May 2013 Great Lakes Edition

PAINT AND REFINISH TECHNOLOGIESPAINT AND REFINISH TECHNOLOGIESSecond of 2 IssuesSecond of 2 IssuesSecond of 2 Issues

• Custom Painter Stories, p. 18, 30, 34, 40• Training and News, p. 4, 7, 20, 29

A Houston, Texas-based personal in-jury attorney has filed suit againstSafelite and Toyota on behalf a Mon-tana woman who he says lost both herhusband and young daughter in arollover crash, in which the wind-shield allegedly separated from thevehicle.

The attorney, Rob Ammons,contends Safelite had replaced thewindshield on the vehicle involved,while Safelite argues its claims divi-sion processed the claim on behalf ofanother glass shop.

“While traveling on a NorthDakota highway one December after-noon, the family’s 2005 Toyota Tun-dra contacted an icy patch and wentout of control. The pickup crossed thehighway’s median and rolled over,”Rob Ammons said in a news release.

“Safelite, who had installed awindshield on the Tundra, was alsonamed as a defendant,” the document

continues. “According to the lawsuit,the windshield separated from thepickup in this crash and exacerbatedthe movement of the roof’s pillars. Asa result, the driver and rear seat pas-senger were partially ejected from thepickup, despite the fact that they werewearing their seatbelts.”

Ammons listed Safelite as a de-fendant because he contends the com-pany installed the windshield on thepickup, according to the release.

Safelite’s senior corporate coun-sel has another take: “Safelite typi-cally does not comment on pendinglitigation. However, in this tragic case,after a preliminary investigation wedetermined that Safelite AutoGlassdid not perform the windshield re-placement,” says Brian DiMasi,Safelite’s senior corporate counsel.

“Rather, Safelite Solutions, theclaims management business, processed

Suit Filed Against Safelite and Toyota After Double-Fatality Rollover, Safelite Says Not Repairer of Record

In May, the Indiana Autobody Asso-ciation will host several industrymeetings.

The first will be held May 14 inFort Wayne from 6:30–9:30 p.m. Thesecond will be held May 16 in Merril-lville from 11 a.m.–1 p.m. with an-other meeting the same date inIndianapolis from 6:30–9:30 p.m. OnMay 15, two meetings will be held,

one in New Albany from 11 a.m.–1p.m. and the second meeting from6:30–9:30 p.m. in Bloomington.

Special guest at these meetingswill be Ed Mayer, the new I-CAR Re-gional Manager, who will present thelatest information about the I-CARProfessional Development Program,how the new process allows shops to

IABA Hosts Several May Industry Meetings WithEd Mayer, I-CAR Regional Manager

by John Yoswick

Insurer-mandated parts procurementsystems, and I-CAR’s decision not tofollow through with its plans to workwith automakers to identify and closethe gaps in existing collision repairprocedures, dominated discussion at arepairer-only meeting held in Phoenixin April.

Aaron Schulenburg, executivedirector of the Society of CollisionRepair Specialists, led the “RepairerRoundtable” meeting, but said it wasless tied to any one organization thanto an over-arching goal of providing

repairers a place to discuss and estab-lish objectives without the influenceof other industry segments.

“I think our industry has becomewell-informed,”Schulenburg said.“There is a greatnetwork of infor-mation going inand out of the as-sociations, andfrom the tradepress. But justbeing informedisn’t enough. We

Repairer-Only Meeting Focuses on Shops’ Responseto Key Industry Issues at April CIC Phoenix Meeting

I-CAR Board memberDusty Wombledid not supportboard decision

I-CAR Responds to Associations’ Questions on RepairStandards, Clarifies Stance on OEM Procedures GapsI-CAR responded to questions posedby repairer associations regarding thetraining organization’s position on re-pair standards, as they relate to OEMrepair procedures, and I-CAR’s ulti-mate decision not to take an active rolein the identification of gaps in OEM re-pair procedures and forming a councilto foster closing those gaps, somethingthe association’s had requested of I-CAR in 2011.

In an April 12 letter to I-CAR, thethree repairer organizations had ques-tioned I-CAR’s reasons for not accept-ing this expanded role in thedevelopment of repair standards, and

questioned statements made by I-CARthat “seem to suggest a belief within I-CAR that not all industry segmentssupport using OEM repair proceduresas a standard of repair.”

I-CAR responded in the form of aletter addressed to representatives ofthe Alliance of Automotive ServiceProviders (AASP), the Society of Col-lision Repair Specialists (SCRS), andthe Assured Performance Network.

In the latest official response, I-CAR reiterated its position that it“firmly believes that OEM collision re-pair procedures are the industry stan-

See I-CAR Clarifies, Page 23

See IABA and I-CAR, 4

See Safelite and Toyota, Page 36

See Repairer Roundtable, Page 31

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Autobody Supply Co., Inc . . . . . . . 18BMW Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 37Brunswick Auto Mart. . . . . . . . . . . . 19Car-Part Pro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Chief Automotive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Classifieds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46CSS USA, Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Equalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Erhard BMW of Bloomfield Hills . . . 33Erhard BMW of Farmington Hills . . 33Ford Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . 41Ganley Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram. 17Garmat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10GM Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . . . 35Graham Auto Mall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Herkules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Honda-Acura Wholesale PartsDealers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24-25

Hyundai Wholesale Parts Dealers . 30Infiniti of Naperville . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Jake Sweeney BMW. . . . . . . . . . . . 16Jake Sweeney Chevrolet . . . . . . . . 16KBS Coatings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

K & M Northfield Dodge-Ram. . . . . . 9Laurel Auto Group of Westmont . . . 15Lexus Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 45Malco. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Mazda Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 38Milosch’s Palace Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

MOPAR Wholesale Parts Dealers . . 21Nissan/Infiniti Wholesale PartsDealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

PPG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2PreFab Ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Pro-Spray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Rare Parts, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22SATA Spray Equipment . . . . . . . . . 23Subaru Wholesale Parts Dealers . . 36Toyota of Grand Rapids . . . . . . . . . 31Toyota Wholesale Parts Dealers . . . 39Urethane Supply Company . . . . . . 13VIM Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Volkswagen Wholesale Parts Dealers. 34Walcom USA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

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ContentsREGIONALAASP-MN Held 2013 Annual Meeting,

Convention in April. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4AASP-MN Names New Board of Directors. 17ABRA Auto Body Opens in MN. . . . . . . . . . 4ABRA Buys 5 Indiana Shops . . . . . . . . . . 17ABRA Opens Another New Facility in MN . . 4ASA MI Hosted April Webinars . . . . . . . . . . 4ASA Michigan Wants Action on SB 249 . . . 6Business of the Year, Ohio Pike’s CARSTAR

Celebrates 30 Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Drew Industries Relocates HQ from NY to IN . 13Father Hands Yorkville, IL, CARSTAR

Shop Over to Son . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Ford’s Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan,

Pumps $1.8B into Michigan’s Economy . 8Forest Preserve Closes Illinois Auto Body

Shop After 110 Years. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Former Detroit City Councilwoman Works

at Auto Body Shop While ServingFederal Prison Term . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Gefran Names Overhulse Great LakesManager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Great Lakes Event Set for Sept. . . . . . . . . . 4IABA “Shop You Can Trust” Webinar

Set for May 22. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23IABA Hosts Several May Industry Meetings

With Ed Mayer, I-CAR Regional Manager. 1IL Shop Happy After Six Months with

PPG Envirobase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Indianapolis Repair Center Hosts

Pet Food Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7MI Body Shop Educates How Snow

Affects Floormats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Michigan Approves Bills Banning MFN

Clauses; ASA Says This is Good Newsfor Repairers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

New Laws in Michigan for How InsurersUse Credit Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Newly Closed Indianapolis Body ShopCatches Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Paul’s Quality Collision in MI WinsSmall Business of Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Spanesi Americas Opens US Locationin Naperville. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Superior CARSTAR in Tipp City, OH,Added to MSO Network . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Team PRP Expands in Ohio with Westwood . 8WMBA Hosted Car-Diologist at April

Meeting in Grand Rapids . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

COLUMNISTSAttanasio: Is ‘Reactionary’ Marketing

Too Little, Too Late? Maybe Not. . . . . . 32Franklin: Using Signage to be Unique

in the Digital Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Hey Toby!: Glass and Windshield Installs

Must Be Handled by the Book . . . . . . . 39Insider: Shops Should Be Able to Offer

Whatever Discounts They Want . . . . . . 37

NATIONAL1940 Ford Coupe Wins Ridler Award

in Detroit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Aaron Clark Named VP at Assured

Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36ABRA Auto Body & Glass Expands in Utah. 22ASA Appoints Risley as Interim

Executive Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Automaker, OEM and Recall News . . . . . . 26Axalta Coating Systems Holds Fleet

Council Meeting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Axalta Offers Courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Boyd Group Acquires Four Repair

Centers in NC and FL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Car Theft Drops by 88% in Massachusetts. 46CCC Donates $25,000 to Education

Foundation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Chicago Pneumatic Gives $10,000

in Tool Grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Collision Education Makeover School

Grant Applications Due by May 31 . . . . 36David Brunori Promoted to Division

President at Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Foundation Says 91 Cents of Every

Buck Went to Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Hoffman Auto Body Fined $54K for

OSHA Violations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47I-CAR Declines Facilitation of OEM

Repair Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33I-CAR Makes Milestone $200,000

Donation to Collision RepairEducation Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

I-CAR Responds to Associations’ Questionson Repair Standards, Clarifies Stanceon OEM Procedures Gaps . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Kadel’s Wins Regional Award. . . . . . . . . . 23Malco’s TurboShears Quickly Becoming

Tech’s Go-To Cutter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Martin Senour Color Manual Features

Actual Paint Chips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Most & Least Expensive States for

Car Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45NABC’s Operation Comfort Fundraising

Kit Available. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47NADA Says Rising New-Vehicle Sales Lifted

Dealer Profits for a Record Year in 2012 . 38New TV Pilot, “Auto Body Avengers”

Coming to Spike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Nissan Names O’Hara Director. . . . . . . . . 14Northern California Man Pleads

No Contest to Selling CounterfeitALLDATA Products. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

PPG Appoints Frank Sklarsky asVP of Finance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Pro-Spray Launches YouTube Channel . . . 28Refinish Distributors Alliance Adds

New Member . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Repairer-Only Meeting Focuses on

Shops’ Response to Key IndustryIssues at April CIC Phoenix Meeting . . . 1

SEMA Board Candidates . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Service King’s Bonner to Speak at

PBES Conference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Suit Filed Against Safelite and Toyota

After Double- Fatality Rollover, SafeliteSays Not Repairer of Record . . . . . . . . . 1

VT Couple Charged With Arson . . . . . . . . 36

PAINT SPECIALCrazy Painter Mitch Kelly, Father & Son

Keep on Truckin’ in SoCal . . . . . . . . . . 40Custom Shop Masters Pro-Spray to

Make an Artistic Statement . . . . . . . . . 18Glasurit Introduces Comprehensive,

2-Clears Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Herkules Introduces FastTrack

Paint Gun Washer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7KBS Coatings Adds ‘Safety Blue’ Color

to Line-Up of Non-Porous Colors forRust Prevention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

RDA’s First Collision Solutions TrainingSeminar Gets Excellent Reviews. . . . . . 29

Renowned Painter Mickey HarrisCo-Designed the SATAgraph 4 . . . . . . . 30

Six Tips to Finding Success inProcess Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Third Generation Custom Painter WasBorn Into the Business. . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

www.autobodynews.com | MAY 2013 AUTOBODY NEWS 3

Last month, an article in this spot described the future opening of MC2 Colli-sion in Terre Haut, IN.

