is entirely dif-ferent from collision. It differs in thatit’s quick, less costly and customersdepend on our efficiency so they canget their autos back.

The city’s proposal will slowdown this repair process. If it soundscomplicated, it will be even worsewhen customers are confronted withthe legalese. If they refuse to sign thewaiver authorizing estimates byphone, the customer will have to re-turn to the shop, find a fax machine orsend an email.

“While the Automotive ServiceAssociation (ASA) fully supports ef-forts to root out bad players in our in-dustry, we believe this ordinanceoverregulates and will be a burden toour customers who don’t own fax ma-chines, have access to email or have asecond car to come back to the shopfor a signature. This is going to affectsenior citizens, the disabled, thosewith lower incomes, and those whodepend on one vehicle the most.

“Another provision is that no au-thorizations are required for repairsunder $100. As long as your bill is$99.99, the repair shop does not needyour permission to make repairs orperform maintenance on your vehi-cle. Our concern is that if you aredropping off your car for an oilchange and the technician calls be-cause he determines your coolantneeds to be flushed, the work will ex-ceed $100. Then you will have adelay in repair if you did not sign thewaiver - even though we still havethe two signatures required by thestate. This provision seems unneces-sary and could lead to confusion andabuse.

“If a shop neglects to put the li-cense plate number, vehicle identifi-cation number, or mileage on a workorder, or records it inaccurately, itcould result in a criminal misde-meanor charge with a $200 to $500fine.

“Why do the mayor and somemembers of City Council feel this or-dinance is needed?

“The ASA was told it was neces-sary because there were some badbody shops taking advantage of insur-ance companies, resulting in a rise ofinsurance premiums.

“ASA requested informationthrough an open records request aboutthe complaints so that as an industry,we could better understand what prob-lems the city is trying to address. Thecomplaints did indeed support thatthere are some bad players in the colli-sion repair industry who are chargingexcessive disassembly fees, adminis-trative fees and are holding carshostage. We were given 257 com-plaints filed over a three-year periodwith the Houston Auto Dealers, a divi-sion of the Houston Police Departmentthat enforces automotive repair facilitylicenses. Of those, 61 complaints con-cerned excessive fees from collisionshops—none from mechanical. It is aproblem, but, “it’s like killing flies witha cannon instead of a flyswatter,” asCouncilmember Jolanda Jones said.

“Last, there is the concern aboutincreased costs of implementation thatwill be passed on to consumers. Allour paperwork will have to change tocomply. Not to mention all our feesand permits were increased this year.For example, in 2011 a Houston auto-motive repair facility license increased147 percent, from $200 to $495.“What do we recommend? Ideally, thecity should create two separate auto-motive licenses, one issued to regulatethe collision industry and another,simpler one, for the mechanical in-dustry. Many at City Hall acknowl-edge that this would be a real fix, butthere is a rush right now to pass the or-dinance before the end of the year.What’s the rush? ASA has knownabout this proposal for less than ayear, and we have been working dili-gently with the city to help.

The Automotive Service Associ-ation wants City Hall to slow down,listen to both industry and consumersand do it right the first time.

Houston City council also ap-proved changes to the city’s ordinanceon Nov. 30 covering towing compa-nies and auto shops geared toward“trying to make sure that an unhealthyrelationship between the tow truckdrivers and collision repair shops ismonitored more closely,” MayorParker said. “There are lots of reportsthat after accidents, tow trucks may be

being paid bounties to take cars to par-ticular collision repair shops.”

Other key industry representa-tives, including the Houston AutoBody Association (HABA), applaudsome of the proposed mandates butare quick to say others may end upbogging down reputable businesses,slowing their ability to serve cus-tomers.

James Brown, President of theHouston Auto Body Association(HABA), testified before the Mayorand City Council on behalf of HABAon November 29, voicing the HABA’sconcerns with the current language inthe ordinance. Brown was pulled intoa private meeting with the Mayor’sAssistant, the City Attorney, andmembers of HPD Auto Dealers Divi-sion (Capt Baimbridge & Sgt Provost)following his testimony. The meetinglasted around an hour and a half andthe group informed Brown that noneof the latest revisions HABA re-quested would be honored for one rea-son or another.

“We do think there’s a lot of goodthings in there, said Brown to KHOU11 News Houston. “But there are a lotof things that still need some work.There are a lot of things in there thatgive the insurance companies thesame authority as the consumer—theowner of the vehicle—which wewould like to see taken out.”

“HABA has been working withHPD Auto Dealers Division for overa year and that has resulted in a lot ofpositive changes,” said Brown,“HABA has also worked closely withASA on the revisions and we havemade a lot of progress but still have aways to go.”

Councilwoman Sue Lovell, whospent a year meeting with auto repairindustry representatives to craft thechanges, said that once a car arrives,some unscrupulous collision repairshops charge more than $1,000 just togenerate an estimate. She brandished abinder full of complaints to back herassertion that while most merchantsare honest, there have been enoughcases of abuse to warrant the city’s in-tervention. “It’s really about consumerprotection,” she said.

Jeanette Rash, owner of FastTow and leader of a consortium ofwrecker companies that clears free-way breakdowns for the city, sup-ported the revisions in part because itwill allow storage yards to increasedaily rates for the first time in adecade, from $15 to $20.

Continued from Front Page

Houston Ordinance


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Eddie Lennox, Founder, Chairman ofthe Board, and CEO of Service KingCollision Repair Centers, the nation’slargest employee-owned operator ofcollision repair centers, announcednew leadership appointments of thecompany. Lennox announced thatService King’s President,Cathy Bon-ner, is the new Chief Executive Offi-cer. Lennox will continue as Chairmanof the Board of Service King.

Lennox said, “Service King hasthe best leadership team in the colli-sion industry. Cathy Bonner hasadded seventeen new locations nowcovering 70% of the Texas popula-tion.” Lennox added that Bonner’snext goal is to lead the second growthphase making Service King a nationalcompany by adding assets beyond theTexas borders.

Moving into the President’s roleis Chris Abraham, currently Vice-President of the Houston Market. JeffMcFadden will take the role of Ex-ecutive Vice President.

Also joining the executive lead-ership team in new positions areEileen Clark, Chief Financial Offi-cer, and Michael Devendorf, ChiefOperating Officer.

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the most advances of any parts chan-nel. Large internet vendors began on-line and ‘near real time’ inventorydisplays in the estimating platformsas well as standalone applications.Large acquisitions happened in thisarena as well, all allowing for morerapid market feedback of demandand pricing. I believe this lead to amarket correction of pricing in theyears leading up to 2009, and whatwe are now experiencing is an accel-eration of prices because of the in-crease in overseas and rebuildersales, and decreasing the populationof parts harvested vehicles.

What will the future hold? I be-lieve we will continue to see a re-striction of supply for recycled parts,as the impact of slumping new carsales and high used car prices thatbegan in 2008 (and continues today)begins to ripple through the salvageparts supply world. Aftermarket partsproducers hold an advantage here, asthey can custom tailor output to de-mand, a luxury that recyclers do nothave.


Mitchell

The meeting was held at 6:30p.m., starting with a networking pe-riod. Speaker Tom Hansis from theUTSA Small Business DevelopmentCenter was this month’s speaker andhe talked to the 50 or so attendeesabout how shops can benefit frommentoring services that UTSA offersto shops.

UTSA offers online training,workshops and business advising forSan Antonio-based small businesses.For more information about the UTSASmall Business Development Center,please visit sasbdc.org.

The TIAA will hold their nextmeeting on February 16 at 6:30 p.m. atthe County Line on I-10. The speakerwill be from the State Comptrollers of-fice.

For more information about thismeeting and other upcoming events forthe association please visit www.tiaa.net.


TIAA PCI Says Auto Body Legislation will be Priority for 2012The Property Casualty Insurers Asso-ciation of America’s (PCI) said autobody legislation would be one of itskey priorities for 2012. PCI said it an-ticipates the major auto body repairand glass issues for 2012 will involveaftermarket parts, labor rates, steeringand estimating systems. To help con-trol costs and promote customer serv-ice, PCI said it will oppose legislativeefforts that would restrict insurers’ability to make recommendations orsuggestions to consumers on individ-ual repair facilities or that would im-pede insurers’ ability to manage theclaim repair process and control costson behalf of consumers.

“PCI is committed to advancinga pro- consumer agenda that supportshealthy, competitive insurance mar-kets across the nation,” said PaulBlume, senior vice president of stategovernment relations for PCI.

“In these tough economic timesconsumers are best served by measuresthat address the cost drivers of insur-ance and provide individuals withchoices. Our agenda will also help mod-ernize state regulatory environmentsand improve insurance marketplaces.”

In addition to auto body legisla-tion, other priorities include protecting

and promoting the viability of a com-petitive private insurance market, curb-ing fraud and abuse in several no- faultauto insurance systems, addressingauto body repair and coastal propertyinsurance issues, as well as advancingcost containment measures in stateworkers compensation systems. In ad-dition, PCI anticipates credit-based in-surance scoring and tort reform to onceagain be legislative issues during 2012.

PCI said it made significantprogress at the state, federal, and in-ternational levels last year on many is-sues, despite facing an anemiceconomy, increasing political and reg-ulatory pressures, and historic naturaldisasters. Looking forward to 2012,PCI said it anticipates facing many ofthese issues again, with the additionalchallenge of advancing its advocacyagenda during a watershed presiden-tial election year.

Meguiar’s Inc., a 3M Company, hascome to the aid of 676 secondaryand post-secondary collision pro-grams across the country by donat-ing sets of their Unigrit Fine GradeBlending and Finishing Discsthrough the Collision Repair Educa-tion Foundation. The donation, intotal equaling a retail value of$600,000, will ease collision de-partment budgets by providing stu-dents the opportunity to work withup-to-date supplies. The gift fromMeguiar’s helped the largest amountof schools in one donation in theCollision Repair Education Founda-tion’s history.

