Cartersville Auto Collision

This owner says, ’We don’t work for the insurers’

By Roger Lee Randles


CARTERSVILLE, Ga. — Jeff Summey, 49-year-old owner of Cartersville Auto Collision, got into this business in an old-school sorta way — just being around his father, who taught showed him what the autobody business is all about. “Just hanging out and learning what I could coming up,” is how he described his indoctrination to the business. His dad, Jerry, who was about to turn 71 when the interview for this article took place, opened the business in 1967, and Jeff started working in the business full-time in 1979.

Although Jeff has not been to any trade schools, he has been to I-CAR classes, and has learned the rest of what he knows on the job.

When asked to identify the biggest problem his business faces today, Summey has a double-pronged answer ready. “The biggest problem is the insurance companies wanting you to use aftermarket parts and they don’t want you to make any money,” he says, echoing statements that we have heard many times before.

Finding good technicians can be a problem for some shops, however, Summey says there are an abundance of workers out their if the need arose for some extra help. “Usually they just come to me. I’ve had many, many, many calls here lately, you know, from guys hunting jobs.” Unfortunately he hasn’t been able to offer any of them work right now because business is slow and there is not enough work to go around, he says.

The talk one hears lately about the economy finally picking up begs the question is the autobody industry starting to get any busier? “Things might be picking up a little. We’re busy for a couple weeks, then slow a couple weeks. It just depends, really. But it’s still not steady ... it’s still pretty slow,” he reluctantly admitted.

Summey gives all the credit for the years of success that his business has enjoyed to one thing: word-of-mouth advertising. “Most of the new customers who come in heard about us from somebody else, you know. We do very little advertising … this year we didn’t even have a Yellow Page ad — just a one-line deal — ’cause the Yellow Pages has gotten so expensive and we couldn’t tell a whole lot of difference in the amount of work we did,” he said, adding, “but word-of-mouth is your best advertising.”

Summey believes that his loyal following and the referrals and repeat business he receives are generated because of one business practice that they adhere to stringently: “We don’t work for insurance companies. We work for the man that owns the car,” he said firmly. “The only Pro Shop deal we’re on is Farm Bureau’s, and the reason I’m on theirs is because they’ll let us use good parts, and they’ll let us fix a man’s car like it needs to be fixed,” he said. “Some of the other companies like used parts and aftermarket.” He says that with Farm Bureau it depends on the age of the car being repaired, and that on older models aftermarket or used parts may be called for, but newer models are repaired with OEM parts because, “they just want it done right.”

Cartersville Auto Collision is comprised of a 7,000-square-foot shop with office space of roughly 2,500 square feet, Summey says. The shop is manned by three individuals: Summey, his father, and his nephew, Jordan Brown. Summey can do it all — as can his dad — painting, body work, estimating, whatever needs to be done, but he says Brown does the bulk of the paint work these days.

For frame work the shop utilizes a homemade, pit-type rack. They have a UniCure paint booth where PPG paints are sprayed. The shop employs three tow trucks: two roll backs and a wrecker. Mitchell estimating software is used here.

Summey believes there are going to be a lot of changes as far as the paint materials that will be used in the future. “It’s coming to where everything’s going to be waterborne paint,” he said. And has he used the new h2o-based paints yet? “I’ve sprayed a little bit of it, but not much. They tell me that it matches a lot better than the other stuff, but I haven’t sprayed enough of it really to know what it’s going to be like.”

Still addressing changes on the horizon for his industry, Summey says: “The EPA has stepped in and it’s … you can’t have any paint strippers on the place; you have to mechanically strip everything. You know, you can’t use aircraft stripper anymore. There are a lot of changes coming, but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” he said.

He is a little concerned about the price he will have to pay for the waterborne paints. However, he believes that this new technology will cut down on waste.

Summey says that customers haven’t gotten more difficult to deal with in his years of doing this. “They haven’t gotten any harder to deal with. They just want to get their money’s worth.” Then, choosing his words carefully, he says: “The problem with it is … they listen to their insurance company as far as where to take their car, and the law says you can take it anywhere you want to. But there are so many of them out there that are loyal to their insurance companies that say ‘Wherever they want it fixed that’s where I need to go,’and that’s not the case. You’ve gotta take your car somewhere you’re gonna be comfortable.”

Summey is not adverse to telling someone that they can take the car down the road for repairs if that’s what will make them happy. “I tell people all the time that come in here wanting an estimate, ‘the best thing to do is get it where you want it fixed. I’ll write you an estimate, but if you want it fixed somewhere else that you’re happy with, that’s fine. I’ve got no problem with that. You need to get it where you want it fixed so they can deal with the insurance company and make sure they get enough money to repair it.’”

The shop owner feels that relationships with insurers, however, have gotten worse over the years. “It’s because of the pro shops or whatever; they kinda want to control where you get your parts, how many days you can have the car. Just like your car with that damaged bumper,” he nods toward our company car in the parking lot, “ if we had that car in here, three days they’d be callin,’ wantin’ you out of the rental car — ‘Why is it takin’ so long. What’s the deal?’ You figured a reconditioned bumper and I can’t find one, so I had to order a new one,” he might answer the insurer. He says he might have to then wait two or three months sometimes to get his money for the supplement after making several phone calls to the company.

Another problem with the whole insurance-customer-claim scenario is the size of deductibles that customers have saddled themselves with trying to save a little each month on their premium. “A lot of people, the reason they’re driving a car that’s wrecked or whatever is because they’ve got such high deductibles. I have seen a $2,500 deductible in the past, and I’ll bet they don’t save 30-40 dollars a months,” he says, noting that when that wreck finally happens, they don’t have the $2,500 deductible, “so they have to drive it.”

Summey says that effective in 2011 all Georgia shops will have to be certified in order to buy paint. “We just have to go through a two or three hour course to tell you what’s coming and what the rules are and what you can use and can’t use.”

Makes one wonder, if shops must be certified on the paint end of things, can some sort of certification for the body-repair side of the business be far behind? And would this necessarily be a bad thing? Or, like paint certification will surely do, could it help to weed out some of the fly-by-nights — some of those backyard bodyshops that vie for the business that the guy, like Summey, who is legitimately in it for the long haul, and is trying to do the very best by his customers, actually deserves? Time will tell. •

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