We regret that the story was reported to us with several major inaccuraciesincluding the opening date of the shop, which opened in November of 2012.

Autobody News regrets the error and suggests readers disregard the story.

Correction: Terre Haute Shop Opening Inaccurately Reported

ASA Appoints Risley as Interim Executive DirectorThe Automotive Service Association(ASA) appointed Dan Risley as in-terim executive director. The an-nouncement comes following RonPyle’s decision to step down as pres-ident and chief staff executive. Pylejoined the national staff in July 2002and assumed the role of president inNovember 2002.

Risley, who joined ASA inMarch as executive vice president,said, “I’m grateful for the opportunityto serve an association with the sto-ried history of ASA. The ASA boardof directors is committed to strength-ening the association through opencommunication and collaboration. Iintend on helping them fulfill thatcommitment.”

“Dan’s leadership and presencewithin the auto repair industry are justa few of the underlying reasons webelieve he is a perfect complement toASA,” said Darrell Amberson,

AAM, ASA chairman and vice presi-dent of operations at LaMettry’s Col-lision in Minneapolis. “The boardlooks forward to collaborating withhim and leveraging his strengths tobetter the association and the valueour membership receives.”

Risley, who has served the in-dustry in many roles throughout hiscareer, came to ASA after six years atAllstate Insurance Co. where he wasa market claims manager. Prior tothat, he served as executive director ofthe Society of Collision Repair Spe-cialists for seven years, from 2001-2008.

Pyle will continue to work withASA in an advisory role until the endof the year.

“This transition of executiveleadership has been in process for sev-eral months. I am very pleased thatDan Risley was willing and ready toassume his new role,” said Pyle.


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The WestMichigan BodyShop Associa-tion, located inGrand Rapids,MI, held itsApril 16 meet-ing at RailsideGolf Club withguest speakerD.J. Harring-ton, known asThe Automo-

tive Car-Diologist.

ABRA Auto Body & Glass recentlyopened a new franchise location inBrainerd, MN. The new shop is lo-cated at 7548 Industrial Park Road.

The addition of this new loca-tion brings the total number of inde-pendently-owned franchises to 49.

ABRA also has 95 company-owned shops nationwide, for a totalof 144 locations in 16 states.

ABRA Auto Body Opens in MN

ASA Michigan hosted two April we-binars. The April 10 webinar focusedon ‘Collision—More Work and Re-tention Through Customer Commu-nication” with Dan Henderson fromAutoWatch.

The second webinar on April24 discussed MIOSHA and up-dates on new communication re-quirements with Gregg Grubb,senior industrial hygienist withMIOSHA.

For more information aboutAAS Michigan, contact Ray Fisherat [email protected].

ASA MI Hosted April Webinars

Mark your calendar for “the GREATLAKES EVENT” coming to LansingCommunity College West Campus Sept.28 in Lansing Charter Township, MI.

“the GREAT LAKES EVENT”will be hosted by ASA Michigan andis an automotive collision and me-chanical industry event that includestechnical training, management train-ing, networking, hands on, vendors,displays and more. Technicians, advi-sors, managers, owners and vendorsare invited to this one-day event.For more information, go to www.the-greatlakesevent.com.

Great Lakes Event Set for Sept.

New Laws in Michigan for HowInsurers Use Credit InformationOn March 28, new laws took effectin Michigan in regards to how insur-ance companies can use credit infor-mation. Under one of the measures,insurers can’t use people’s credit in-formation to deny, cancel or refuseto renew their car, home or other per-sonal insurance policies. Insurerswill also be required to notify a per-son if they raise charges or reducecoverage based on the customer’scredit information. The use of creditscores by insurers to set rates haslong been a debate in Michigan.

ABRA Opens Another New Facility in MinnesotaABRA Body & Glass recentlyopened a new franchise collisionrepair facility in Baxter, MN.ABRA is based in Brooklyn Cen-ter, MN.

The new franchise is inde-pendently-owned and operated byD. J. Dondelinger of DondelingerChevrolet Cadillac.

ABRA now operates 32 colli-sion repair facilities in Minnesota.The company operates a total of144 corporate and franchise shopsthroughout 16 U.S. states.

The Alliance of Automotive ServiceProviders of Minnesota (AASP-MN) held its Annual Meeting &Convention April 11-12 at theCrowne Plaza Minneapolis West inPlymouth. The line-up included 16different programs for mechanicaland collision repair shop owners,managers and technicians, as well asindustry suppliers.

In addition to the seminars,AASP-MN provided several oppor-tunities for attendees to network andsocialize with their peers. Thursdayevening featured industry vendorsdisplaying their new products andservices and a dinner at PlymouthPlayhouse, where attendees enjoyedthe show “Ring of Fire,” the Musicof Johnny Cash.

Alliance of Automotive ServiceProviders of Minnesota (AASP-MN) is an association of independ-ently-owned automotive servicebusinesses and industry suppliersdedicated to improving the state’sautomotive service industry and thesuccess of its members.

AASP-MN Held 2013 AnnualMeeting, Convention in April

KBS Coatings Adds ‘Safety Blue’ Color to Line-Upof Non-Porous Colors for Rust PreventionRust is caused by moisture coming incontact with bare metal, producing achemical reaction known as oxida-tion. The effect is to significantlyweaken the metal and cause blister-ing underneath paint or primer.

KBS Coatings offers its customersthe world’s top rated rust preventivecoatings but now KBS Coatings hasraised the bar even higher with the ad-dition of Safety Blue to the ten colorline-up of RustSeal colors, according toBen Bonkoski, Operations Manager ofKBS Coatings.

People battling rust problemswith their cars, farm equipment, in-dustrial equipment, and in so manyother places, now have 10 choices ofcolor, all of which are completely non-porous. Rust is one dilemma everyoneseems to understand. Corrosion pro-tection is really only as good as theproducts you choose. The power toprotect lies in the details of a stop rustpaint.

KBS Coatings’ 3-Step system ofKBS Klean (an industrial strengthwater-based cleaner & degreaser), KBSRustBlast (a powerful rust remover andmetal etch) and RustSeal (an exclusiverust preventive coating) is the newest

and most effective rust prevention sys-tem available today.

KBS preparation products ofKBS Klean and RustBlast are specif-ically enhanced with a revolutionaryOxygen-Block Technology that of-fers unique metal corrosion protec-tion.

RustSeal is a single-component,high-solid content, moisture-curingurethane. These exceptional proper-ties make RustSeal the ideal stoprust paint choice for chemicallybonding to metal for the purpose ofstopping and encapsulating existingrust and corrosion caused by thedamaging effects of water penetra-tion.

RustSeal protects and seals baremetal from moisture with a perma-nent coating that is actually strength-ened by continued exposure tomoisture.

This non-porous, flexible coat-ing that now comes in Safety Blue isalso incredibly tough and extremelyresistant to abrasion and impact. It’stechnology that’s simply unbeatable.

For more information, visitwww.SHOPKBS.com or call 877-548-9323.

DJ Harringtonthe AutomotiveCar-Diologist

WMBA Hosted Car-Diologist atApril Meeting in Grand Rapids

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ASA Michigan is asking its membersto take action regarding Senate Bill249 to update aftermarket parts lan-guage.

Recently, ASA Michigan in-formed its members about SB 249,which will add language to the cur-rent requirement notifying con-sumers about the use of aftermarketparts.

The current law requires that thefollowing statement be on estimatesusing a bold font not less than 10point: “This estimate has been pre-pared based on the use of aftermar-ket crash parts supplied by a sourceother than the manufacturer of yourmotor vehicle. Warranties that applyto these replacement parts are pro-vided by the manufacturer, distribu-tor, or insurer of these parts.”

The requested language wouldcontinue with “These replacementparts are not covered by the vehiclemanufacturer’s warranty.”

ASA Michigan, along with ASAnational, has provided an easy wayfor industry members to write theirSenator in a ‘pre-drafted’ letter onTakingTheHill.org that will go toyour Senator’s office upon comple-tion.

ASA Michigan Wants Actionon SB 249

Paul’s Quality Collision in MonroeCharter Township, MI, was recentlyawarded “Small Business of theYear” by the Monroe County Cham-ber of Commerce. Owners are Pauland Tammi Van Aken.

The award acknowledges busi-nesses that epitomize entrepreneur-ship and community service.

The business was founded in1982 and initially called Paul’s BodyShop and located on W. 7th Street. Theshop moved to its present location onS. Telegraph Rd. in 1991. It operatedas a franchise called Paul’s CARSTARCollision from 1992-2006 until theshop left the CARSTAR organizationand began operating as Paul’s QualityCollision.

The business prides itself onteamwork and emphasis on qualitywork and customer service.

Tami serves as office managerand one of their children, Ryan,serves as production manager. Thebusiness employs 12 people.

The company's community in-volvement includes sponsoring arearecreation teams and discouragestesting and driving by sponsoringprograms in schools and distributingt-shirts that say, ‘Plz dnt txt n drive.’

Paul’s Quality Collision in MIWins Small Business of Year

Gefran Inc. has named Matt Over-hulse as Great Lakes Regional SalesManager Industrial Sensor and Au-tomation Products for North Amer-ica. Overhulse will be responsiblefor all customer relationships, OEMand distributor sales for Gefran’s In-dustrial Sensor and Automationproducts in the Great Lakes region.His territory includes Ohio, Ken-tucky, Michigan, West Virginia,Western Pennsylvania, and WesternNew York.

Prior to joining Gefran, Over-hulse held positions with FindlayMachine Inc., Omron ScientificTechnologies and Wenglor SensorsInc. He has over 10 years of experi-ence in OEM, Channel Sales, and Di-rect Sales.

Eric Kirleis, Gefran’s Man-aging Director, said, “We are ex-cited to have Matt Overhulse onour North American team. Matt’sextensive experience in IndustrialSensors and Automation productswith a focus on plastics, fluidpower, metal processing, powercontrol and packaging AutomationProduct Solutions will increaseboth the visibility and sales forGefran, Inc.”

Gefran Names OverhulseGreat Lakes Manager

Indianapolis firefighters are investi-gating a fire that broke out at DeluxeAuto Shop in Indianapolis, IN, in midApril. The shop had recently closed.

Crews were called to the area of38th Street and Hillside Avenueshortly before 2:30 p.m. to the fire atthe former body shop. They arrivedand found heavy black smoke pour-ing out of the building.

The shop closed down a fewweeks ago. Former employees werecleaning when they noticed the fire.Fire crews say the former paint andbody shop had just closed on the firstof the month.

Lt. Larry Tracy, from Indi-anapolis Fire Department said, “Theywere cleaning it out. They did have apaint booth inside the building but itwas inactive and they were in theprocess of tearing it out as well.”

The fire spread to the roof.Crews had a hard time getting to theflames, but were able to breakthrough a wall and gain access to theroof. Firefighters were able to get thefire under control. The cause of thefire is currently under investigation,however it does not appear to be sus-picious at this time.

There were no injuries reported.

Newly Closed IndianapolisBody Shop Catches Fire


Snow on the bottom of shoes can causedouble-duty damage if moisture insidea vehicle is allowed to accumulate.