Northern Virginia CommunityCollege (Alexandria, VA) CollisionRepair Instructor Geoffrey Brownsaid, “Thank you so much forMeguiar’s very generous donation.These sorts of donations really helpour program by being able to exposeour students to products and tech-niques that we could not afford toprovide out of our limited budget.”

For additional information aboutMeguiar’s Car Care Products visitwww.meguiars.com

Contact Brandon Eckenrode [email protected] or 847-463-5244 for more in-formation.

Meguiar’s Makes $600K ProductDonation to Collision Schools

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Autobody Newson Facebook

Beginning with the 2009 model yearFord F-150, the cab body mount boltsare secured with a cage nut. The cagenut is held in position inside a cage nutretainer that is attached to the insideof a floor crossmember.

The crossmember is attached tothe underside of the floor pan, whichcreates an enclosure for the cage nut.The retainer has two nut retainingtabs, one on each opposing side of thenut that are folded against the nut tohold it in place (see Figure 1).

In some instances, the cage nutmay spin when attempting to removeor install a body mount bolt. If the nutspins, it will have to be accessed and

secured in order to complete the boltremoval and the installation process.Accessing the Cage NutAccessing the cage nut will requiredrilling a hole from the top of the floor

pan at the cage nut location. Be care-ful not to drill into the cage nut re-tainer. Ford service informationspecifies using a 50 mm (2") hole sawfor this procedure (see Video atwww.i-car.com).

Accessing the drilling lo-cations on the floor pan willrequire removing certainparts, and pulling back thecarpeting. Depending on thecab style, parts that may re-quire removal include thescuff plate trim panel, con-sole, and seats.

The locations of the bodymount cage nuts vary de-pending on the F-150 cabstyle. Locations for the Regu-

lar Cab model will differ from thoseof the SuperCab and SuperCrew mod-els.

Locations for the SuperCab and Su-perCrew are the same (see Figure 2).Refer to the appropriate service infor-mation for the specific location andprocedure for drilling the hole.

Repair ConsiderationsThrough the drilled hole, locate the

cage nut retainer tabs andbend them upward toallow access to the cagenut (see Figure 3). Use asuitable tool to hold thecage nut and remove thebody mount bolt.

The cage nut maybe reused if the threads arenot damaged. If damaged,it must be replaced withthe correct part number(#78101C38). Ford serv-ice information warnsagainst using a standardnut as a replacement, as

this may result in damage to the vehi-cle.

The body mount bolts are one-time use, and must be replaced onceremoved. Be sure to replace these

bolts with the correct part number.The bolt part numbers vary depending

on the cab style. Torque the new boltsto 115 N•m (85 lb-ft).

A service plug (part #W651023-S300) is available to cover the holefollowing installation of the bodymount bolt.

ConclusionWhen attempting to remove the body

mount bolts on some Ford F-150 models, be aware thatthere may be situations whenthe cage nut may spin pre-venting removal of the bolt.

Removing the bodymount bolt will requireusing a hole saw to provideaccess to the cage nut inorder to secure it to pre-vent it from spinning whenturning the bolt. Locationsof the cage nuts vary de-pending on the F-150 cabstyle. Ford service infor-mation includes proce-

dures for locating and drilling theholes.

For comments or suggestions onthe Advantage Online, please contactI-CAR [email protected].

Accessing and Repairing Body Mount Cage Nuts for the Ford F-150

I-CAR TechThis article first appeared in the I-CAR Advantage Online, which is published and distrib-uted free of charge. I-CAR, the Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repair, is anot-for-profit international training organization that researches and develops qualitytechnical education programs related to collision repair. To learn more about I-CAR, andto subscribe to the free publication, visit http://www.i-car.com.


Figure 1 - The body mount bolt cage nut is secured inposition inside a cage nut retainer by tabs that are foldedagainst the cage nut

Figure 2 - Shown are two of the body mount/cage nutlocations on the floor pan of this F-150 SuperCrew

Figure 3 - Shown is a cage nut retainer with the tabs bentupward allowing access to the cage nut

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Russell & Smith HondaHouston

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Wholesale Parts DirectAust in

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Joe Marina HondaTulsa

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Walker HondaAlexandr ia

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Patty Peck HondaRidgeland, MS800-748-8676601-957-3400


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Superior HondaHarvey

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Santan HondaChandler, AZ

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NEWSNEWSNEWSNEWSService, Diagnostic

and MechanicalService, Diagnostic

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Diamond Standard Announces “Security Shield” Extends Product Liability Protection to ShopsDiamond Standard Brand Parts hasannounced a program of extendingproduct liability protection to ap-proved collision centers free of chargeto address major concerns about lia-bility on parts.

Diamond Standard says its “Se-curity Shield” provides the collisioncenter leverage and protection againststructural parts usage demands into re-pair, the various levels of parts qual-ity which continues to exist,substitution of parts and the growingreality of aftermarket structural partsproduced by manufacturers with noU.S. assets or product liability cover-age putting the shop in the position ofbeing the “manufacturer” in a poten-tial lawsuit seeking damages due to apart defect or failure leading to seri-ous injury.

Program reaction has been highlypositive among the major associationswith the Automotive Service Associa-tion (ASA) and its collision membersbeing the first association to partici-pate in the program. ASA and Dia-mond Standard announced in Januarya strategic alliance based on ASAmember product liability protectionfrom Diamond Standard. This uniqueprogram underscores ASA’s focus onexacting standards for a complete andsafe repair, and provides clear and

meaningful evidence of DiamondStandard’s confidence in standing be-hind the highest quality parts and partspolicies. A unique website supportingthe strategic partnership and coveragebenefit will debut Feb. 1, 2012 pro-viding ASA members access to thefull program content including back-ground, coverage, a limited lifetimewarranty statement and a convenient“Certificate of Coverage” downloadfeature. The Diamond Standard Secu-rity Shield site will also debut Feb. 1,2012 (www.diamondstandardsecuri-tyshield.com).

The issue of shop liability andtimeliness of the Diamond StandardSecurity Shield program cannot be un-derstated and takes on greater impor-tance as evidenced by a feature storyearlier this week regarding shop lia-bility.

In the January 9, 2012 – Vol. 19addition of Crash Network(www.CrashNetwork.com) the featurestory “Liability Questioned” was pub-lished based on New Jersey shopowner Joe Lubrano’s expressed con-cern related to non-OEM parts.Specifically Mr. Lubrano posed thequestion of a shop being held respon-sible for diminished value or liabilityclaim if a non-OEM absorber, rein-forcement or hood does not function

properly in a subsequent accident,possibly causing body injury in a liti-gious society and called on the Colli-sion Industry Conference meeting thisweek to take this matter as seriouslyas he does. Diamond Standard Secu-rity Shield product liability protectionfirmly addresses Mr. Lubrano’s con-cerns.

Diamond Standard SecurityShield product liability protection intotal, represents $40 million in prod-uct liability coverage as added secu-rity to the collision center owneragainst the unlikely scenario of per-sonal vehicle-owner injury directly re-lated to the failure of new DiamondStandard parts in the repair manufac-tured by Reflexxion Automotive Prod-ucts or Production Bumper StampingsInc. $15 million in product liabilitycoverage is extended by the specificmanufacturing group member for itsDiamond Standard Brand Parts.

The incremental $25 million ispremiere coverage extended to ap-proved collision centers as co-insuredtotaling $40 million in total coveragedirected to quality, industry best prac-tice shop associations, DRPs, MSOs,facilitators and consolidators recog-nized by the industry as ordering andinstalling only the highest level qual-ity structural components.

“Giving back to the industryfront line is a central premise of Dia-mond Standard throughout the yearand pivotal piece in our developmentof a unique branding program ad-dressing the major issues in our in-dustry. To receive the honor anddistinction of ASA’s strategic partner-ship and support of Diamond StandardSecurity Shield validates the single-minded purpose of Diamond Stan-dard—not only manufacturing andmarketing the safest and highest qual-ity parts available, but also precisionparts using correct material, toolbuilding, stamping and process con-trols here in America,” said MikeO’Neal, President of Diamond Stan-dard Parts, LLC.

“It is Diamond Standard’s ‘Cul-ture of Quality’ that permeates its veryfabric with a commitment to the in-dustry of ‘One Quality of Manufac-turing’ consistency that separatesDiamond Standard from other Manu-facturers. It is the “One Quality” partmanufacturing commitment with USAassets in place that uniquely enablesDiamond Standard to provide the col-lision shop owner with the solutionand avoid risk due to the use of struc-tural parts from foreign manufacturersoffering no product liability protec-tion.”

West Virginia v. Liberty Mutual Salvage Parts Lawsuit Moved to Federal CourtA lawsuit alleging that insurance com-pany Liberty Mutual implementedpolicies that called for body shopowners to repair new vehicles using“junkyard” parts has been moved tofederal court. State Attorney GeneralDarrell McGraw filed the lawsuitagainst Liberty Mutual and St. Albansbody shop owner Greg Chandler lastmonth, alleging that the body shopfollowed an illegal insurance policy toinstall used or aftermarket crash partson vehicles manufactured within threeyears of the date of the crash.

The West Virginia Attorney Gen-eral’s office calls it an effort to “buytime” in the lawsuit brought by thestate’s Attorney General against it andone of its DRPs—Greg Chandler’sFrame & Body LLC (Greg’s Body

Shop)—over the use of salvage partsmoved to federal court. The changeforced the cancellation of a hearing inwhich a circuit court judge could haveordered Liberty Mutual to temporar-ily discontinue the practice of callingfor the use of salvage parts on vehiclesthree years old or newer, a violation ofstate law (which similarly prohibitsthe use of non-OEM parts on such ve-hicles without the owner’s consent).

Attorneys for Liberty Mutual ar-gued the case belongs in federal courtbecause they say it involves issues re-lated to the federal Magnuson-MossWarranty Act. West Virginia AttorneyGeneral McGraw sued Liberty MutualInsurance Company and Greg’s BodyShop, for repairing vehicles with sal-vage parts in violation of state law.

