By John Yoswick
With the Society of Collision Repair Specialists’ release this past November of the results of its hands-on study that it says demonstrates that blending of a panel takes an average of 31 percent more time than a full panel refinish — rather than the 50 percent less time allocated in the three estimating systems — the association was asked during the Collision Industry Conference (CIC) where the issue goes moving forward.
“Here’s the beauty of CIC: That’s up to you,” Aaron Schulenburg of SCRS said during the conference held during SEMA week in Las Vegas. “Our goal was to capture data, and present it in a transparent manner, and to share it with the industry so you can have the dialogue you need to have. I don’t know where that occurs or how that occurs, but I think there’s a big disconnect between what we’ve identified and what exists today.”
The study came about because the three estimating system providers each establish its own refinish labor allowance for any given panel, and while those labor times for the same panel may differ from one estimating system to another, all three companies use 50 percent as a blend calculation.
“Our members have long challenged that,” Schulenburg said this past summer, before the study was completed.
The association’s 35-page report on the study (which can be downloaded at https://scrs.com/blendstudy/) details how it was conducted, with painters employed by each of the five major paint companies following their company’s process guidelines for spraying both a full refinish and a blend panel using the same paint colors on the new F-150 panels supplied by Ford. Across all colors, the average blend time among the five paint lines were between about 128 percent and about 134 percent of full refinish time.
“What’s remarkable to me, with all the different [paint] companies and [their] different processes, is how close the [percentage differences] are among all of the companies,” Robb Power senior manager of refinish solutions for PPG said at CIC. “I would have never thought it would come in that close. To me, that adds validity to what we see in those results.”
Schulenburg said it’s clearly an issue that needs to be addressed with the information providers, who were invited to attend the SCRS study but who were “not present” over the two days. He said he feels it is an appropriate topic for CIC’s “Paint and Materials Committee” to address moving forward, but regardless, he said, it “can and should be addressed with the information providers [as] an issue that has been brought to them through our work with different associations…for years.”
“That was the goal from the onset, to capture credible data, to have real conversation, that helps motivate positive change in the industry,” Schulenburg said.
Change in CIC leadership
At CIC in Las Vegas, Darrell Amberson was recognized at the end of his two years serving as chairman of the conference.
“We want to thank you for all you’ve done because you’ve certainly raised the bar,” Jeff Hendler, a past CIC chairman who has been CIC administrator, told Amberson.
“Together with our committees and chair people, we work to elevate our industry to higher levels of performance, professionalism, technical expertise and business acumen,” Amberson said of CIC in his closing comments. “I believe we are making a difference.”
Frank Terlep of Auto Techcelerators will begin his term as CIC chairman at the next meeting, being held Jan. 19 in Palm Springs, Calif.
EV manufacturers discuss restricted parts, booth concerns
Also at CIC last year, a panel of manufacturers of electric vehicles shared information collision repairers will need to know about their vehicles. A lot of has been written about potential challenges EVs pose in the paint shop, but representatives of several electric vehicles downplayed that concern in terms of their companies’ vehicles. Jake Rodenroth of Lucid Motors noted that his company started out producing batteries before vehicles.
“So we’ve been doing this a while, and in our case, baking is not really a concern,” he said. “You don’t want to get crazy with temperatures, but it’s not as bad as it used to be.”
Kelly Logan, senior manager of the Rivian collision repair program, concurred.
“We have a position statement already in place about baking the vehicle. It’s not a concern,” Logan said. “Today’s downdraft paint booths move air very efficiently, and the good thing is the battery is on the outside bottom of the car. Battery engineers always freak out when you talk about putting the car in an oven and turning it on. They think worst case scenario. But in reality, when you’re baking that vehicle, the panel is 150 degrees or maybe it gets to 160. But at the bottom of that car, with all that air coming down, it’s never really hitting that temp.”
But Ben Cid, collision business manager for Mercedes Benz, said shops also shouldn’t rely on general practices that say “always do this” or “never do this” for all vehicles; you have to look at the OEM procedure “for the specific vehicle you’re doing at the time you are doing it,” Cid said.
To that end, Rodenroth noted that his company prefers use of liquid masking on their vehicles, but in any case doesn’t want the front end bagged improperly because of the vehicles’ cooling fans.
“Those are really powerful, so you can suffocate the car,” Rodenroth said. “Follow the service manual. We have some direction around that.”
Logan, whose company was expected to deliver about 25,000 vehicles this year, said the company has visited hundreds of body shops in the past year as it began building a certified network. Non-certified shops will find the automaker is limiting the sale of many parts.
“We do have restricted parts,” Frank Phillips, collision program manager for Rivian, said. “We use the phrase anything welded, riveted, bonded is a restricted structural part. Anything to do with high voltage is restricted. Anything to do with safety, such as airbags, seat belts, are all restricted parts. One of the other things we restrict are the targets for calibration. Those are limited to our certified network to help [ensure] confidence that the calibration is being done correctly.”
The EV companies said collision repair shops may want to disable certain systems on an electric vehicle in for repairs, in part to reduce “parasitic draw” on the vehicle’s 12-volt system.
“The vehicle’s security system can bring the 12-volt circuit down if the cameras are actively recording for theft or damage,” Rodenroth said. “In our case, we have 14 cameras. When you’re recording that level of stuff, it can draw the battery down. So if you take a vehicle in, go over it with the owner and make sure they turn this stuff off, because you won’t be actively charging [the vehicle] every night like they do when they are at home.”
The environment can also contribute to parasitic draw and to how often an EV in for repairs will need to be charged.
“Depending on how hot a Rivian gets, it will turn on the air conditioning system to cool and maintain that battery,” Logan said. “Or if it’s extremely cold out, the car may need to heat up that pack. So it’s not uncommon when you have an EV all torn apart, you can see an increase in the parasitic draw. It’s running systems behind the scenes. You may have to charge that vehicle a couple times during the repair process.” •
John Yoswick, a freelance writer based in Portland, Ore., who has been writing about the automotive industry since 1988, is also the editor of the weekly CRASH Network bulletin (www.CrashNetwork.com). He can be contacted by email at john@CrashNetwork.com.