“We’ve seen, over the years,massive amounts of corrosion causedby too much moisture being left onthe carpet,” said Steve Bartanen fromBartanen’s Auto Body in Ishpeming,MI. “It not only damages the appear-ance, but it actually damages the in-tegrity of the automobile.”

Bartanen has worked on a lot ofolder cars and says that one of thefirst places he looks for rust is on thefloor of the driver’s side.

“Having rubber mats, especiallyon the driver’s side, that you can ac-tually pull out of the car, shake it out,and put back in the car will eliminatea lot of that problem. And it’s goingto make your spring cleanup job a loteasier,” Bartanen said.

“The best thing to do for thatmoisture situation is to allow your-self a little more time in the morningto put the defrosters on a mix of de-frost and heat because if you put thedefrost and heat on, you will be dry-ing the floor,” Bartanen explained.

MI Body Shop Educates onHow Snow Affects Floormats

Church Brothers Collision Repair inIndianapolis, IN, held their annualpet food drive to benefit the dogs andcats sheltered by Indianapolis AnimalCare & Control. The pet food drivecollected over 3,400 pounds of foodand topped last year’s results bymore than 1,000 pounds.

The 3,400 pounds of baggedand canned food were collected at therecent “Stock the Pantry” Night dur-ing the Butler vs. Duquesne men’sbasketball game at Hinkle Field-house. The food was contributed byfans attending the game and animalwelfare advocates.

“Stock the Pantry” is sponsoredby Butler Basketball, mascots Blue II& Blue III, Holistic Select Pet Foods,and Church Brothers Collision Re-pair, a Butler Athletics’ sponsor.Again this year, Holistic Select pro-vided a significant kick-start to thecampaign by donating nearly 1,400pounds. Holistic Select is the ButlerBlues’ cuisine of choice.

Church Brothers Collision Re-pair is a family-owned and operatedcollision repair company founded inIndianapolis in 1929. The firm hassix state-of-the-art shops in metro In-dianapolis.

Indianapolis Repair CenterHosts Pet Food Drive

Herkules Introduces FastTrack Paint Gun WasherHerkules Equipment Corporation re-cently introduced a new paint gunwasher called the FastTrack thatspeeds up the paint gun cleaningprocess anywhere in the shop.

The FastTrack (model #G45)paint gun washer is inexpen-sive, lightweight, only 10inches wide, and is designedto work with HerkulesSparkle Clean Blast aerosolcan cleaner. Blast cleansboth waterborne and sol-vent paints.

The Blast can isfastened, upside down,to the top of the Fast-Track. The cleaningprocess begins when theFastTrack’s nozzle ispushed up with the paintgun. The Blast’s cleaneris then released down intothe gun’s paint channelwith just the right amount of pres-sure to clean the inside of the gun.The outside tip of the gun is easilycleaned with the attached brush.

Herkules Sparkle Clean Blastcontains the exact same low VOCcleaning formula as Herkules SparkleClean aerosol can cleaner. It’s veryeffective for cleaning both waterborneand solvent paint. The Blast can is

equipped with a special valve thathooks up to the FastTrack gun washer

for effective release of thecleaner.

The FastTrack’s mountingholes and light weight make it

easy to mount anywhere inthe shop or in a mobilework station to keep proj-ects moving quicklythrough the repair process.

Herkules Equip-ment Corporation, estab-lished in 1984, is a leadingmanufacturer for the Auto-motive Paint & Body Re-pair industry, havingdesigned, manufactured,and patented the firstPaint Gun Washer. Wehave been manufacturingquality vehicle lifts andscissor lift tables for close

to 30 years, providing manydifferent industries ergonomic so-

lutions for countless applications.Herkules also supplies Air Jacks, Han-dling Equipment, and Crushing Equip-ment.

For more product information,please contact Herkules at 800-444-4351, or at [email protected] or visitour website at www.herkules.us/gun-cleanerG45.php.

www.autobodynews.comC

www.autobodynews.com


Team PRP Expands in Ohio with WestwoodTeam PRP’s nationwide network ofindependent automobile recyclers ex-panded with its newest member, West-wood Auto Parts, located in Toledo,OH.

The addition of Westwoodbrings the partnership total of TeamPRP to 133 members.

Brothers Gary and Zale Rein-stein founded and opened WestwoodAuto Parts in 1977. With the inten-tion of developing a used auto partsfacility that offered readily availableparts in stock, operating more like anew parts store, the brothers pur-chased a 150,000-square-foot aban-doned foundry building on 19 acresof property and later expanded to 21acres.

Though Zale passed away in2002, Gary remains active in the busi-ness during summer months. EdwardReinstein, son of Gary Reinstein, isthe current owner of Westwood. Asone of the first employees, Edwardexperienced a full variety of positionsincluding dismantling, delivery, in-ventory and warehouse work. He isalso a past president and current boardmember of the Ohio Auto and TruckRecyclers Association, as well as apast member of the Government Af-fairs Committee for the Automotive

Recyclers Association.Jim Stone, Zale Reinstein’s son-

in-law, is also an original employeewho had worked as a dismantler andwarehouse worker, and is Westwood’sleading salesperson today.

Currently, Westwood has 12 em-ployees. Long before “being green”became a fad, Westwood adopted en-vironmentally-friendly practicesthroughout their operations. Every ve-hicle ever disassembled was handledinside their building, with all fluidscaptured and recycled. Westwood dis-mantles approximately 750 vehiclesannually.

“We are very excited to be partof Team PRP,” said Edward Rein-stein. “We believe that Team PRP’sphilosophy and Westwood’s are iden-tical.”

Kent Rothwell, chairman of theTeam PRP national board of directors,said, “We feel confident that West-wood’s business vision and commit-ment to the very best in customerservice, which has been in evidencethroughout their many years in busi-ness, meshes perfectly with the visionof Team PRP. We certainly look for-ward to working with them.”

Ford Motor Co.’s revamped Michi-gan Assembly Plant in Wayne, seenas a model for auto factories in thefuture, supports 24,000 statewidejobs and injects $1.8 billion annuallyinto Michigan's economy, accordingto analysis from the Center for Auto-motive Research, the Detroit Newsrecently reported.

The plant, dubbed by CAR as“the new global standard for flexiblemanufacturing” after a $770 millioninvestment, produces five differentFord models, including a hybrid,plug-in hybrid and an all-electric, andwill manufacture 350,000 vehiclesthis year.

CAR’s analysis was introducedat a supplier matchmaking event atFord’s Dearborn campus to highlightMichigan’s automotive supplier base,which includes 2,600 facilities thatwork with Ford. CAR’s analysis alsofound that opportunities for Tier 2and Tier 3 auto suppliers in Michiganare growing.

“Michigan has a wealth of busi-nesses that can help Ford continuegrowing as a global automotive leader,”said Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s president ofthe Americas.

CAR’s findings show there arestill many parts for Michigan Assem-bly Plant that are sourced from out-side the U.S. and Canada, includingapproximately $500 million in sup-plier spending from outside NorthAmerica.

Sourcing those parts closer tothe assembly plant in Wayne couldbring financial benefits for both Fordand the supplier, though would notresult in any real increase in employ-ment or economic activity, CAR said.

The Michigan Assembly plant,home to about 5,000 workers on threeshifts, manufactures the Ford Focus,Focus Electric, Focus ST, C-Max Hy-brid and C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid.

Ford’s Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan,Pumps $1.8B into Michigan’s Economy

Former Detroit City Councilwoman Works at AutoBody Shop While Serving Federal Prison TermFormer Detroit City Council memberMonica Conyers is working at anauto body shop while serving the re-mainder of her federal prison sen-tence for corruption.

The wife of U.S. Rep. JohnConyers now works for MetrotechCollision in Detroit’s Corktownneighborhood, according to ownerSam Hussein.

Federal authorities allowedConyers move to a halfway house inDetroit on Jan. 25 while she finishes a37-month prison sentence that endsMay 16. She pleaded guilty to con-spiracy to commit bribery in 2009 andentered prison the next year. Conyerswas sentenced to Alderman FederalPrison Camp—also known as ‘CampCupcake’—after pleading guilty toconspiracy to commit bribery.

Conyers admitted taking bribesfrom Houston-based Synagro Tech-nologies in exchange for her vote on a$47 million sludge hauling contract.The council voted 5-4 in favor of theSynagro contract with Conyers’ sup-port.

Getting a job was a condition ofher release. She works about 30 hoursa week at the collision shop answer-ing phones, doing administrative

work and working with insuranceproviders.

“She’s been here for about 2 1/2months,” Hussein told The DetroitNews. “She’s doing a great job.”

“She applied for the job. Weasked her to submit her resume,which she did, and we saw she hadgreat credentials,” said Hussein.

Conyers is forbidden to speak tothe news media as a condition of herrelease, Hussein said. He said the De-troit corruption case did give himpause, but that he ultimately decidedto give Conyers a chance.

“Those charges are always aconcern, but when I thought aboutwhat she’s doing to put the past be-hind her, I realized I can only judgeher based on what she’s doing for us,”he said.

Conyers, 48, served as presidentof the Detroit City Council betweenSeptember 2008 and May 2009. Shewas sentenced in March 2010.

The continuing federal probe ofcorruption in Detroit City Hall led torecent convictions of ex-MayorKwame Kilpatrick, his father Bernardand city contractor Bobby Fergusonon a range of charges related to bribe-taking and paying.



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IL Shop Happy After Six Months with PPG EnvirobaseRestoration House Auto Body in EastAlton, IL, a 9,000 square-foot, 20-bayfull-service collision center, startedusing eco-friendly PPG Envirobasepaints and coatings six months ago.

“We’ve went green,” said BobRuby, owner of Restoration HouseAuto Body. “The new paint matchesa lot better and customers have beenvery satisfied with their paint jobs.”

PPG Envirobase contains water asits primary ingredient instead of harm-ful solvents and volatile organic com-pounds, which are hazardous to airquality in the work environment andcommunity. By choosing this alterna-tive, Restoration House Auto Body canreduce volatile emissions by up to 80%.

“I made the decision to look into itfor environmental reasons,” Ruby said.“It’s also state-of-the-art. All new carsare painted with water-based paints,and it will eventually be mandatory.”

Ruby established RestorationHouse Auto Body in January 1980. Atthe time, he worked alone and did onlyrestoration work. Today, he employs astaff of 10 and, in addition to painting,offers collision and restoration workon all types of cars and trucks, full-ser-vice storm damage, towing, alignmentand full-frame or unibody repairs.

“I started on my own doing onlyrestorations. But that work is limitedbecause it is so expensive, so I switchedprimarily to collisions,” Ruby said.“Around 15 years ago, though, we gotback into restoring older cars. We areone of the few shops in the area that stilldo restoration work. Last year, we re-stored six cars, two of them fully.”

In 2012, Ruby saw profits growby 20%, which he partially attributedto the April hailstorm that damagedand even totaled many vehicles.

“We got an overflow of carsfrom all the hail damage,” Ruby said.“There were around 30 to 35 of themin here just from the storm, a lot ofthem totaled. When this year started,we were still very busy, but thingshave slowed down a little lately.”

by Ed Attanasio

Don’t be fooled by their sleek, stylishappearance and be sure not to be con-fused by their attractive price. Malco’sTurboShears metal-cutting tools areeasy on the eyes, but their high carbonsteel blades are not easy on 20-gaugesteel. For that reason and many others,the TurboShear by Malco is quicklybecoming the body repair technicians’go-to metal cutting tool.