Attorney General McGraw’s suit, filedin the Circuit Court of KanawhaCounty, details repeated violations ofthe West Virginia Consumer Creditand Protection Act by Liberty Mutualand Greg’s Body Shop. McGraw’s of-fice alleges that Liberty Mutual re-quired body shops to repair vehicleswith reconditioned, remanufactured,and used parts in violation of West Vir-ginia law. In addition, Liberty Mutualfailed to provide the proper notices andwritten statements to consumers.

In West Virginia, it is unlawfulfor an insurance company to requirethe use of salvaged, used, or recondi-tioned OEM crash parts when negoti-ating repairs of motor vehicles withinthree years of manufacture, withoutacquiring the motor vehicle owner’s

consent. McGraw’s office began in-vestigating Liberty Mutual and Greg’sBody Shop after receiving evidencethat new vehicles were being repairedwith “junkyard parts.” The investiga-tion by McGraw’s Consumer Protec-tion Division confirmed that LibertyMutual employed a policy that vio-lated state law. McGraw’s lawsuit asksthe court to enjoin the defendantsfrom engaging in this unlawful activ-ity in the future, seeks restitution forconsumers whose cars were illegallyrepaired with “junkyard” crash parts,and asks for civil penalties.

Consumers who think they havebeen a victim of Liberty Mutualshould contact Attorney General Dar-rell McGraw’s consumer protectionhotline at 1-800-368-8808.


Charlie comes in every now and then.I guess you could say he’s a regularbut I think I would call him more ofan opportunist when it comes to hiscar repairs. He’ll go to an oil changeplace for oil changes, a tire shop fortires, a transmission shop for trans-mission, so on and so on. If there isan opportunity to get his car into ashop he’ll make an appointment andget it in. But, the one thing he seemsto always use me for is the check en-gine light.

Normally, most people don’t paythat much attention to the check en-gine light unless it’s staying on. NotCharlie, he’s absolutely paranoid itwill come on and stay on.

Somehow, some way somebodyhas told him that the check enginelight is not a warning of a problemwith the exhaust emissions or relatedengine/transmission problems but theprecursor to a ticking bomb that will

bring an end to his ride of rides. It’sas if the check engine light is the trig-ger to the doom and gloom of his car.

At times, Charlie thinks thecheck engine light has stayed on alonger than it should when he starts itup in the morning. This prompts animmediate phone call and a trip to therepair shop. With all these trips he’sseen me use several different codereaders, scanners, O-scopes, and lap-tops that I have at my disposal tocheck codes and related engine sys-tems.

There’s times I think he justwants to see what new gadget I’ve gotthat I can hook up to his car. The morebells and whistles I throw out therethe more he seems to show up withanother reason for me to recheck hiscar. He can probably name a bunch ofthe scanners that I’ve used, seriously,he’s been to the shop that many times.

Sometimes I wish he would take

up antique car collecting; go buysomething old enough that it doesn’thave a check engine light in it and seeif he gets the idea that the entire uni-verse doesn’t revolve around a serv-ice light. It’s not like he doesn’tremember cars without check enginelights he just doesn’t seem to under-stand that a car can operate withoutone anymore. Why he’s even told meabout an old car he drove while hewas in college that leaked oil so badthat he had to keep a can or two withhim at all times. Talk about somethingthat sounds like it was on the verge ofdoom and gloom, also sounds like thetypical college kids car.

So you would think he wouldhave some understanding of the innerworkings of the automobile, but ap-parently once the service light cameinto the everyday vocabulary his un-derstanding has wasted away just likethe oil in that old car from college.

I’ve tried to explain to him aboutthe meaning of the service light andabout the various reasons for it tocome on but it just doesn’t seem tosink in. I’m hoping the day nevercomes that his old car actually doesturn on the check engine light, be-cause if it did he’d probably worryhimself all the way to a coronary andhe would have to have the car towedin while I’d have to make a call to 911and have him towed to the emergencyroom. Of course I hope that neverhappens, but with him I could seesomething along those lines.

I generally let him watch thescanners do their work or have himwatch a graph while I check thingsunder the hood. The other day he wasconcerned about his O2 sensors andwanted to know if they were workingcorrectly because he thought he sawthe check engine light pop on and

Check Engine Light Paranoiawith Gonzo Weaver

Gonzo’s Toolbox This is a new story by Scott “Gonzo” Weaver as posted on his website, www.gonzostoolbox.com.Gonzo has been serving the Tulsa area at Superior Auto Electric for over 27 years. See his book“Hey Look! I Found The Loose Nut”, which provides a Good Laugh for Mechanics of Any Age.The book is available at amazon.com. Contact Gonzo at [email protected].

See Check Engine, Page 24

This month’s distinctive dealer isSouth Motors Automotive Group inMiami, Florida. This dealer servicesHonda, BMW, VW, Suzuki, Mazda,Mini, and Infiniti. Parts managerMike Franceschi contacted me afterreading my article on “Apathy, theReal Opponent in the Wholesale Busi-ness.”

For a link to the article see thelast paragraph or just go to autobo-dynews.com and search ‘apathy’WhatI wrote in that article was:

“Now is the time to be positive.Shake off that dull, negative attitude.Aggressive solicitation of new cus-tomers will pay off for those dealersthat move now. Take some time andvisit your best customers. Congratu-late them for their tenacity and tellthem you will be with them for thegood times ahead. Partners who sur-vive hard times always find theirbonds stronger. Keep an eye out forcustomer opportunities that you mayhave overlooked. Be ready to servethe new customers that will be callingyou.“There is another major negative as-sumption to overcome. Several partsmanagers have told me of their loss ofinterest in the wholesale market. Themain reason for this is the lack ofprofit. It seems that there is constantpressure to reduce costs, starting at thecorporate level. I am talking about theinsurance companies that cover mostof today’s repair costs. In a never-end-ing search for investor earnings, qual-ity, care, workmanship, and pride areconsidered to be unnecessary. The

only thing that matters to these corpo-rations is their bottom line. They con-stantly push the repair shop to reducethe cost of the repairs. The shops can-not reduce their labor cost any lower;employees are already at the povertylevel. The only place to cut is the costof materials. The solution for someshops is the use of cheaper parts.These shops adopt the practices of thecorporations, and consider only thecost of materials. Save a dollar, nomatter what method you use.“We need to fight back! Quality inboth parts and service needs to beworth more than a 5% discount. Forexample, sheet metal has been a cen-ter of concern for several years. Cheapreplacement imported metal has foundcustomers, at the cost of quality. Nu-merous organizations have come outto support the use of original partsonly. We all agree on the value ofquality in this area. How about the restof the operation? How about qualityof service?“I have never advocated sacrificingservice and quality for cost. I believeif you pay less, you get less. There isa minimum everyone must pay forquality service. The competitionshould be for better service, notcheaper prices. I believe that servicingthe wholesale market is still a reward-ing job. Our final goal, happy cus-tomers, is a worthy goal and customersatisfaction brings us our own happi-ness.”

Mike shared the article with hiscountermen, and was pleased to beable to say to them: “I’m not the only

one who talks about this every day!”This comment, in my opinion, is thekey to understanding Mike’s successin these troubled times. He talks to hismen every day, encouraging them andkeeping their spirits high.

There are four full time whole-sale countermen, Ozzie, Rudy, Alex,and Danny. Professional, knowledge-able men, with more than a hundredyears of experience available to theircustomers! This team keeps five driv-ers constantly on the road. Belinda,Carlos, Jose, Luis and Noel makethree runs daily, and will go as far assixty miles to service their customers.An inventory of over half a milliondollars ensures “on hand” status offast moving parts. A daily orderingsystem means needed parts are almostalways available the next morning.

Body shops in this area have hada hard time the last few years, butsales at this dealership have heldsteady, and even increased slightly de-spite the recession. Collision Link isused by this dealer, of course. Thisprogram allows Mike to be competi-tive on pricing, ensuring repairs are al-ways made with quality, originalparts. Every dealer I have talked tomentions Collision Link as one oftheir most valuable tools in the whole-sale market.

Mike has been at South Motorsfor twenty years, fifteen of them asparts manager. He says his “secret tosuccess” is his focus on sales. His of-fice is near the front counter, and hetalks to his customers as often as pos-sible. He watches his daily sales, stay-

ing on top of his business with hisfriends. He calls one or two each day,checking to make sure he has filledtheir orders properly, and that they aresatisfied with his service.

Mike takes his job very person-ally, and talked to me about the valueof long term relationships, and thefeeling of “family”, not just cus-tomers. He spoke about trust, sincer-ity, and respect. He spoke of serviceover price, wanting happy customers,and close partnerships with valuedcustomers.

These philosophies, of service,and partnership are common to all thesuccessful managers I have talkedwith in the last year. They all considertheir customers as friends, and makeprice a minor condition to the businessof auto repair.

I believe that success is not de-termined by a building, a location, ad-vertising, or price. Success is a rewardto those people who want it, work forit, and are never stopped. MikeFranceschi is successful because hisdesire to be the best knows no bound-aries.

I recommend this distinctivedealer to any auto body shop in theMiami area that wants the best serv-ice available. You can do no betterthan the South Motors AutomotiveGroup.

You can read Larry’s apathy arti-cle online in its entirety at:http://www.autobodynews.com/colum-nists/williams-larry/item/5198-apathy-the-real-opponent-in-the-wholesale-parts-business.html.


Florida’s South Motors Automotive Group—Anything But Apathetic

Parts Profileswith Larry Williams

Larry Williams is an innovative parts manager with national awards and over 30 years of experience increating and managing profitable departments. He can be reached for consultation at [email protected] read all his columns go to http://www.autobodynews.com/columnists/williams-larry.html

then go right back off. There were nocodes stored and I asked him if it hap-pened when he first started it or afterdriving several miles. It was while hewas driving for a bit and not when itfirst started.

“What difference does thatmake?” he asked.