Four years ago, Malco enteredthe automotive tools market and hasalready made a significant impact, ledby top reviews from body shops allover the country. With a selection ofdent removal tools (known as the Ra-ditap Rapid Dent Removal System);door skin tools (TurboX Tools DoorHemming and Door Skin RemovalTools); hole punches/flange air tools,the aforementioned TurboShears (withfive models); pliers, riveters, scratchawls, tube benders, slicers, seamers,snips, socket-drive Torx Bits, socketsand related accessories, Malco’s lineof auto body tools is impressive forthe three big reasons every collisiontech wants—cost, performance and

durability. And the fact that they lookgood while performing their respec-tive jobs surely doesn’t hurt either.

Mike Janey, Malco’s CreativeServices Specialist, discussed the man-ufacturer’s emergence into the colli-sion repair field.

“The TurboShears really took us

into the automotive market, becausewe saw a need for this tool back in2003 and saw how it could help bodytechs and companies or individuals

that restore vehicles. But the huge at-traction is the maneuverability andversatility it offers. It’s easy to controland operate and it won’t fatigue theuser’s hands, wrists and arms, becauseit doesn’t require a lot of force to op-erate. Starting at $99, while othercomparable tools retailing normallyaround $300, the TurboShear offers adouble whammy—quality and price.”

Available as a drill attachmentand in air models, Malco’s Tur-boShear metal-cutting device can per-form highly accurate straight cuts andleft circular or square cuts in automo-tive steel. The TurboShears’ wide jawopening allows the tool to easily makecuts in auto body panels, rocker panelsand plastic bumpers effortlessly.

Malco Products, Inc. in Annan-dale, MN, was founded 1950 when ayoung steel supply salesman, MarkW. Keymer, decided to manufactureand market a pipe crimper he had in-vented for use in sheet metal ductworkused with forced air heating systems.More tools soon followed and thebusiness that started in a garage soonbecame a national enterprise. Sixty-three years later, the name Malco is

still associated with quality and relia-bility, as well as being known for reg-ularly introducing exciting new handtool designs and modifications for thevarious industries it serves.

Malco’s website (www.malco-

products.com) is packed with usefulinformation about its automotivetools, complete with easy-to-use intu-itive videos, a useful blog (Tool Talk)and a dealer locator.

In the United States, Malco’sauto body tools can also be purchasedthrough two main online distributors,Summit Racing Equipment and AutoBody ToolMart.

Malco’s TurboShears Quickly Becoming Tech’s Go-To Cutter

Malco’s TurboShears cut easily through autobody panels and profiles, including layeredmetal, rocker panels and plastic bumpers

Malco’s 18-gauge Heavy Duty Metal-CuttingTurboShear that can make straight cuts aswell as left circular or square cuts in automo-tive steel

Pete Brooks, of Restoration House Auto Bodyin East Alton, cleans up a Chevrolet 1968Camaro Rally Sport SS, as the final work isdone after the historic car was rear-ended.The Telegraph/MARGIE M. BARNES


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

Eliminate dust, dirt and sparks from time consuming grinding!A narrow shear head with spacer guide cuts through the rounded door-hem edge and navigates

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In March, Pike’s CARSTAR cele-brated its 30th year in business inMadison, OH. The shop is also cele-brating its 24th year as a CARSTARfranchise. Happily for the shop, onMarch 14, the Madison/Perry AreaChamber of Commerce honored thesmall locally-owned business as its2013 Business of the Year.

The honor came as a surprise toCARSTAR owners Doug andTamara Pike.

“I was very pleased,” Doug Pikesaid. “I hadn’t given it muchthought, so it definitely came as asurprise.”

“I was overwhelmed,” TamaraPike said. “It was quite an honor. Wemay have to devote an entire wallspace to all of the plaques andawards.”

The Madison/Perry Area Cham-ber of Commerce used three criteriato name the 2013 Business of theYear. One was that the business hadproven to be successful. The secondcriterion was that the business reliedon other local businesses for part ofits work. CARSTAR in Madison ac-quires used parts and other gear from

local businesses. It also offers tow-ing, alignments, some mechanicalrepairs as part of its own non-insur-ance paid business to local cus-tomers. The third criterion was thatthe business is involved in the com-

munity. Pike’s CARSTAR has beeninvolved in sponsorship and dona-tions for scores of local organiza-tions and community events since1985.

“It started when my daughterElena asked us to sponsor her soft-ball team,” Doug Pike said. “Sincethen we’ve sponsored a lot of localteam and athletes.”

He said every year since thenCARSTAR in Madison has spon-sored youth organizations like the

Madison Softball Association, theMadison Little League, the MadisonSoccer League, the Madison Mus-tangs Girls’ travel soccer team andMadison Youth Basketball. It spon-sors coach pitch and t-ball. It also

sponsors Madison AdultLeague softball.

“We’ve been doing thisfor long enough that I’m fix-ing cars for the sons anddaughters of customers wehad during the early days ofyouth sports sponsorship,”he said.

Pike’s CARSTAR inMadison also sponsors

events for the social benefit of thecommunity. Pike named the ‘Soaps-It-Up’ car wash benefit held yearlyfor the Madison Food Bank and theMake-A-Wish Foundation as ex-tremely successful. The MadisonBoy Scouts troop helps with thisevent. With 140 cars washed, thebenefit received recognition in theGuinness Book of World Records.

Many other CARSTAR fran-chises around the country are fol-lowing CARSTAR in Madison’s lead

in the ‘Soaps-It-Up’ program.Also noteworthy is ‘Military

Month,’ which supports local ser-vicemen and women. This year 120‘care boxes’ of goods were sent tothem. CARSTAR also sponsors adinner for veterans at the AmericanLegion. The list of communityevents Pike’s CARSTAR in Madisonsupports is long. These are just a fewexamples.

“We don’t do these things forrecognition,” Pike said. “We’re justpeople doing our bit to help people.”

Tamara Pike said the list of gov-ernment entities and organizationshonoring CARSTAR of Madison as2013 Business of the Year was amaz-ing.

“There were so many,” she said.“They included recognition from theLake County commissioners, theOhio Senate, Madison Schools,Madison Township, the Village ofNorth Perry and many others.”

Doug and Tamara Pike saidPike’s CARSTAR in Madison willcontinue to help the community aslong as it’s in business.

Business of the Year, Ohio Pike’s CARSTAR Celebrates 30 Years


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Drew Industries Relocates HQ from NY to INDrew Industries Inc. has announcedplans to relocate its headquarters fromWhite Plains, NY, to Indiana. It willalso expand its manufacturing opera-tions, creating up to 800 new jobs by2017.

Founded in 1962, Drew Indus-tries, through its wholly-owned oper-ating subsidiaries, Lippert Componentsand Kinro, is a supplier of componentsfor RVs and manufactured homes. Inaddition, Drew Industries manufac-tures components for adjacent indus-tries including buses, trailers used tohaul boats, livestock, equipment andother cargo, truck caps, modular hous-ing and factory-built mobile officeunits.

Drew Industries, parent com-pany of Elkhart County-based Lip-pert Components, Inc. and KinroInc., plans to invest $12.75 millionto renovate and equip four manufac-turing facilities in Goshen andElkhart. As part of the project, DrewIndustries will install new manufac-turing and production lines, whichare expected to be operational thisyear.

With more than 5,200 full-timeemployees across the country, DrewIndustries currently has approxi-mately 3,400 employees in Indiana.

The company has already begun hir-ing additional engineers, furniture as-semblers, general laborers, driversand welders in Elkhart County.

“We have experienced signifi-cant growth over the past three years,”said Jason D. Lippert, chairman andCEO of Lippert Components andKinro. “When looking to relocate ourcorporate headquarters, Indiana madethe most sense due to its talentedworkforce, and because most of theRVs produced in the United States areproduced in Elkhart County. Wegreatly appreciate the support pro-vided to us by the state of Indiana,Elkhart County and the cities ofGoshen and Elkhart and we look for-ward to continued growth and futuresuccess here.”

From 30 factories locatedthroughout the United States, thecompany’s products include chassis,fabricated steel chassis parts, slide-outmechanisms, axles, upholstered furni-ture, mattresses, windows, doors, lev-eling and stabilization equipment,suspension enhancement products,electronics, thermoformed productsand aluminum extrusion products.

Michigan’s governor recently signedoff on Senate Bill (SB) 61 and 62, ef-fectively striking down most favorednation (MFN) clauses by health carecorporations and insurers in the state.

Though the legislation did notaddress property and casualty insur-ers, the Automotive Service Associa-tion says this is good news forautomotive repairers.

MFN clauses appear in a numberof agreements offered by major na-tional insurance companies and allowinsurance companies to negotiate thatthey get the absolute best price avail-able on services.

The text of SB 61 says: “Begin-ning January 1, 2014, a health carecorporation shall not use a most fa-vored nation clause in any providercontract, including a provider contractin effect on January 1, 2014.”

Ron Pyle, ASA president andchief staff executive, responds, “Al-though this legislation does not in-clude property and casualty insurers,it supports ASA’s position that MFNclauses can harm consumers.

“We are going to continue towork with the Department of Justiceas well as state legislators to educatethem on the negative impact they

(MFN) have upon the consumer andthe entire collision repair industry,” hesaid.

ASA officials participated in a2012 U.S. Department of Justice andFederal Trade Commission workshoprelated to MFN clauses. Following theworkshop, ASA sent a letter to the as-sistant attorney general for the An-titrust Division at the U.S. Departmentof Justice requesting a review of theMFN clauses used in many propertyand casualty direct repair agreements.This letter centered in on the “poten-tially harmful, anti-competitive impactof these clauses on consumers and col-lision repair shops,” according to anASA release.

More specifically, the letterstates, “ASA’s collision repair mem-bers have raised a significant concernregarding insurer-repairer direct repairagreements. An increasing number ofour collision repair shop owners arefaced with direct repair agreementsoffered by insurance companies,which include most favored nation ormost favored customer clauses.”

The letter continues, “For thelarge majority of collision repairers,not participating in insurer direct re-pair programs is not a viable option.”

Michigan Approves Bills Banning MFN Clauses;ASA Says This is Good News for Repairers



An auto body shop in Libertyville, IL,recently closed after 110 years in busi-ness because the shop is located on theborder of a forest preserve.

Rehm’s Auto Body Shop, knownfor its dent removals, custom workand paint jobs, serviced well-to-dofamilies, local municipalities andgearheads from throughout NorthernIllinois for a century, the LibertyvilleReview recently reported. The shop isknown for working on a car formerlyowned by Al Capone.

“Our paint jobs were knownstatewide,” Al Rehm said. “There wasalways someone we didn’t know fromsome from some far-off place whowould show up asking for work ontheir cars.”

The 4.1-acre lot near BuckleyRoad and River Road once held twohouses, a barn and a car shop thatwere home to five generations of theRehm family, and was visited bycountless auto enthusiasts. Al and JeffRehm are brothers and members ofthe fourth generation.

“As I drive through Libertyville,I don’t see any building with a famil-iar name,” Jeff said. “It’s a sign of thetimes. I guess that happens after 50,75, 100 years.”

The legacy started in the early1900s. Henrick Rehm arrived in theUnited States in 1880 and was awagon builder in Chicago until he de-cided to move to the area now knownas Libertyville in 1902.

Henrick had two homes inChicago and slowly dismantled one ofthem and transported it piece-by-pieceto his new property off Buckley Roadand River Road. The house was thenreassembled, and one of the exteriordoors became a family favorite afterthey realized the frame had rubbed

against a wagon wheel during the trip.Jeff said his great grandfather

(Henrick) wanted to be a grape farmerinitially, but customers from Chicagocontinued to write him and appear at theproperty asking for work on wagons.

“He was too well-known to retire,”Jeff said. “He built a shop next to the

house and that’swhen it started.Every Rehm boyworked there atone point or an-other.”

Henrick diedin 1915 and hisonly son Henrytook over thefamily business.As automobilesbecame morepopular, thesame oven Hen-

rick used to heat and expand steel rimson wagon wheels became the ovenHenry used to bake the enamel on carparts after they were painted.

Henry died in 1960 and his sonsHenry (Hank), Albert (Bert), and Ed(Doc) took over the shop and lived onthe land.

Jeff and Al are Bert’s sons. Jeffmoved to Indiana and works in com-puters and Al and his sons, Richardand Ross, stayed and worked the shopuntil its closure in January.

Some of the family’s fond memo-ries include a time when Al and Jeff’sfather was hired to paint fire trucks inthe 1930s.

“Our dad finished the job and hadan extra can of the paint,” Jeff said.“Fire trucks are painted with a specialtint of red, so he painted his Buickwith the extra paint. He was the talkof the town.”

Jeff and Al say an old Model-Tcar is rumored to be buried some-where on the land. Jeff said the mostcommonly told story involves a drop-off job that nobody came back for andhis uncles and grandfather worried itwas a mob-stolen car.

Rehm’s Auto Body Shop alsodid work on a car formerly ownedby Al Capone. Jeff said a nearbywealthy car collector asked the fam-ily to “give it the works” after ac-quiring the relic some time afterCapone’s death.

But a controversial life estate withthe Lake County Forest Preserve Dis-trict ended the family’s run. Theirshop is on the border of IndependenceGrove Forest Preserve, a highly vis-ited venue.

Al and Jeff say the forest preservewanted the land and threatened to useeminent domain in 1976 unless theirfather and uncles would sign the$29,400 life estate.

Hank Rehm was last of the threeuncles listed on the estate, and he diedin December after an accident in hisnursing home. The forest preserve hasgiven Al and Jeff until the end of April

to remove all possessions from the land.“It’s really sad because after the

woods grow out, you’d never know afamily lived there for 100 years,” Jeffsaid. “It’s not like a corner of down-

town everybodydrives past andwould pointout.”Mike Tully is

the director ofoperations andpublic safety forthe Lake CountyForest PreserveDistrict. He con-firmed the life

estate and found a record saying thedistrict considered condemning theland in 1975, one year prior to the lifeestate.

“I cannot confirm or deny any in-tentions made back then,” Tully said.“The Rehm property has not been apoint of contention aside from a fewisolated complaints regarding junkedcars near the garage. We’re more thanwilling to work with the family onproperly removing anything of senti-mental value.”

Forest Preserve Closes Illinois Auto Body Shop After 110 Years


Al Rehm, of RoundLake, and Jeff Rehm,of Indiana, reminisceabout 110 years ofRehm’s Autobody

Shop and all the gen-erations that lived onthe land before it

closed in January. JoeShuman~For Sun-

Times Media

Hank and Bert Rehmin 1985. The brotherswere part of the thirdgeneration to work inRehm's Auto Body

Shop. Photo courtesyof Jeff Rehm

become Gold Class, and what newprograms are becoming available.

In addition, the meetings will dis-cuss how ‘steering’ or deceptive refer-rals affect body shops, how businessescan create stronger customer loyalty,and the latest news on parts procure-ment.

To register, go to IABAmeet-ings.com. For more information, contactTony Passwater at (317) 290-0611.

Continued from Cover

IABA and I-CAR Nissan North America named KentO’Hara as senior director of aftersales for the U.S. and Canada, andparts and service (P&S) projects andstrategy for the Americas.

O’Hara previously served as Nis-san’s director of P&S and marketingand sales. His new role will includeoversight of after sales for Canada, anda focus on the revenue growth of thecompany’s overall P&S strategy.

O’Hara’s new position took ef-fect April 1.

Nissan Names O’Hara Director




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Mercedes-Benz of Westmont

G E N U I N E P A R T S

Laurel Auto Groupof Westmont

Truth in EngineeringLarge Inventory of OEM PartsQuick, Courteous ServiceKnowledgeable Staff

Insist on Original BMW Parts and Accessories

• Two Deliveries Daily• 17 Delivery Trucks

AudiGenuine Parts

Dean Fisher, owner of CARSTARYorkville in Yorkville, IL, is transi-tioning his business to his son Justinthrough an 18-month plan to teachhim the ropes of running a successfulcollision repair company. On April 1,Justin opened the doors of CARSTARYorkville as the new owner.

“It’s an incredible feeling to seeyour son take over your business, notonly as a parent but as a businessowner,” said Dean Fisher, who joinedthe CARSTAR family in 1990, and iswidely recognized as a top operator inthe CARSTAR network. “He bringsan entirely new perspective to a prettytraditional business model, and I’mexcited to see how he applies his ex-perience in information technology,analytics and operations to the com-pany. I know he’s not going to doeverything the same way I did—andthat’s great. We have built a successfulfamily business on providing that per-sonal touch with our customers anddelivering the highest quality repairs,and I know that will continue. Justinis a diamond in the rough, and I lookforward to seeing him become a greatowner in the CARSTAR network.”

For Justin Fisher, following inhis father’s footsteps is an honor—onewith big shoes to fill. A graduate ofNorthern Illinois University in 2005with a B.S. in Business Administra-tion, he has honed his skills in busi-ness operations, sales, projectmanagement and team leadershipthrough previous positions with AxisDesigns, Press One/Circulation Serv-ices and Results Companies.

But the younger Fisher would notcharacterize himself as the “car guy”his father is.

“He started in the back end of theshop and is a guy who can restore orrepair anything. Over the years he hascombined those skills with the busi-ness management skills needed to runa successful shop,” Justin Fisher said.

“I’m more focused on the frontend of the shop where I can use myexperience in IT, data analysis and fi-nancial operations to help us continueto grow our company. Today’s colli-sion repair shop has evolved to thepoint where it is tough for one personto be the repair expert and the businessexpert both,” he added. “We have anincredible team of body repair profes-

sionals who deliver the highest qualityrepairs. I want to let them continue todo great work. I just want to bring theresources and guidance to helping uscontinue to achieve strong operatingstandards and customer satisfactionlevels as we expand our business.”

Dean Fisher noted that the keys toa successful transition are respect,communication and openness to doingthings differently.

“The number one factor is respectfor each other and the strengths andweaknesses we both have,” said DeanFisher. “You have a business relation-ship and the father-son relationship, soyou have to respect both. You alsoneed to be open to accepting newways of doing things. I know it’s notgoing to always be done the way I’vealways done things. That can be toughfor an entrepreneur to handle!

“It’s also important to listen andlearn when you’re transitioning yourbusiness to your son or daughter,” headded. “They’re going to have freshthinking and look at things from a dif-ferent vantage point, and that’s whatany business needs to stay alive andthrive.”

Dean Fisher has owned multipleautomotive-related companies for 37years. He has served as chairman ofthe Chicagoland Business Grouptwice and has been a board memberfor 16 years. He has served onCARSTAR’s operation, insurance andmarketing committees, and has been amember of the CARSTAR AdvisoryBoard twice, including serving asvice-chair in 2011.

Fisher and CARSTAR Yorkvillehave received numerous awards fortheir service excellence and profes-sional image in the industry includingthe 2012 CARSTAR Franchisee of theYear.

Their commitment to improvingthe business through ongoing staff ed-ucation and I-CAR Gold class certifi-cation has helped them deliverexcellent customer service for nearlyfour decades.

Father Hands Yorkville, IL, CARSTAR Shop Over to Son


513.782.1131 Fax

Parts Direct Lines:

JAKE SWEENEY BMW

Original BMW Parts

bmwusa.com

105 West Kemper RoadCincinnati, OH 45246

www.sweeneybmw.com

Large inventory of Original BMW Parts & AccessoriesPremium customer service from our experienced staffFast, friendly delivery Monday-FridayTechnical information available

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From OEM to aftermarket, see all theCollision Parts we have to offer!

513.782.2829513.782.2846 FAX

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Hours:Mon. - Fri. 7:30am - 6pm

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• Large Inventory• Exceptional Service

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ABRA Auto Body & Glass acquiredall five Hubler Express Collision re-pair centers located in and near Indi-anapolis, IN. The new ABRA centersare located in the cities of Green-wood, Indianapolis, Carmel, Fishers,and Plainfield.

The acquisition nearly doublesABRA’s presence in Indiana. Thecompany entered the Indiana marketin 2012 with the opening of a repaircenter in Kokomo, IN, and the ac-quisition of all five Collision Solu-tions locations in Indianapolis.

The latest acquisition brings thetotal number of ABRA repair centersin the state to 11 and increases ABRA’scorporate and franchise repair centersto 149 in 16 states.

Hubler Express Collision’sowners John Dompier and RobWilsonwill join forces with ABRA’sstaff and assume leadership roles inthe company to help maintain andmanage operations in the Indianapo-lis market.

“We've been exploring new mar-kets and growth opportunities acrossthe country,” said ABRA DuaneRouse, President and Chief ExecutiveOfficer. “Hubler Express Collision’sstrong position in the market made ita natural fit for ABRA.”

ABRA Buys 5 Indiana Shops AASP-MN Names New Board of DirectorsApril marks the beginning of servicefor the 2013–2014 Alliance of Auto-motive Service Providers of Minnesota(AASP-MN) Board of Directors.

The new additions to the boardare: Joyce Weinhandl, Northfield &Twin City Auto Body, Bloomington;and Greg Kasel, Downtown Tire &Auto, Hastings.

The new officers are PresidentDan Sjolseth, Superior Service Center,Eagan, and Secretary-Treasurer JeraldStiele, Hopkins Auto Body, Hopkins.

John Ritter, Jr., Highland Au-tostar Collision in St. Paul continueson the board as immediate past presi-dent and will be joined by: MechanicalDivision Director Tom Gleason, Pro-Tech Auto Repair, Corcoran; CollisionDivision Director Mike Cox, Ed’s Col-

lision & Glass, Maple Grove; Associ-ate Division Director Kevin Martin,PPG Automotive Fin-ishes, Edina; and Me-chanical Seat ScottMcClure, St. PaulAutomotive, St. Paul.

AASP-MN ex-tends is sincere appre-ciation to outgoingBoard members TomAldridge, Dale FesteAutomotive, Hopkins;Patrick McKinney,aaa Auto Parts, Rose-mount; and BruceTschida, Lake MarionCollision, Lakeville.

All of thesemembers are to becommended for theirdedicated service toAASP-MN and Min-nesota’s automotiveservice industry.

The 2013-2014Board was installedduring the AASP-MN Annual Meeting & Convention,April 12, at the Crowne Plaza Min-neapolis West, Plymouth.

AASP-MN is an association ofindependently-owned automotive

service businesses and industry sup-pliers dedicated to improving Min-

nesota’s automotive service industryand the success of its nearly 650members.For more information, visit:www.aaspmn.org.