I then explained to him abouthow the heater circuit operated towarm up the sensor and what the sen-sor actually did in relation to the fuel

mixture. This only made him evenmore curious to what they did.

“Watch this Charlie. I’ll graph theO2 sensors here on this scope and I’llshow you the front sensor and its cor-responding rear sensor. You’ll see thevoltage changes on the screen as wellas the differences between the frontand rear sensors at the same time onthe screen,” I told him.

“Fascinating, simply fascinat-ing,” he said, “But I don’t see how thattranslates to fuel?”

The more I explained the more heseemed to be lost. He still seemed tobe more concerned about what was

going to happen with that check en-gine light.

I kept up with the explanationuntil I got to the point where he wasjust staring off into space and lost in-terest in me, the check engine lightand the little graph moving up anddown on the screen.

I don’t know if he ever under-stood a thing I said, or for that mat-ter has reconsidered the importanceof the check engine light. All I knowis that at some point in time some-body is going to tell him somethingstupid regarding the check enginelight and he’ll make another trip to

the shop and watch the fascinatinglittle lines bounce around on myscope screen.

No matter what I say, no matterwhat I do, old “Check Engine Char-lie” will still listen to some B.S. fromsomebody out there and then headover to my shop for another diagnos-tics that will amount to nothing.Maybe I need to come up with myown B.S. to counteract what everyoneelse keeps telling him.

I guess it comes down to the oldsaying: If ya can’t dazzle them withbrilliance, buffalo them with a littlebull.


Check Engine


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Forty automotive professionals wererecognized on November 16, 2011, atthe Fall board meeting of the NationalInstitute for Automotive Service Ex-cellence (ASE) held at the MarriottCity Center in Charlotte, NC.

The annual awards banquet spot-lights top scorers on the ASE Certifi-cation Tests. Thirty differentcompanies from both OEM and After-market segments sponsored the indi-vidual technician recognition awardsin the Auto, Truck, Collision and Partscategories, along with three instructorawards. In addition to looking for topscores on ASE tests, award sponsorsexamine on-the-job excellence, com-munity service and other factors whenselecting honorees.

This year’s celebration in Char-lotte was enhanced by a visit from fiveformer Team ASE drivers, who vol-unteered their time to sign autographsand meet the award winners in person.NASCAR drivers Kasey Kahne,Jason Leffler and Mike Bliss werejoined by Ted Musgrave and JimmySpencer to help make the reception amemorable affair. In addition, there

were two new award sponsors thisyear, one being the first ever from themilitary, representing the US AirForce.

“ASE has been honoring the bestof the best in our industry for morethan 30 years, and this year we recog-nized forty outstanding individualsfrom all across the nation,” said Tim

Zilke, ASE President & CEO. “Wecouldn’t do this without the support ofour many award sponsors, whoseranks include some of the best-known

names in the industry. Theircommitment to excellenceis reflected in the talentedindividuals we recognizeeach year.”

The National Insti-tute for Automotive ServiceExcellence was establishedin 1972 as a non-profit or-ganization to help improvethe quality of automotiveservice and repair throughthe voluntary testing andcertification of automotivetechnicians and parts spe-cialists. Today, there aremore than 360,000 ASE-certified professionals atwork in dealerships, inde-pendent shops, collision re-

pair shops, auto parts stores, fleets,schools and colleges throughout thecountry. For more information aboutASE, visit the Web site atwww.ase.com.

ASE 2011 Award WinnersASCCA/ASE Master AutomobileTechnician of the Year: PatrickNicoll, Pat’s Automotive, Santa Maria,Calif.AYES/ASE Instructor of the Year:David White, Parkside High School,Willards, Md.BodyShop Business/ASE Master Coll.Repair & Refinish Tech of the Year:Michael Baker, Pro-Tech Collision,Pacific, Mo.Bridgestone Retail Operations/ASEMaster Automobile Tech of the Year:Noel Barnhart, Firestone CompleteAuto Care, Delmar, Iowa.Chrysler/ASE Master AutomobileTechnician of the Year: Scott Rosen-crantz, Garber Chrysler Dodge JeepRam, Flushing, Mich.Chrysler/ASE Master Collision Re-pair & Refinish Technician of theYear: Mike Hunkler, Larry HillisChrysler Dodge Jeep Ram, PoplarBluff, Mo.Delco Remy/ASE M/H Truck Electri-cal/Electronic Sys Tech of the Year:Joseph DeLap, Ryder, Dakota, Ill.Delmar Cengage Learning/ASE Auto-

40 Technicians Honored at ASE 2011 Annual Meeting in Charlotte, NC

PHOTO CREDIT: ASE, ASE 2011 Technician AwardWinners: Top row: Steven Sass, Brad Dressen, KenPassmore, Adam Russell, Mike Hunkler, John Roderich. 4throw: Warren Butrim, Pat Nicoll, Kevin Treichel, AnthonyBausano, Scott Rosencrantz, Noel Barnhart, Andreas Miller.3rd row: Steven Ray, Collin Harris, John Gillies, Dan Walsh,Rob Bender, Neal Nuce, John Kasper. 2nd row: David White,Sandro Giordano, Alan Davis, Shawn Lehman, JesseBerryman, Rob McNees, Jack Harlan, Joseph DeLap, John,Wood, Glenn Ferrer. 1st row (seated): Joseph Londo, DanPratt, Joseph Young, Mike Baker, MSgt. Andrew Slater,Mike Byer, Leo Dufault, Andy Olson, Jeff Heinz, Mark Regan


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mobile Technician of the Year:William Davis, JD Byrider, N. Balti-more, Ohio.Freightliner/ASE Master M/H TruckTechnician of the Year: Robert Mc-Nees, Jr., Truck Centers, Inc., MiddleBrook, Mo.Sterling/Western Star/ASE MasterM/H Truck Technician of the Year:Kevin Treichel, Don’s Truck Sales,Greene, Iowa.Gates/ASE Master Automobile & L1Technician of the Year: AndreasMiller, Stonum Automotive, Long-mont, Colo.GM/ASE Master Automobile Techni-cian of the Year: Jeffrey Heinz, Hen-drick Auto Mall, Apex, N.C.Honda/ASE Master Automobile Tech-nician of the Year: Joseph Londo,Bianchi Honda, Erie, Penna.Acura/ASE Master Automobile Tech-nician of the Year: Sandro Giordano,Acura of Turnersville, Blackwood,N.J.Identifix/ASE Aftermarket DrivabilityTechnician of the Year: Andy Olson,Courtesy Car Care, Holmen, Wisc.Midas International/ASE AutomobileTechnician of the Year: John GilliesIII, Midas Auto Service Experts, Lud-

ington, Mich.Mitchell 1/ASE Technician of the Fu-ture: Steven Ray, The AutomasterBMW, Essex Junction, Vt.Motor Age Training/ASE Master Au-tomobile & L1 Tech of the Year:Joseph Young, San Diego MiramarCollege, San Diego, Calif.NATEF/ASE Instructor of the Year:Bradley Dressen, Butte College, Or-land, Calif.Navistar/ASE Master M/H TruckTechnician of the Year: ShawnLehman, Tri County Motor Sales,Stoystown, Penna.Navistar/ASE Master School BusTechnician of the Year: KennethPassmore, Midwest Transit Equip-ment, Indianapolis, Ind.Navistar/ASE Parts Specialist of theYear: Adam Russell, Sr., GoodmanTruck & Tractor, Amelia, Va.Navistar/ASE Truck Paint & RefinishTechnician of the Year:Collin Harris,Int'l Truck Sales of Richmond, Man-quin, Va.Nissan/ASE Master Automobile Tech-nician of the Year:Glenn Ferrer, Nis-san of St. Augustine, Palm Coast, Fla.Infiniti/ASE Master Automobile Tech-nician of the Year: John Roderich,

Fields Infiniti of Glencoe, Phillips,Wisc.Pep Boys/ASE Master AutomobileTechnician of the Year:Mark Regan,Pep Boys, Walpole, Mass.Peterbilt/ASE Master M/H TruckTechnician of the Year: John Wood,Interstate Truck Center, Oakdale,Calif.PPG/ASE Master Refinish Technicianof the Year: Robert Bender, BenderAuto Repair, Saltsburg, Penna.Snap-on/ASE Master AutomobileTechnician of the Year: Jack HarlanIII, Harlan’s Auto Care, Canfield,OhioSnap-on/ASE Master Coll. Repair &Refinish Technician of the Year: NealNuce, Precision Collision Repair Cen-ter, Wake Forest, NCSnap-on/ASE Master M/H TruckTechnician of the Year: Steven Sass,Sr., A.N.D. Service, Inc., Carlstadt, NJStandox/ASE Refinish Technician ofthe Year: Daniel Walsh, Boch Colli-sion Center, West Bridgewater, Mass.Subaru/ASEMaster Automobile Tech-nician of the Year: Daniel Pratt,Flatirons Subaru, Firestone, Colo.TECH-NET Professional/ASE MasterAutomobile Tech of the Year:Michael

Byer, Mike Byer Auto & Truck Re-pair, Asheville, NC.Toyota/ASE Master Automobile Tech-nician of the Year: Warren Butrim,Koons Toyota of Annapolis, Arnold,Md.Toyota/ASE Master Coll. Repair &Refinish Technician of the Year:Leonel Dufault, Toyota of NorthDartmouth, Westport, Mass.Lexus/ASEMaster Automobile Techni-cian of the Year: Anthony Bausano,Lexus of Smithtown, Huntington, N.Y.USAF/ASE Technician of the Year:Msgt. Andrew Slater, Ramstein AirBase, Germany, US Air Force.Valvoline Career Tech/ASE Instructorof the Year: John Kasper, MillingtonHigh School, Memphis, Tenn.Volvo/ASE Master Automobile Tech-nician of the Year: Jesse BerrymanIII,Koons Volvo, Westminster, Md.