Outgoing President John Ritter Jr. (right),turns over the gavel to incoming PresidentDan Sjolseth

AASP-MN Board members (l to r): Outgoing immediate pastPresident Tom Aldridge, Dale Feste Automotive, Hopkins; CollisionDivision Director, Mike Cox, Ed’s Collision & Glass, Maple Grove;Secretary/Treasurer, Jerald Stiele, Hopkins Auto Body, Hopkins;President, Dan Sjolseth, Superior Service Center, Eagan;Mechanical Seat, Greg Kasel, Downtown Tire & Auto, Hastings;Mechanical Seat, Scott McClure, St. Paul Automotive, St. Paul ;Immediate Past President, John Ritter, Jr., Highland Autostar, St.Paul; Collision Seat, Joyce Weinhandl, Twin City Auto Body,Bloomington; Outgoing Associate Division Director, PatrickMcKinney, aaa Auto Salvage, Rosemount; and Executive Director,Judell Anderson. Not pictured: Incoming Associate DivisionDirector, Kevin Martin, PPG Automotive Finishes, Edina; IncomingMechanical Division Director, Tom Gleason, Pro-Tech Auto Repair,Corcoran; and Outgoing Collision Seat, Bruce Tschida, LakeMarion Collision

by Ed Attanasio

While most teenagers were playingLittle League and going to summercamp, John Wargo, the owner of TheCustom Shop in Flanagan, IL, spenthis spare time restoring and paintingcars. Now 43 and a highly-acclaimedcar fabricator, builder and painter,Wargo uses Pro-Spray paint on all hiscreations, many of which appear atmajor car shows nationwide and sellfor as much as $80,000.

Every year, he wins an average of25 best paint awards for his show cars.And even though he’s worked on lit-erally hundreds of cars and motorcy-cles during his highly successfulcareer, Wargo still vividly remembersthe first vehicle he ever painted.

“It was a 1975 Firebird and I was15, so I couldn’t even drive it,” Wargosaid. “I worked on it for about sixmonths and that’s where it all started.I wanted to have a nice car when I wasold enough to drive, so I did all thebody work myself and then did a two-tone paint job on it. It wasn’t anythingspectacular, but I thought it was prettycool when I was 15.”

After completing two years of vo-cational training and learning the ba-sics of mechanical repair, Wargoturned down a college football schol-arship and pursued his passion forcustomizing cars. “I got involved in it

right after high school but I couldn’tafford to do it full-time. In 1988, Itook a job working the night shift at aprinting company producing full-colormagazine covers and then I openedmy shop during the day. It worked outvery well, because I learned a lotabout PMS colors, as well as tintingand mixing and blending themthrough my exposure to the printingprocesses we used. I wasn’t planningit like that, but it just worked out thatway.”

Wargo switched over to Pro-Spray seven years ago and he’shappy he did. “Pro-Spray gives usour best bang for the buck, and that’swhy we changed over in 2006. Withall the primers, sealers, hardeners,reducers—it can really add up. WithPro-Spray I am getting a real valueper every sprayable pint, because weuse less and the coverage is excep-tional.”

With six vehicles and three mo-torcycles in different stages of com-pletion currently sitting in his 12,000square-foot shop that includes a mod-est showroom, Wargo is passionateand driven to build amazing cre-ations.

But, he’s also passionate aboutcustomer service as well. To get alarge project ready for this year’s De-troit Auto Rama, Wargo worked 16hours every day for an entire month todeliver a spectacular 1967 KarmannGhia with a Viper V-10 motor to hiscustomer just in time for the show.

With a crew consisting of threemulti-talented techs, The CustomShop builds roughly a dozen vehiclesand 15-20 motorcycles every year,including one show-class car done

in-house annually.Wargo’s signaturestyle has been de-scribed in manyways, but the oneword most associ-ated with his workis simply, “Wow!”His love of colors isevident in every-thing he paints andhe isn’t afraid touse as many as it’s

required in order to fulfill his vision.In fact, one of his creations (a Fordpickup) was painted using 53 colors!

To achieve that wow factor eachtime on every car or motorcycle hepaints, Wargo uses Pro-Spray’s Sol-

vent Basecoat System. And eventhough it’s a British product, Wargopaints American cars with it all daylong and is always ecstatic with thefinished product. As his #1 critic and atrue artist, Wargo is always searchingfor that perfect paint job and Pro-Spray has been answering the calltime and again.

As a painter who covets new,exciting custom colors, Wargo was

immediately attracted by the colorlibrary Pro-Spray features, he ex-plained.

“Pro-Spray’s custom line is ex-ceptional, which is ideal for someone

like me who does custom paint work.I originally found the company whenI discovered their line of ‘OutrageousCustom Finishes,’ and used a few ofthem on some cars I was painting.From there I decided to go with thePro-Spray and it has worked out greatever since.

“I also really appreciate the at-omization I get with the Pro-Spray,”Wargo said. “In a perfect world, the

solvent is supposedto evaporate in theair, so that it does-n’t get trapped intothe paint job. Thatprevents us fromgetting that dieback. With the Pro-Spray, it’s easy togo back and makea repair on the caror on the paint jobdown the road, be-cause it’s easy to

match up and simple to blend into,which many painters don’t thinkabout until two years later whenthey have to go back and fix some-thing.”


Dayton6897 N. Dixie Dr.937-890-3002

Piqua1213 South St.937-778-0552

Piqua

West Carrollton450 Fame Rd.937-866-6766

Lancaster279 Cedar Hill Rd.

740-687-1420

Chillicothe250 Park St.

740-702-2886

Springfield560 E. Main St.937-324-4741

Columbus - North2550 Morse Rd.614-471-6466

Columbus - Downtown212 N. Grant Ave.

614-228-4328

ColumbusCompressor/Service Center

215 Cleveland Ave.614-228-4336

(8,000 sq.ft. that is dedicatedto ONLY service)

Everything for the Body Shop

www.autobodysupply.com

Autobody Supply/Carpaint is the first choice in Ohio for all your shop’s needs. We have the services & products you need to be successful.

Our sales and service are the best in the business.

50+ years in the automotive paint business; We have the knowledge & products your company needs in today’s competitive market.

Training center available.

AUTOBODY ®

SUPPLY CO., INC.

Lancaster - North

SUPPLY C O., INC.

CARPAINT

Custom Shop Masters Pro-Spray to Make an Artistic Statement

John Wargo, the owner of The Custom Shopin Flanagan, IL, uses Pro-Spray on most ofhis award-winning vehicles

Wargo named this creation “SSAWD”— a play on words because hechopped the vehicle and it’s an SS model— a 1969 Camaro Road-ster, with all-wheel drive and a wide body air ride

Named “Project Grand Sport,” this 1968 Convertible Camaro GrandSport is a custom monster that has received a ton of awards for TheCustom Shop at major shows


Direct: 330-460-7080Fax: 330-460-7082

Toll Free: 888.460.7080Call us Today!

3041 Center Rd. • Brunswick, OH 44212www.brunswickautomart.com

H Hours: M-F 8am - 6pm / Sat 8am - 4pmHours: M-F 8am - 6pm / Sat 8am - 4pmHours: M-F 8am - 6pm / Sat 8am - 4pm

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• Fast Free DeliveryiiiiivvvelllDDDeeeeeFFttFasFFFaaa••• ••• LLLLLLLaaaaaarrrrgggggggeeee IIIIIInnnnnnvvvvvveeeeeeeennnnnnnnntttttttttooooooorrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyorrvvvnnnvee IIL gLLaaa•••• LLLL••••• OOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhiiiiiiioooooo’’’ssssss LLLLLLaaaaaarrrrrrggggggeeeeeeesssstttttt VVVVVVVoooooollllllluuuuuummmmmmmeeeeee DDDDDDeeeeeaaaaallleeeeerrrroooolVVVsstaa gLLshhhiiOOOOOOO••••••••• CCCCCCrrrrreeeeeeedddddddiiiiittttt TTTTTTTeeeeeeerrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmsssssss AAAAvvvvvaaaaaiiilllaaabbbbbblllleeeeTTeeit TT

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Redefining an entire category in anindustry is a rare thing, but the nextgeneration of clears has certainly ar-rived with the new Glasurit® Multi-Purpose Gloss and Rapid RepairClears. Together, they form a stream-lined clearcoat system you can use toperform any size repair while in-creasing quality, productivity and cus-tomer satisfaction.

Multi-Purpose Gloss Clear 923-460 for non-regulated areas and lowVOC 923-220 Multi-Purpose GlossClear have been formulated by Glasuritchemists to improve on their highly re-garded predecessors.

According to BASF Market Seg-ment Manager Tony Dyach, they re-flect the latest advances in coatingstechnology. “These new clears over-come the typical trade-off between ap-pearance, performance and ease ofapplication,” said Dyach. “They arebetter in every way that matters to ourcustomers, and will delight their cus-tomers with superior gloss and dura-bility.”

The Multi-Purpose Gloss Clearsjoin the equally ground-breaking no-bake Rapid Repair Clears to giveyou a comprehensive clearcoat sys-tem that covers everything fromsmall panel and tight-space applica-tions to large areas and overalls. Justwhen you thought the most stunningfinish had been achieved, Glasurithas once again raised the bar withthese next-generation clears, deliv-

ering the ultimate European wetlook.

New gold standard for premium clearsSince being introduced by Glasurit in2011, innovative Rapid Repair Clear923-140 for non-regulated areas andlow VOC 923-240 Rapid Repair Clearhave redefined small panel repair per-formance with no fuss, no-bake con-venience. After months of extensive,in-market testing, the Multi-PurposeGloss Clears have also proven them-selves. Together, they offer a new goldstandard for shop managers, painttechnicians and owners:• Glasurit Multi-Purpose Gloss andRapid Repair Clears meet or ex-ceed all OEM standards, and arefully approved for your warranty workover 90-Line waterborne or 55-Linesolventborne basecoats.• Spraying is effortless with the samegreat flow and distinctness of image;while cure, ease of application, and pol-ishing have been significantly enhanced.• The “Multi-Purpose” moniker iswell deserved as the new formulationsare designed for large areas and over-alls, while also flexible enough to han-dle smaller areas or blend panels.

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(Regarding Multi-Purpose GlossClear) “Our customers love the highgloss, and our painters love how easyit is to apply and to buff. We were up

and running in no time since the newclears work seamlessly within our ex-isting Glasurit system.”

“Glasurit Rapid Repair works great.It’s the perfect choice for small individ-ual parts like fenders and moldings.”

A clear revolutionAs customers become more demanding,BASF and its premium Glasurit® brandcontinue to build on over 120 years ofmeaningful innovation. The new Multi-

Purpose Gloss and Rapid RepairClears are the latest example of thecompany’s focus on continuous im-provement of its products throughthe latest science and technology.These next-generation clearcoats

offer the superior performance and ap-pearance expected by the most demand-ing collision repair centers, along withcustom builders and elite restoration spe-cialists. BASF encourages shops to con-sider these revolutionary clears as aneasy-to-implement competitive advan-tage that will enhance quality, produc-tivity and customer satisfaction.

For more information, contact aBASF representative at 1-800-758-2273or visit www.basfrefinish.com/glasurit.