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The Collision Industry ElectronicCommerce Association (CIECA)Board of Trustees has elected the fol-lowing officers for the year 2012:● Chair – Denise Caspersen, Auto-motive Service Association● Vice Chair – Troy Weaver,DuPont Performance Coatings● Treasurer – Paul Barry, Perform-ance Claims● Secretary – Kathy Goddard, Safe-lite Corporation

Each of these officers will serveon the Executive Committee, whichoversees CIECA business matters be-tween board meetings and maintainsthe Board’s agenda. Michael Lloyd,California Casualty ManagementCompany, will assume the title ofPast Chair on the CIECA ExecutiveCommittee.

More information about CIECAcan be viewed on the CIECA website: www.cieca.com.

CIECAAnnounces New Boardof Trustees for 2012The National Institute for Automotive

Service Excellence (ASE) announced inDecember the officers for its Board ofDirectors for 2012. Mike Phillips, V.P,Organizational Development, NAPAAuto Parts/Genuine Parts Company,At-lanta, Ga., is Chairman; Rob Barto,Manager, Technical Training Design,Nissan NorthAmerica, Franklin, Tenn.,is Vice-Chairman; Glenn Dahl, SeniorCoordinator, Technical Education,Bridgestone Retail Operations, LLC,Bloomingdale, Ill., is Treasurer, andGreg Gaulin, Owner, Gaulin’s ofWilliamsville, N.Y., is Secretary. JohnPfennig, Manager, Service Educationfor Navistar, Inc. in Warrenville, Ill.,serves as Past Chairman.

“2011 was a milestone year forthe ASE certification program as wecompleted the move to our new com-puter-based testing (CBT) format,”said Tim Zilke, ASE President. “Theleadership and guidance of the ASEboard is vital to ensuring the ASE pro-gram keeps pace with our changingindustry. Through the outstandingcommitment of ASE’s all-volunteerboard and the support by the compa-

nies that encourage such talented peo-ple to serve, ASE will continue tooffer our automotive professionals thehigh-quality credentialing programthey have come to expect.”

Also announced were newlyelected members to ASE’s Board ofGovernors, representing various seg-ments of the industry. The new Gover-nors are: Bobby Bassett, Manager ofTraining North America AutomotiveMarket, Gates Corporation, Ridgeland,Miss., and John Prosser, ManagerTechnical Training Operations, Amer-ican Honda, Torrance, Calif.

“I’d also like to take this oppor-tunity to thank our outgoing boardmembers for their service over theyears,” Zilke continued. Steppingdown as their terms expire are AlDuebber, President, Duebber’s Auto-motive Service, Inc., Cincinnati,Ohio; Joe Torchiana, President, OneStop Tire and Auto Service, Inc., WestChester, Pa., and Lori Blaker, Presi-dent, Technical Training Incorporated(TTi), Rochester, Mich.

“Each of these individuals vol-unteered their time to serve on the

ASE board to the benefit of our in-dustry and the thousands of automo-tive service professionals whoproudly wear the ASE Blue Seal.We thank them for their service andwish them continued success,” saidZilke.

The National Institute for Auto-motive Service Excellence was estab-lished in 1972 as a non-profitorganization to help improve the qual-ity of automotive service and repairthrough the voluntary testing and cer-tification of automotive techniciansand parts specialists. Today, there aremore than 360,000 ASE-certified pro-fessionals at work in dealerships, in-dependent shops, collision repairshops, auto parts stores, fleets, schoolsand colleges throughout the country.

For more information about ASE,visit theASE web site at www.ase.com.

ASE Announces New Officers, Governors for 2012

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Due to continually increasing autosales since the government autobailouts in 2009 have spurred growthand optimism with US automakers.According to the Los Angeles Times,the U.S. auto industry plans to addthousands of jobs this year. Foreignautomakers are also suspected to buildmore U.S. factories due to unstableeconomies overseas.

“The yen, the euro, all the cur-rencies that affect the manufacturers’balance sheets, except for the dollar,are in flux. So the only way to hedgeis to build where you sell,” RebeccaLindland, an analyst with IHS Auto-motive, said to the Los Angeles Times.

Mercedes-Benz announced thecompany would add about 1,500 jobsat plants in the Carolinas this year inearly January. Ford Motor Co. andChrysler Group also announced plansto add hundreds of workers to theirMichigan, Kentucky and Illinois plants.

Audi executives have also talkedabout building a factory in the U.S.,possibly at the Volkswagen complexin Chattanooga, Tenn. Audi is also ru-

mored to be mulling sites for its ownNorth American manufacturing plantbeyond parent Volkswagen’s factoryin Chattanooga, Tennessee, Audi CEORupert Stadler told a German news-paper.

Audi plans to grow substantiallyin North America and building its ownproduction facility is part of that strat-egy, Stadler told the paper. “It is not aquestion of if, but only of when,” hesaid.

Nissan is in the process of addingabout 1,000 workers in Tennessee as itgears up for production of the Leafelectric vehicle and its batteries, as wellas new Pathfinder and Infiniti SUVs.

Automakers sold an estimated12.8 million vehicles in 2011, a 10.3percent increase from 2010 and thehighest numbers since 2008. Au-tomakers expect sales to reach about13.8 million in 2012.

As recently as a decade ago, theindustry employed about 1 millionworkers. It then fell into a steady de-cline that included layoffs of 200,000


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In keeping true to their motto, “Dri-ving the Future for Women in Colli-sion Repair,” the WIN NominatingCommittee is now accepting applica-tions for seats on the WIN Board.

The Board consists of various in-dustry segments including but notlimited to: shop owners, jobbers, sup-pliers, consultants, paint companiesand insurance companies. Aside fromthe WIN annual Conference in Mayvolunteer WIN Board members worktogether to foster an environment thatencourages the education, recruit-ment, retention and networking ofwomen in the collision repair indus-try.

“Within a short time, theWomen’s Industry Network hasgrown in size, produced informativeand motivational events, and becomea recognized industry associationthrough volunteer efforts, industrysponsorships and the enthusiasm ofthe WIN membership. WIN is all vol-unteer. Volunteering for the WINBoard is an outstanding opportunityto have a present and future influenceon our industry. If you are motivatedto “drive the future for women in col-lision repair, apply for the WINBoard.” said Denise Caspersen, ofASA, chair of the WIN Nominating

Committee.The deadline for applications is

February 24, 2012. For application re-quirements and further details goto womensindustrynetwork.com.Completed applications should bemailed or PDF copy emailed to WINNominating Committee; c/o ASA –Denise Caspersen; 8190 Precinct Line,Suite 100, Colleyville, Texas 76034.For further information please contactDenise Caspersen, phone: (817) 514-2906; email: [email protected]

To find out how you can be-come involved and support WIN orfor information on becoming amember or sponsor of WIN, pleasecontact Victoria Jankowski [email protected] or Jeanne Silver [email protected].

WIN is also offering scholar-ships to female collision industrystudents, instructors and shop em-ployees to attend its 2012 confer-ence May 6-8 in Atlanta.

Scholarship applications mustbe submitted through mail byMarch 9. Visit womensindus-trynetwork.com for additional de-tails on scholarship requirementsand the application mailingprocess.

Women’s Industry Network Accepting 2012 Board ApplicationsAutomakers Forecasted to Add Thousands ofPlant Manufacturing Jobs Over the Next 3 Years

See Automaker Hiring, Page 32

by Ed Attanasio

Would you step up and be a hero ifyou were in an emergency situationwith little time to think? Many of ushave asked ourselves this same ques-tion, but few ever get the opportunityto find out.

James Bray, a parts manager atFix Auto Portland East in Oregon was

tested in a big waywhen he wascalled upon to pulla man out of aburning car andsave his life.If Bray ever hadany doubts abouthis courage or hisability to act hero-ically, they wereall answered at 2a.m. on December3. In a highly stress-ful situation requir-ing quick thinkingand quicker action,Bray was able tothink fast and take

lifesaving action. That early morning aBMW hit a utility pole right in front ofBray’s house in Vancouver, Washington.Normally, Bray would have been asleep,but luckily for the driver, he was stillawake, playing computer games.

Sounds in the night are mostlyweather or animal-related in Vancou-ver, but this one caught Bray’s atten-tion immediately. “It was a very deeppop sound and I had no idea what itmight be. So, I went to the window inthe living room and that’s when I sawthe car wrapped around the light pole.”

With an orange glow comingfrom under the hood, Bray instantlyknew it was more than just a fenderbender.

“So many things went throughmy mind. Is someone in there and willthe car explode? So, I said to my wifecall 911. I got dressed as fast as I couldand ran out to the vehicle.”

Bray assessed the scene quicklyand it didn’t look promising at the out-set. He explained, “one guy got outthrough the back seat, and another guyjumped out through the front passen-ger-side door. The BMW’s windows

were tinted and the car was quicklyfilling up with smoke. I asked the twoguys if anyone was still left in the car,

but they weren’t making any sense.They were basically incoherent.”

Rather than wait for a responsethat wasn’t forthcoming, Bray acted.“I hit the driver’s window with a flash-light that I always carry with me, but itwouldn’t break. So, I smacked it again

and this time it shattered. I could seethere was a driver stuck in there andhe was yelling, because his legs were

on fire. I told my wife Mindy to bringthe fire extinguisher.”

Bray could see that the door was un-locked, but it wouldn’t open. “I tried toopen it a few times, but it was jammed, soI asked the two other guys to help me, butwe still couldn’t get it open.”


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Oregon Shop’s Parts Manager Performs Heroic Deed to Save a Life

It’s a family affair at Fix Auto Portland East in Oregon, including (from left) Parts Manager JamesBray; Operations Manager William Bray; Retired former Owner Jim Eber; Owner Camille Eber(James’s aunt) and Office Manager Iala BrayJames Bray is the

parts manager at FixAuto East in Port-land, Oregon. Bymoving quickly andbeing prepared, hesaved a man from aburning BMW thatcrashed into a utilitypole

Bray handed his folding knife toone of the passengers and told him tocut the driver’s seat belt while he triedto put out the flames in the car withthe fire extinguisher. But every timethe flames subsided, they instantly re-turned.