The Collision Partsthat Fit the Best

The Collision Partsthat Fit the Best

Direct Line:866-874-6346 Fax: 331-457-4661

Tom Ryan Wholesale Parts Manager

[email protected]

1550 W. Ogden Ave.Naperville, IL 60540

• Twice a day delivery throughout Chicagoland and Suburbs• Competitive Pricing• 40 years of combined parts experience

www.buyinfinitiparts.comMon. - Fri. 7am - 8pmSat. 8am - 3pm

Infiniti of Naperville

Glasurit Introduces Comprehensive, 2-Clears Solution

CARSTAR Auto Body Repair Expertshas added Superior CARSTAR Paintand Body Shop in Tipp City, OH, to itsnetwork. Owned by Greg Arnett, Su-perior CARSTAR Paint and BodyShop is located at 125 W. Broadwayand has been serving the region since1980. They specialize in paint andbody restoration on American and for-eign cars, trucks and vans.

“By teaming up with CARSTARAuto Body Repair Experts, we are ableto acquire new resources that allow usto improve our customer service, cycletimes and relationships with insurance

companies,” said Arnett, owner of Su-perior CARSTAR Paint and BodyShop. “And, all the while still keepingour hometown characteristics.”

The CARSTAR Management Sys-tem provides stores resources to im-prove key business metrics such ascycle time, participation in CARSTAR’s19 corporately managed DRP programs,and improved purchasing power from45 corporately managed purchasingprograms.“We are excited to have Greg Arnettjoin the CARSTAR network,” saidDavid Byers, CEO of CARSTAR.

Superior CARSTAR in Tipp City, OH, Added to MSO Network

Are signs still relevant in this digitalage of websites, Facebook, Twitter,YouTube and more? The U.S. CensusBureau says 18% of households relo-cate every year. It’s well known thatmany people choose a place of busi-ness by the attractiveness of its ap-pearance and signs. People who moveinto the vicinity of a collision repairfacility are likely to only know of theshop if they see a sign and like it. TheSmall Business Agency reports thatbusinesses that add, improve or en-large signage enjoy an average rev-enue increase of about 5%.

Signs in this digital age shouldalso have a broader focus. In additionto the usual location and services mes-sage, today’s sign should also driveviewers to the shop’s website, Face-book page, and other on-line locationslike Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube.This is especially true of signs not onthe shop’s physical property. Shop ve-hicles with printed information, or amagnetic sign, should definitely em-phasize on-line connections in largertype.

The same is true if the shop in-vests in bus bench ads, bus ads, taxi-cab ads or billboards. All of the signsand ads should have the same lookand feel with a prominent logo andany other images used. Some shopslike to use a photo of the shop but thisspace could be much better used.

Signs with an emotional appealalways do better. Charities use photosof handicapped children or handi-

capped older people to reach viewersemotionally. Sympathy may work forthem but fear is a much better targetemotion for body shop sign messages.One survey found 9% of vehicle driv-ers text or talk on a cell phone whiledriving. A dramatic photo of an in-verted crashed vehicle could captureattention with a message like, “Thiscould be you. Don’t text and drive oryou might be paying us a visit,” or“Don’t read this sign if we’re inter-rupting your text message. We’ll seeyou at the shop.”

One key to an effective sign isuniqueness. Check out your competi-tion’s signs to see what you shouldn’tdo. You don’t want to be sending a “metoo” message. It’s pointless to empha-size quality. Everyone expects that. Em-phasizing cost for self-pay prospects isfine, but is unlikely to motivate thosewho expect insurance to pay. One ap-proach that isn’t often used is the colli-sion prevention emphasis. It takes a tipfrom dentists who emphasize tooth carebut know they’ll be fixing the teeth any-way. A shop with an adequate facility tohold a small weekly or monthly classcould provide information on collisionaversion and prevention. Insuranceagents would be glad to speak to youngdrivers or students just for the exposureto new potential customers. The signinvitation message would be trulyunique.

The size and location of a signgenerally determines how many peo-ple see and read it. Today’s huge, dig-

ital moving signs are astonishing butalso very expensive. Ten years ago Ipriced out a Las Vegas style movingneon sign for a shop. The cost wasover $500,000. It’s probably muchless today but still prohibitive for anyregular sized shop. But this type ofsign is worth checking out. In a loca-tion by heavy street or highway traf-fic this kind of sign would capturecontinual viewers. A while back onegroup of shops in the same generalarea pooled their resources and in-vested in large signage. They calledthemselves “Gold Class CollisionShops” and listed all locations on thesigns. I was surprised by the coopera-tion of shop owners who were actuallycompeting for business in that area.

There is one final concern aboutthe message on signs and relatedmedia. Any shop with a websitewould like to have their site appear onGoogle’s or Yahoo’s first page whensomeone searches for a collision re-

pair facility in their area. The searchengine that weighs and evaluates thesite determines in what order their siteappears. My web-savvy sources tellme content on a site is very importantand the keywords used in that contentmay determine the fate of the sitewhen it is evaluated. If a shop hasdone its homework, the best keywordsthat people look for are known andused frequently in the site’s content.The problem is that all of the othershops doing a professional site will beusing most of the same key words.Here is where a shop seeking unique-ness in signs and ads can multiply thebenefit by incorporating key wordsand images that most other shopswouldn’t use. By approaching thecontent for a sign using the same basickeyword and image idea used to at-tract search engine recognition, it isalso likely to attract a sign’s viewerand drive that viewer to look for theshop’s website.

Using Signage to be Unique in the Digital Age

On Creative Marketingwith Thomas Franklin

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


ABRA Auto Body & Glass continuedits national expansion with the open-ing of a new location in AmericanFork, UT. The new location in-creases the total number of corporateABRA repairs centers in the state toeight.

With this recent opening, ABRAnow operates 101 corporate and 49franchises nationwide in 16 states.

“We’ve reached a substantialmilestone with the opening of our150th repair center,” said DuaneRouse, President and Chief Execu-tive Officer of ABRA. “Our uncom-promising commitment to superiorprocesses and operational excellence

consistently rates us high in customersatisfaction. We’re serious aboutbeing the best and leading the way inthe industry. We have every intentionof not only continuing our growth,but accelerating it.”

The company celebrates its 30thanniversary next year. Tim Adel-mann, Executive Vice Presidentsaid, “We’re all very proud of thehard work, dedication to excellence,and loyalty we’ve built with our cus-tomers and business partners over theyears. We look forward to pursuingour mission of being the best autobody and glass company in Amer-ica.”

ABRA Auto Body & Glass Expands in Utah

dard for complete and safe repairs”while acknowledging that, “Unfortu-nately, not all OEMs offer collision re-pair procedures in the U.S. market, nordo all OEMs offer consistent levels ofcollision repair information,” and that“I-CAR is committed to helping the in-dustry close these gaps by workingclosely with the industry and theOEMs to research, develop, and de-

liver collision repair procedures wherenone exist.” I-CAR also acknowledgedthat work in these areas must be per-formed “from a perspective of neutral-ity with an uncompromising priority oncomplete and safe repairs for the con-sumer.”

In an email, I-CAR stressed thatits focus is on “complete and safe re-pairs for the ultimate benefit of theconsumer,” and said, “We believe theposition and intentions stated in thisletter, which complement those con-veyed speak directly to this.”


IABA “Shop You Can Trust”Webinar Set for May 22The Indiana Autobody Associationwill present a webinar called “AShop You Can Trust Program—TheOverview” on May 22. The IABArecently introduced a consumer-based loyalty program for membersthat will ensure that their consumersare not steered away from their busi-nesses. This free one-hour webinarexplains the program and its featuresand benefits. Tune in on May 22from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. To register,go to: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/678566336.

Spanesi Americas Opens US Location in NapervilleSpanesi SpA Host Company Founderat U.S. Grand Opening Spanesi SpA,an Italy-based manufacturer of auto-motive repair equipment, hosted com-pany founder, Orazio Spanesi for theU.S. grand opening in Naperville, IL,near Chicago.

From the time Orazio repairedhis first car, at the age of 14, he knewhe wanted to be a collision repairtechnician. In 1969, he opened hisfirst repair center based on a passion

for the craft and customer. That samecommitment to collision repair and itstechnicians is what led to the creationof Spanesi SpA, 20 years later.

“My passion for this work hasnever changed. We are dedicated tofinding new solutions and new tech-nologies to make collision repair

faster and safer for the technician,“Orazio Spanesi, Founder.

Leaders from the various seg-ments of the industry and governmentjoined in the days events. Attendeeswere given tours of the new facilityand demonstrations of the productlines while enjoying live music and anassortment of catered foods.

“Today is an exciting day for notonly myself, but the industry as awhole,” Timothy Morgan, Managing

Director. “Not only doesSpanesi offer the bestproducts for our industry,but a commitment to fam-ily business and businesspractices that mirror thoseof the repairers in the U.S.”

Spanesi SpA’s U.S. Sub-sidiary, Spanesi Americas, in-cludes corporate offices, atraining center and productshowroom. The company’sproduct lines include straight-ening benches, mini-benches,

touch electronic measuring systems, vac-uum systems, welding machines, infraredlamps, vehicle lifts, painting tools, spraybooth equipment, pneumatic tools, elec-tric tools and hydraulic tools.

For more information regardingSpanesi SpA products, please visitspanesi.com.


I-CAR Clarifies

Farmers Insurance has presentedKadel’s Auto Bodywith the 2012 NorthAmerican Regional MSO Group of theYear award. The award recognizesKadel’s commitment to service and ex-cellence.

“As in the past, Kadel’s continuesto provide outstanding customer serv-ice and timely, quality vehicle repairs,”said Pete Hickey, national MSOclaims manager for Farmers. “Con-gratulations to everyone at Kadel’sAuto Body for their outstanding effortsand the well-deserved recognition.”

Kadel’s Wins Regional Award




Victory HondaPlymouth

800-824-4646734-453-3600

Dept. Hours:M 7:30-8; Tue-F 7:30-6; Sat 8-4

[email protected]

Basney HondaMishawaka

800-877-7477574-255-2179

Dept. Hours:M-F 7:30-6; Sat 8-2

Bob Rohrman HondaLafayet te

800-488-3537765-448-1000

Dept. Hours:M 7:30-8; Tue-F 7:30-6; Sat [email protected]

Bosak HondaHighland

800-542-6725219-922-3102

Dept. Hours:M 8-5; Tue 8-8 W, Thu, F 8-5; Sat [email protected]

Honda WestInd ianapol is

800-806-6404317-299-3723

Dept. Hours:M-F 8-6

[email protected]

Russ Darrow HondaMilwaukee

888-318-1671414-586-5401

Dept. Hours:M-F 7-6; Sat 7-4; Sun 8-4

[email protected]

Wilde HondaWaukesha

800-526-3209262-542-9300

Dept. Hours:M-F 7-9; Sat 8-4

[email protected]

Carr’s HondaChicago

800-272-7477773-274-7777

Dept. Hours:M-F 7-5; Sat 9-1

[email protected]

Honda Superstoreof Lisle

Chicago/Suburbs866-874-6632

Dept. Hours:M-F 7-5

[email protected]

Jay HondaBedford

800-509-9057440-786-3363

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

[email protected]

MICHIGAN INDIANA ILLINOIS OHIO

The Honda and Acura Dealers Listed Here are Subscribers:HONDA

OHIO ILLINOIS ILLINOIS ILLINOIS

ACURA

Columbia AcuraCinc innat i

800-654-3553513-530-0698

Dept. Hours:M-F 8-5:30; Sat 8-12

[email protected]

Ed Martin AcuraInd ianapol is

888-812-1269317-706-1933

Dept. Hours:M 8-8; Tue-F 8-6; Sat [email protected]

Acura of LibertyvilleL iber tyv i l le

847-680-7333Dept. Hours:

M-F 7:30-6; Sat 7:[email protected]

Arlington Acurain PalatinePalat ine

800-991-8438847-991-9005

Dept. Hours:M-W 7:30-7:30;

Thu-F 7:30-5:30; Sat [email protected]

Continental Acuraof NapervilleChicago/Suburbs888-711-1506630-960-2175

Dept. Hours:M-F 7-5:30; Sat [email protected]

McGrath Acura ofMorton GroveMorton Grove

847-470-2309Dept. Hours:

M-F 7-9; Sat [email protected]

Muller’s Woodfield AcuraHoffman Estates866-475-9280

Dept. Hours:M 7-5; Tue-F 7-6

Sat [email protected]

INDIANA

INDIANA

WISCONSIN

www.autobodynews.comwww.autobodynews.com

AUTOMAKER, OEM, AND RECALLAUTOMAKER, OEM, AND RECALL

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

Autobody News May 2013MICHIGAN • OHIO • INDIANA • ILLINOIS • WISCONSIN


Volvo recalled only seven model-year2013 S60 sedans and XC60 crossoversdue to identification labels with an in-correct manufacture year, according tothe National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration.