“I figured it must be the fuel line,because the flames wouldn’t stop,”Bray said. “At that point, I realized wehad to get this guy out of the car rightnow or he would burn up. So we cutthe seat belt, but he still couldn’t gethim out. He was stuck in there.”

Bray’s quick thinking and com-mon sense kicked in at that point. “Wecut the shoulder belt, not thinkingabout the lap belt and that’s what washolding him in. I gave my knife to oneof the two passengers earlier, but helost it. But I always carry a Leather-man multi-tool on my key chain andit has a knife. I just reached in thereand cut the strap pretty easily.”

After several attempts, the threemen pulled the driver from the carthrough the window, burned but stillalive, Bray said.

“His shoes were melted to whereI couldn’t recognize them and his pantswere on fire. Within seconds, there was

an explosion in the vehicle and prettysoon it was completely engulfed inflames. The whole thing took aroundthree minutes, that’s all it was.”

The next day, the Vancouver Po-lice reported that the driver was BrianJ. Hall, 22. He was transported to theLegacy Health System’s burn unit inPortland with third degree burns andin serious condition. He and hisfriends were returning from a Univer-sity Oregon football game thatevening when the accident occurred.Whether alcohol or drugs were in-volved is still under investigation, ac-cording to the Vancouver Police.

Bray’s Aunt Camille Eber is hisboss at Fix Auto East Portland andshe’s extremely proud of what hernephew did on December 3.

“He did an amazing thing,” shesaid. “I am very proud of James for hisselfless and level-headed reaction. Healways carries a keychain LeathermanTool, a pocket knife and a flashlight.He had all of them that morning andthat is why the driver is now alive. Wenever expect to be in a situation likethat, but James did not hesitate andwas prepared. He will always be ahero in my eyes.”


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On January 12, BMW announced thatthe company will invest nearly $900Million and add 300 new jobs in 2012in its South Carolina plant. This an-nouncement was made during a cere-mony to commemorate a majorproduction milestone—2,000,000 ve-hicles have rolled off the assemblyline since the company began U.S.production in 1994.

Frank-Peter Arndt, BMWGroup Board Member responsible forProduction, revealed the company’sintention to expand its X-model fam-ily. He revealed that production of thenew BMW X4 will occur at the Spar-tanburg plant, spurring significant in-vestment and job creation necessaryto prepare the facility for the newmodel.

“I am delighted to announcetoday, over the next three years, weplan to invest nearly $900 MillionU.S. dollars. With this investment, wewill be able to produce 350,000 unitshere in the mid-term,” said Arndt.“This is one reaction to the rising

global demand for our BMW X Mod-els.”

Governor Nikki Haley spoke atthe ceremony saying, “BMW hasonce again provided tremendous evi-dence that South Carolina is a blue-print for significant economicdevelopment success. The partnershipbetween this company and our Stateis an enduring example of how to at-tract, retain and grow business tostimulate perpetual job creation.”

“I am thrilled to celebrate thetwo millionth BMW today,” saidBobby Hitt, Secretary of Commercefor South Carolina. “BMW’s impacton South Carolina’s economy andoverall competitiveness is alwaysworth celebrating. This new eco-nomic investment and commitment ofjobs is a testament to South Carolina’sstrong automotive manufacturing in-dustry.”

With the addition of 300 newjobs this year the plant will raise pro-duction capacities up to 300,000

BMWAnnounces Nearly $900 Million Investment,Adding 300 Jobs at its South Carolina Plant

See BMW SC, Page 38


a consultant to domore of a type offocus group: Hour-long conversationalinterviews withmore than 40 indus-try representativesto develop somesense of the indus-

try’s opinions regarding repair stan-dards.

Though a more in-depth reporton the study’s findings is expectedto be released in the comingmonths, the committee released a21-page summary (posted online athttp://tinyurl.com/7tysey4) of someof the more quantitative findings,the responses to the questions ask-ing participants for yes-or-no orranking responses.

In 42 interviews with shops, in-surers, associations, automakers andsuppliers, the consultant found that all18 shop representatives interviewedsaid they would support the standardseffort; generally less than 65 percentof those in the other segments (whichincluded six shop associations or net-works) concurred.

While not quoting intervieweesdirectly, the report offers a sense ofsome of the comments made. Shopassociation representatives, for exam-ple, questioned what such a programis going to do for shops, and said in-surers should not be in a position toinfluence how vehicles are repaired.Two of the six insurers interviewedalso said that insurers shouldn’t be in-volved and that shops should drivethe effort.

The last question in the draft re-port issued by the committee askedsurvey participants what they see asthe likelihood that the repair standardsinitiative would be implementedwithin the next five years. Thrall saidusing a scale of 1 (no chance) to 4(definitely), most respondents weresomewhere in the middle.

“It’s leans toward ‘likely’ (a 3 onthe survey’s scale), but it’s more ‘per-

haps (a 2 on the scale),’” Thrall said.“So people definitely aren’t sure itwill be possible to implement thiswithin the next five years.”

CIC Participants Speak OutThough the discussion that followedthe committee’s report at CIC, held inJanuary in Palm Springs, Calif., in-cluded some discussion of the issueof standards, much of it focused oncriticism or defense of the researchstudy itself.

Some of the CIC participantswho spoke included:● Aaron Schulenburg, executive di-rector of the Society of Collision Re-pair Specialists (SCRS), who said hefelt the survey questions seemed lessfocused on “determining the appetiteof the industry” for a formalized stan-dard program and more on “carvingout the menu.” He said the consultant,in addition to the 42 interviews, par-ticipated in a conference call withmore than a dozen of SCRS state af-filiate groups. “I think it was veryclear from our folks on that call that(standards) are something that is valu-able to be done by collision repairersfor collision repairers, but that therewas skepticism of having involve-ment among entities such as insur-ance carriers involving theestablishment of repair standards.”● Paul Massey of Ford Motor Com-pany said that although OEM repairprocedures are the logical basis for re-

pair standards, it’sreally up to shops,insurers and con-sumers to decideif there’s value indeveloping a for-malized standardsprogram. Thestudy, he said, did-

n’t answer the questions he thinks theindustry needs to ask itself. “At theend of the day, if you put in standardswould a lot more customers chooseyou over the next guy,” Massey said.“If you put in standards, do you run abetter, more competitive and prof-itable business? And if you put instandards will the insurance compa-nies use you versus the other guy?”

● Steve Nantau of Ford said hethinks many shops misunderstand“repair standards” as just dealingwith the process of the actual repair,when he and the committee envisiona more inclusive program that in-cludes standards for training andequipment, and a third-party certifi-cation or auditing entity like one inthe United Kingdom. “If you don’thave a third-party doing this, I canguarantee you that the OEMs aregoing to have certification programsfor independent shops,” Nantau said.“We’re seeing that already. And it’snot going to be open to just anyonewho’s qualifies. They’re going to bechosen. If you qualify and youweren’t a chosen one, you’re notgoing to be able put a (certified) signabove your door like you could if theindustry create a third-party that cer-tifies all who qualify.”● Consultant Matt Ohrnstein ofSymphony Advisors urged proponents

of standards de-velopment not to“allow intermedi-aries to profit bytaxing collision re-pair shops aroundthe country fortraining, certifica-tion, OE-specific

equipment and third-party verifica-tion.”● Committee member and currentCIC chairman Mike Quinn empha-sized that the committee sees thestudy as information-gathering, not alicense to push something forward.

“This conversa-tion is the begin-ning of manyconversations,” hesaid. “There’s noplans of any kindto move this for-ward any furtherfrom this study.

It’s up to the industry to decide whathappens next.”

I-CAR promises responseAlso at the CIC meeting in PalmSprings, I-CAR CEO John Van Al-styne said his organization hopes to

respond by April to a joint requestfrom multiple repairer associationsthat I-CAR play a role in standardsformation.

Last fall, a number of industryassociations issued a statement call-

ing published au-tomaker repairprocedures the“official industry-recognized repairstandards for col-lision repair.” Inthe statement, thegroups acknowl-

edged that OEM repair procedures are“incomplete in comparison to the fullscope of vehicles and repair opera-tions that exist in the marketplace,”but they should serve as a baselinefrom which further development ofprocedures occur.

The associations called on I-CARto create an industry council “to iden-tify gaps in existing OEM procedures”and to develop processes to closethose gaps, vetting any industry-pro-posed alternatives, modifications oradditions to OEM procedures.

At CIC in Palm Springs, VanAlstyne reiterated what he said lastfall, that he sees merit in the pro-posal given I-CAR’s current in-volvement with the automakers. Buthe also has said I-CAR’s board mustdecide what role it’s appropriate forthe organization to play, and that hehas personally been in touch with I-CAR stakeholders to gather feed-back.

He said the I-CAR board’s“strategic planning committee” willreview that compiled feedback andmake a recommendation to theboard—with a decision, he said,likely by CIC’s April 25-26 meetingin Oklahoma City, Okla.

John Yoswick, a freelance writerbased in Portland, Oregon, who hasbeen writing about the automotive in-dustry since 1988, is also the editorof the weekly CRASH Network (for afree 4-week trial subscription, visitwww.CrashNetwork.com). He can becontacted by email at:[email protected].


CIC Palm Springs

Russ Thrall

Paul Massey

Matt Ohrnstein

John Van Alstyne

Mike Quinn

workers during the 2008 and 2009 re-cession. At the industry’s lowest it

emplyed about 550,000 manufactur-ing workers.

Hiring has started to climb backslowly in the past two years, and nowthe research center forecasts employ-ment will top 750,000 by 2015.


Automaker Hiring

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Give us your opinion on matters affecting the industry.

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by Ed Attanasio

It all began 20 years ago as a knee-jerkreaction to a bad experience with aparking meter maid, but today it hasbeen lauded as a successful social ex-periment while evolving into a highlyeffective viral marketing endeavor.They’re called the G & C Meter Beat-ers, a creation of Gene Crozat, theowner of G & C Auto Body, with

seven locations in the Northern Cali-fornia Bay Area, and an eighth open-ing in June.

During the 10 days right beforeChristmas, the G & C Meter Beaterssave drivers from getting parking penal-ties by replenishing their meters beforethe City of Santa Rosa’s parking en-forcement officers are able to nail themwith a $33 parking ticket. It’s a programthat Crozat began when he was upset

over what he felt was anunfair parking ticket is-sued two decades ago.

“I was rushing backto my car after shoppingand the meter maid wassitting there waiting forthe meter to expire,”Crozat said. “She saw mecoming, but she gave methe ticket anyway. I wasreally mad, so I went tothe bank and got a bunchof quarters. I told mykids—get out there andput money in all thesemeters before they ex-pire. That’ll show ‘em.”

But brilliant ideas don’t alwaystake traction overnight and the MeterBeaters were a prime example. To saythat the powers-that-be in Santa Rosaweren’t enamored with Crozat’s ideawas a major understatement. “Theythreatened my kids and told them

‘your daddy is going to jail,’” Crozatexplained. “They didn’t like the factthat we were helping people from get-ting parking tickets and said we wereinterfering with their operation. The

media flocked to the story and prettysoon the city backed off.”

Over the years, Crozat and hisMeter Beaters have touched many livespositively, he said. “Once people getour flyers on their windshields tellingthem they’ve just saved them from aparking ticket, they’re so thrilled theysend us money, which we donate tocharity. I have some incredible lettershere from people, including one gen-tleman who thought he was getting aticket when he returned to his car afterbeing at the hospital. His doctor hadjust informed him that he was dying, sowhen he saw the ticket it really hit himhard. But, then when he realized therewas no ticket, it made his day. Herewas a guy with tragic news, probablystill in shock, but avoiding that parkingticket was a big deal for him.”

When people return to their vehi-cles and see something on their wind-shield resembling a parking ticketthey’re obviously upset, but insteadthey get this little holiday greetingfrom the Meter Beaters of G & C AutoBody:


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Hitting the Streets with the G & C Auto Body Meter Beaters

The Meter Beaters (from left) include Brendan Harris, MB ChiefJohnny Reguera, Monique Grayson, her son Jerome Graysonand Dawn Marie Vance, as they hit the streets of Santa Rosa,Calif. every holiday season for 10 days to pay for people’s park-ing and avoid parking tickets

Steve P. from San Francisco happily displayshis parking voucher, purchased on his behalfby the Meter Beaters, sponsored by G & CAuto Body in Santa Rosa

See Meter Beaters, Page 37


Alan Taylor from Motor Trend Radiocalled me last fall to say he had part-nered up with eBay Motors to ‘per-sonalize’ a 2012 5.0L Mustangdonated by Galpin Ford, and auctionit during SEMA 2011. He wanted toput a team together to take the carfrom “stock to extreme,” but stillstreet legal. I was in.

They also wanted to do a video-for-the-web program about personal-izing the car from start to finish. Theprogram is called modJOBS, and youcan go to eBay Motors and watch our6–8 minute episodes at cc.ebay.com/mod-jobs. It’s narrated by Alan andDennis Pittsenbarger from Hot RodMagazine Live. (I come in on episode#3, Sweet and Low.) So modJOBSmakes it fun, everybody gets to teamup and you get to follow along bywatching the episodes of how to builda vehicle and how to add accessoriesand what’s available out there forthese new vehicles.

Alan said the car would be auc-tioned on Ebay and the proceedswould go to a charity called PatriotOutreach (www.patriotoutreach.org)to contribute to treating PTSD. The ul-timate team would include Vick Edel-brock, Jr. (supercharged engine);Revo Reeves (interior), Ryan ‘Ryno’Templeton (paint), and me (modifieddesign and fabrication).

I love building cars and washappy to put time and effort to benefitthe people that have served our coun-try and are the real heroes. They goover and risk or sacrifice their lives tomake better lives for us. Here was achance to give something back.

So we started off with Galpin’s2012 5.0L Mustang with the goal ofputting some more personality behind

it to represent the men and womenthat serve our country and providesome benefits when they get backfrom serving.

Basically we’re going to take thiscar and partner with a lot of peoplefrom the performance, the wheels, thebraking, paint, parts, concept, and ex-haust. So 2012 Mustang, basicallybringing it over to get the performancehandled by Edelbrock so what a bet-ter way to get the performance done.So they put a supercharger in thisthing, which gives you another 100-150 horsepower to bring it up to 550-hp at the flywheel. I don’t want to giveyou all the inside scoop on it becauseI really want you guys to watch ourmodJOBS episodes and follow usalong the build that way.

I reached out to a team of guys tohelp me so I didn’t have to carry thewhole weight of this build. We gotRyno Templeton from Blast of Air, alot of you guys will know him frommy Allstar team on Car Warriors. Ialso reached out to Revo Reeves whoowns Stitch Craft Interiors. Revo didthe interior and the audio and Rynodid the airbrush art on the headlinerand the paint. We did a logo for PatriotOutreach on the fiberglass headlinerthat I made. We don’t really want toget real loud with this car but we wantto make it kind of subtle and cool.Everybody knows me, I’m always realloud, so I’ve got to tune it down andback a little bit, which you’ll see bywatching the modJOBS videos.

With the interior we’re just goingto do it real subtle but real cool. So

with my design concept I came upwith, I want to make the car look likeit’s going 100mph and then I want torepresent Patriot Outreach and designa really cool rim. I came up with a rimand for you guys to see it you’re goingto have to go visit modJOBS and see

the episode. I basically took a wheelwith the Chevron stripes incorporatedin it and it’s also got Army, Air Force,Coast Guard, Marine and Navy repre-sentation on it to represent what theseguys do in a nutshell. What a betterway to give back and show our thanksthan to really put some heart to it and

that’s what I did in that wheel design.I’ve got Brian with Onward Coatingcutting my wheels and I want to thank

Doing a Charity Build for Patriot Outreach on a Donated Mustang

Custom Cornerwith Rich Evans

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

The 2012 Ford Mustang, seen here at SEMA 2011, was built by the modJOBS team to benefitPatriot Outreach. The car was auctioned off on eBay Motors and yielded $50,100, all of whichwill go to Patriot Outreach to support treatment for PTSD

With Dennis Pittsenbarger (l) checking out thecaliper covers by MGP Caliper Covers

Ryno Templeton airbrushed the tribute to thearmed forces on the headliner

him for being able to get these wheelsout on time. It came down to a pinchwhere we had to put these wheels on aplane and get them out here in time tomake it for the big unveiling at 2011SEMA. I wanted to incorporate itsown stand alone grille, so I created agrille kit for it, and also a scoop. Andfrom there we’re incorporating a rac-ing stripe down the side, a graphic,and then Ryno’s going to do his thingwith some stars and stripes. Theprocess is really cool. It’s about peo-

ple getting together.We called on HurstShifters. My buddyNate over there sentover a shifter for theproject and alsoreached out toMagna Flow. Theyalso sent out someproduct for Bolt onand we were actu-ally able to take itover to them andhave them install it.There were a wholelot of other spon-sors that came to-gether on this, I’d

really like you guys to tune into mod-JOBS, that’s the whole purpose be-hind this story. I can tell the story butbeing able to circle back and watch it,just go to Ebay Motors and click mod-JOBS and follow along. Another coolthing was that we got to interact witheBay customers and let them choose.I created three concepts with the helpof Ryno and let them choose whichconcept and paint job to go with. If wedo more of these we will probably in-corporate wheels, body kits, and stuff

like that and make it a build your owncar. It makes it unique when you’re in-teracting with the viewers and the cus-tomers in finding what they want.After creating all this and building thiscar, the journey was cool. Benchmark

Productions are the people that pro-duced everything. We did most of thebuild here at Huntington Beach BodyWorks, where we have Rich EvansDesigns, my shop.MGPCaliper Cov-ers provided some Rich Evans OneOff Caliper Covers. To see them go tompgcalipercovers.com and get yourown covers that you can install within20 minutes max. That’s an easy wayto personalize your car. It’s very inex-pensive and it looks really cool.

I need to thank my sponsors for

everything they do: BF Goodrich al-ways comes to play with a set of tires.G Force is what we used on this build.They have a new tire coming out aswell so look for that it’s going to bereally cool. I don’t want to spill thebeans before I’m able to but BFG isreally working hard and keeping yousafe on the road. The guys that partic-ipated in this, Gil did a lot of work onthe finishing part of it, the buffing andthen we had to come in where we gotsome white compound on the plasticso I can’t forget to mention SolutionFinish. All you body shop guys out

there having problems catching thatwhite spit off when you’re buffing thecars and it’s getting in the black andyou’re using laquer thinner to clean itout and it turns it white. SolutionFin-ish.com, check it out. It will resolveyour oxidation problem. Wipe it on,wipe it off, you’re good to go. No mis-


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Setting up for the videoThe set of modJOBS’ production in my shop, Huntingdon BeachBody Works

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tempt at the position, after losing inthe general election in 1992, 1996 and2000 to Democratic incumbent JimLong.

Causey, a Greensboro native, willrun under the Republican ticket. Hecurrently serves as commissioner onthe North Carolina Public Officers andEmployees Liability Insurance Com-mission and is a member of the Guil-ford County Agricultural AdvisoryBoard. Current Democratic Commis-sioner Wayne Goodwin is also seek-ing re-election.

In an interview in the BeaufortObserver, the interviewer expressed a“high level of frustration of residentsof Beaufort County with the insurancebusiness in our county. Many resi-dents in Beaufort County experiencedsevere problems with insurance com-panies following Hurricane Irene andeven more have experienced difficultyin obtaining satisfactory coverage at areasonable price. We asked him whathe proposed to do about those prob-lems if elected.”

“One of the main reasons I’mrunning is that I want to help peoplewho are having problems with insur-ance companies,” said Causey. “Thatwould be one of my top priorities inbuilding a “customer-oriented” Insur-ance Department. As for the problemof difficulty in getting reasonable cov-erage, particularly comprehensivehomeowners’ and mobile homeown-ers’ policies, I would work with theLegislature to address that problem.One of the specific things I wouldwant to look at is the idea of makingevery policy equally available acrossthe state. That would broaden the riskpool and I think that is something weneed to take a hard look at.” Headded: “we need a more competitiveinsurance industry in North Carolinaand that is another thing I would wantto work on.”

Mike Causey is not to be confusedwith another Mike Causey, who is asenior correspondent for Federal NewsRadio. He covers federal employee payand benefits issues and writes a dailycolumn about these topics.

You can read our Mike Causey’scolumns at autobodynews.com/colum-nists/causey-mike.html.

takes had and you don’t have to buyparts and this and that.

You can go to my website, hunt-ingtonbeachbodywork.com and/orrichevansdesigns.com, or go to EbayMotors, huge site for used and newparts and the sale of cars. So check outmy new parts, check out the new car,

check out my new wheels. You don’thave to do a lot to change and person-alize a car, and that’s proven by whatwe’ve got going on here with thisproject.

The biggest thing is I want every-one to check out is PatriotOutreach.organd if there’s anything you can do tobring awareness to that organization, doit. For every set of wheels I did for thisproject that are sold, a portion is goingto that charity. I like to tie myself to

projects where we’re not just thinkingof ourselves. That’s what makes proj-ects like this fun and it makes gettingup in the morning feel great.

I’ve got some really cool stuffcoming up for you guys next month.2012 is going to be a good year andI’ve got a lot of good things going on.I’m fortunate enough to have projectsthat I can pick from and when you canbring the cool into building projects itmakes life that much better, especiallywhen you love what you do. I eat,breathe, live, sleep, what I do and Iwas fortunate enough to find it youngand here I am. Hopefully you guyscan keep it all positive and keep con-sistent and always try to better your-self at what you do. Peace out!


GeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGeGenununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununuininininininininininininininininininininininininininininininininininininininininininininine e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e MiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMitstststststststststststststststststststststststststststststststststststststststsububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububisisisisisisisisisisisisisisisisisisisisisisisishihihihihihihihihihihihihihihihihihihihihihihi r r r r r r r r r r r r r r repepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepeplalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalacececececececececececececececececececececececececece----mememememememememememementntntntntntntntntntntntntntntntntnt C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C Crararararararararararararashshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshsh P P P P P P P P P P P P P P Pararararararararararararararartstststststststststststs a a a a a a a a a a a a a arerererererererererererererere c c c c c c c c c c c c clololololololololololosesesese a a a a at t t t hahahahandndnd t t thrhrhrouououghgh t thehehehe f f f folololollolololowiwiwiwiwingngngngng ququququququququalalalalititity y y dedededealalalerererershshshipipipipips.s.s.s. T T Thehehehey y y y y y o!o!o!o!o!o!erererererer exexexexexexexexexexexexexexexcececececececececececececeptptptptptptptptptptptptptioioioionanananal l l l cucucucucustststststststomomomomomererer s sererererervivivivivicecececece, , , , wiwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwidedededededededededededededededededededededede s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s selelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelececececececececececececececececececectitititititititititititititiononononononononononon o of f ininin-s-s-s-stotototototockckckckckckckck papapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapartrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrts s s s s s s s ananananananananand d d d d d d d d d d ththththththththththththththththththththththththththththththththththththththe e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e exexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexexpepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepepeperiririririririririririririririririririririririririririenenenenenenenenenenenenenenenencecececececececececececececece nececececececececececececececececececececessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssarararararararararararararararararararararararararararararary y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y tototototototototototototototototototototo e e e e e e e e e e e e e e ensnsnsnsnsnsnsnsnsnsnsurururururururururururure e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e yoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyourururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururur

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While you shoppedThe Meter Maid stoppedTo give you a Christmas Treat The price of this giftCould cause you a fitAs well as a present so neatThe G & C ElvesThought your rage could be shelvedIf the system could just be beatSo we put in a dimeTo add to your timeAnd keep that maid in her jeep.Your expired meter was paid for by:G & C Auto Body “Meter Beaters”Happy Holidays

To see the Meter Beaters in action forourselves, we walked around downtownSanta Rosa with them one sunny, warmDecember afternoon. The crew con-sisted of eight high school students earn-ing extra money during the holidays.

By skillfully feeding electronicparking machines and distributing thevouchers on cars whose time wasabout to expire, The Meter Beaterstake their jobs seriously. Just ask theleader of the pack, Johnny Reguera,

who runs G & C’s towing division andoversees the Meter Beaters effortsevery holiday season.

“We get better at this every year,”Reguera explained. “It’s an art form ac-tually. With the old parking meters, itwas all about feeding coins into themand now we have to pay for the vouch-ers and continually check the times. But,it works well and we know that we’resaving shoppers and residents from get-ting parking tickets. Some people know

when we’re coming, so they don’t payfor their parking during that time. Theyknow we’re going to beat the meter, sothey rely on us. I wouldn’t recommendit, but it seems to work for some.”

As we observed the Meter Beat-ers in action, we encountered severalpeople right after avoiding a parkingticket, courtesy of G & C. A shoppernamed Odessa J. was upset and hold-ing what she thought was a parkingticket in her hand when she ap-proached us. When Reguera told herto look again, she screamed out in joy.Would you now take your car to G &C if you get in an accident, we askedher? “Definitely,” she exclaimed.“What a nice thing for them for do, es-pecially during the holidays!” Andthat was pretty much the same thingwe heard from every one we ran into.

Toni Guanella is the Manager ofParking for the City of Santa Rosa.She explained that at one time the citywasn’t happy with Crozat’s MeterBeaters, but now they embrace themfor obvious reasons. “We love them,because in the end it brings moremoney to the city. With a staff of justfive, we can’t catch everyone. I knowthere may have been some issues withthe Meter Beaters in the past, but nowwe appreciate it and never interfere.By filling these meters before they ex-pire, we’re getting a boost in revenuefor Santa Rosa. I know they spend a

lot of time and money on this project,but in the end the goodwill pays off,I’m sure. I tell my people to stay outof the Meter Beaters’ way and let themdo their jobs. I know that people intown anticipate it every holiday sea-son and we do too, honestly.”

Do the G & C Meter Beatersmake a difference in Santa Rosa everyyear, we asked Chief Johnny Reguera?“No doubt about it,” he said. “I can tellby the smiles and the warmth we getfrom people right after we’ve savedthem a ticket. It’s not cheap doingthis—we’re going to spend around$10,000 this year—but for us, it’sworth every quarter…or dime!”


THESE DEALERS ARE GENUINE WHOLESALE PARTS SPECIALISTS.

TEXAS

Sterling McCall ToyotaHOUSTON

800-231-1440713-270-3942 FaxMonday - Friday 7am - 7pm

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Toyota of Fort WorthFORT WORTH

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OUR PARTS IN THE TRAINED HANDS OF A PROFESSIONALTogether it’s a Masterpiece!TT

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Ray Huffines ChevroletPLANO

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One of the proud Meter Beaters is Dawn MarieVance, whose father works at one of the G & CAuto Body locations

Meter Beater Brendan Harris purchases parkingvouchers to distribute them on car windshieldsthroughout downtown Santa Rosa, Calif.


Meter Beaters


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I-CAR has announced that Erie Insur-ance, an I-CAR Gold Class Profes-sionals business, has equipped its staffof auto physical damage appraiserswith the latest training available in theindustry, providing them with theknowledge and skills needed to helpincrease CSI scores, improve opera-tional efficiencies and minimize repairmistakes.

I-CAR said that Erie Insurance isnow one of only five insurance organ-izations to have achieved the industry-recognized I-CAR Gold ClassProfessionals designation as a corpo-ration. Insurance businesses can earnthe Gold Class designation at a corpo-rate level, as Erie has, or at a businesslocation.

I-CAR CEO and President JohnVan Alstyne said, “By achieving theGold Class designation, Erie Insur-ance has shown a dedication to both

customers and employees by investingin training that will provide valuableservices. Through Erie's commitmentto I-CAR training, Erie Auto PhysicalDamage Appraisers now possess role-based knowledge that can improve es-timating accuracy and help reducecycle time, both of which lead to in-creased customer satisfaction.”

Van Alstyne added, “With therapid rate of change in vehicle tech-nology, continuous role-relevant train-ing is essential. It is another key driverto customer satisfaction, and, ulti-mately business success.”

Jim Brown, Erie VP and man-ager, material damage, said, “Erie In-surance is committed to delivering topnotch service to our customers and isfocused on providing our staff with thetraining and resources needed intoday's collision repair industry. Byproviding our customers with accurate

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Businesses that have earned the I-CAR Gold Class Professionals busi-ness designation are required toachieve high levels of training as wellas maintain ongoing annual training,according to I-CAR.

“I-CAR is pleased to designateErie Insurance as a Gold Class busi-ness and provide the staff at Erie witha training path that will improve theiroverall operational efficiencies,” saidJoyce Kasmer, I-CAR director ofbusiness development.

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units. By the end of the year, the plantwill employ nearly 7,500 people at itsmore than 4.0 million square foot fa-cility. Since the original 1992 decisionto build BMW’s only U.S. plant inSouth Carolina, this announcementbrings BMW Group’s total investmentin the state to nearly $6 Billion U.S.dollars and represents its largest, sin-gle investment to date in its South Car-olina plant. In 2011, the plant produced276,065 vehicles for over 130 marketsaround the world representing a 73%increase versus 2010.

Sales of the vehicles produced atthe plant have met with continued highdemand.

Visit www.bmwusfactory.com formore information.


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autobody news february 2012 southwest edition

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