Affected vehicles were manu-factured on Jan. 7. An incorrect dateof manufacture on the certificationlabel means the vehicles are noncom-pliant with regulation requirements,and owners may not be able to deter-mine whether their vehicles are af-fected by future recalls. Volvoquarantined the affected vehicles andwill install correct labels before sale.

Volvo Recall for ID Labels

According to the automaker, therecalls stem from a variety of dif-ferent problems involving the tun-nel shield, parking brake, fuel-tanktransfer tube, warning light, rearbrake calipers and engine cover.

The recall includes 78,500older-model 4x2 SUVs for a heatshield that can loosen and contact thedriveshaft, causing wear and possi-ble breakage over time. Officials ex-plained the action follows fewer than40 complaints of broken driveshaftson the 2007 and 2008 Dodge Nitro,Jeep Liberty and the Liberty’s sistermodel sold outside NAFTA.

Chrysler will recall approxi-mately 9,300 trucks, more than halfof which are in currently in dealer in-ventory, to inspect their parkingbrakes and, if necessary, reset themaccording to specification. A routineinternal audit of 2013 Ram 1500pickups discovered a small numberof vehicles whose parking brakes didnot comply with mandated perform-ance standards.

Chrysler also will recall ap-proximately 30,000 model-year2012 SUVs to improve fuel flowwhen the vehicles are subject to cer-tain driving conditions. Affected areJeep Compass and Patriot models as-sembled between Oct. 18, 2011 andMay 7, 2012.

Chrysler will recall approxi-mately 139,000 sedans to preventimproper warning-light illuminationfor model-year 2011 and 2012Chrysler 300s, Dodge Chargers andDodge Challengers assembled be-tween April 11, 2011 and Dec. 14,2011.

Chrysler will recall 52 com-pacts to correct an issue that maycompromise parking brake function.Affected are model-year 2013Dodge Dart models built over 24-hour period in November with brakecalipers that do not meet specifica-tion.

Chrysler will recall approxi-mately 7,000 model-year 2013 heavy-duty pickups — almost all of whichare still in dealer inventory — to re-place their engine covers. Affected areRam 2500 and 3500 pickups.

Chrysler Issued 6 SeparateRecalls for 215,000 Vehicles

Japanese automakers, including Toy-ota, Nissan and Honda, are recallingabout 3.4 million vehicles worldwidedue to defective airbags supplied byTakata Corp.

Toyota is recalling about 1.73million vehicles produced betweenNovember 2000 and March 2004.Honda is recalling about 1.14 millionvehicles, while Nissan said it maycall back 480,000 vehicles. Mazdasaid it recalled 45,463 units.

This recall underscores the riskof huge global supply chain prob-lems as automakers increasingly relyon a handful of suppliers for com-mon or similar parts to cut costs.

Some airbags at the front pas-senger seat may not inflate correctlybecause of a problem with the pro-pellant used in the airbag inflator,Toyota spokesman Ryo Sakai said.

Takata has also supplied thefaulty airbags to non-Japanese car-makers, said Toyohiro Hishikawa,spokesman for the componentsmaker, declining to identify them.Tokyo-based Takata supplies airbagsand seatbelts to major automakers in-cluding Ford Motor Co. and Daimler,as well as the Japanese brands.

No injuries or deaths have beenreported as a result of the faultyairbags, Toyota said.

Japanese OEMs Recall 3.4Million Vehicles for Airbags

Chrysler is telling owners of certainV-6-equipped Dodge Challengers tostop driving their cars until a wiringissue can be fixed. The automaker isvoluntarily recalling approximately2,500 of the 2013 vehicle models toaddress possible short circuiting.

“This condition could cause awire harness to overheat and possiblylead to fire. Chrysler Group is awareof seven such incidents. None causedinjury,” the automaker said. The au-tomaker also advises owners not topark affected vehicles in or near anystructure. According to Chrysler, atotal of 4,459 vehicles are affected,but 1,900 are at dealerships. TheChallengers that are part of the recallwere built during an eight-week pe-riod ending Jan. 24, 2013.

2013 Dodge Challenger Recall for Wiring Issue

Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia MotorsCorp. are recalling about 1.7 millionvehicles in the United States to re-place a faulty switch that can preventbrake lights from illuminating andtrigger other problems.

When a driver presses thebrake, the switch is supposed to turnon the brake lights and turn off thecruise control.

A defective stop lamp switchcould cause the brake lights not to il-luminate, the cruise control not todeactivate or the push-button start towork erratically, Hyundai and Kiasaid.

As many as 1,059,824 Hyundaimodels could be affected. The recallcovers the 2007 to 2009 Accent andTucson; the 2007 to 2010 Elantra;the 2007 to 2011 Santa Fe; the 2008to 2009 Veracruz; the 2010 to 2011Genesis Coupe; and the 2011Sonata.

The Kia vehicles with poten-tially faulty switches are the 2007 to2010 Rondo and Sportage; the 2007to 2011 Sorento; the 2007 Sedona;the 2010 to 2011 Soul; and the 2011Optima. As many as 623,658 ofthose models could be affected.

Hyundai, Kia Recalls 1.7 Million Vehicles for Switch

Toyota Motor Corp. is recalling209,000 certain FJ Cruiser sport-util-ity vehicles from the 2007 through2013 model years due to a problemwith the driver and front passengerseat belts.

The retractors for the vehicles’front driver and passenger seat beltsare mounted in rear-door panels,where cracks can form if the reardoors are forcefully closed repeatedlyover a long period. If this happens,the seat belt retractor could detach,which would increase the risk of in-jury in a crash.

The car maker said it is develop-ing a remedy for the problem and willbegin the recall as soon as it decideson the necessary repairs.

Toyota Recalls 209,000 FJsfor Seatbelt Flaws

Subaru is recalling 16 2012 versionsof the Outback and Legacy due to aproblem with the windshield wipermotor, according to the NationalHighway Traffic Safety Administra-tion. It’s an expansion of an earlier re-call that affected 2010-11 versions ofthe cars.

The affected vehicles were man-ufactured from April 6 through May12, 2011 and use a wiper motor coverthat may overheat. This could lead toa fire.

2012 Subaru Outback,Legacy Recall for Wipers

Honda Motor Co. has the best brandimage of any major auto maker, ac-cording to a study released by KelleyBlue Book. The study takes resultsfrom 12,000 people who were shop-ping for a new car and using its Webpage to do research.

The 2013 Brand Image Awardssay Honda was the most trustedbrand and considered the best valueof all car brands in the survey.

Honda’s U.S. sales rose 24% in2012 and have risen a modest 4.4%in the first two months of the year. Itsredesigned Accord sedan is sellingwell and the company is investingheavily in plants in the U.S. andMexico to meet anticipated demand.

Honda Wins Best BrandImage Award


Ford Focus Outsells CorollaFord said it sold more than one millioncopies of its Focus for the first timelast year. More than 1.02 million com-pact Focus cars were sold worldwidein 2012, outpacing Toyota’s Corolla,of which close to 873,000 were sold,according to data compiled by Polk.

China accounts for one-quarterof all sales, and the Focus was thebest-selling passenger car in China in2012 for the first time ever.

Ford’s F-Series pickup truck,which has been the top-ranked U.S.pickup for close to four decades,rounded out the top three with 785,630sales. The Fiesta, with more than723,000 sold, came in sixth on the list,making it the world’s best-selling sub-compact car.

Honda’s Civic and CR-Vrounded out the top 10 with 651,000and 625,000, respectively.

Ford Motor Co. is recalling about3,500 Taurus and Lincoln MKSsedans and Explorer SUVs.

The Dearborn automaker said itis recalling 2,537 of its 2012 Ford Tau-rus sedans, 968 of its 2012 LincolnMKS sedans and 30 of its 2013 FordExplorer SUVs because their fueltanks may leak at the seam in the eventof a severe accident.

About 3,000 of the vehicles weresold in the U.S. Others were sold inCanada, Mexico, Europe and othermarkets.

The vehicles are all built at Ford’sChicago Assembly Plant.

Ford Recalls 3,500 Cars forPossible Fuel Tank Leaks

Subaru is recalling just 14 2012 Out-back wagons and Legacy sedans dueto a problem with the moonroof glassthat could cause it to detach, accord-ing to the National Highway TrafficSafety Administration.

Affected vehicles were manu-factured between April 6 and May12, 2011. An inadequate amount andposition of adhesive between theglass and retainer of the moonroofcould cause the glass to loosen anddetach while driving, creating a po-tential road hazard and increasing therisk of a crash, according to NHTSA.

2012 Subaru Outback,Legacy Recall for Moonroof

Honda is voluntarily recalling182,800 vehicles due to an electronicstability system malfunction, accord-ing to a statement from the au-tomaker. Affected vehicles are101,000 Honda Pilot crossovers,60,000 Acura MDX SUVs and21,000 Acura RL sedans, all frommodel-year 2005; 800 model-year2006 Acura MDX SUVs are also af-fected.

According to Honda, if an elec-trical capacitor on the system’s con-trol unit was damaged during themanufacturing process, the systemcould malfunction and apply a smallamount of brake force for a fractionof a second outside the driver’s con-trol. If the driver applies the brakesduring a system malfunction, a crashcould result.

182,800 Honda, Acura Vehicles Recalled

General Motors recalled 26,582 ofthe 2013 Buick LaCrosse sedans andCadillac SRX crossovers due to atransmission problem, according tothe National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration. Affected areLaCrosses manufactured April 25,2012-March 6, 2013, and SRXs builtMay 29, 2012- Feb. 18, 2013. A soft-ware problem could cause the trans-mission to inadvertently shift toSport mode.

2013 Buick LaCross, Cadillac SRX Recalled General Motors is recalling 144 of

the 2013 Buick Encore compactcrossovers because of a steeringwheel malfunction, according to theNational Highway Traffic Safety Ad-ministration. The affected vehicleswere manufactured Dec. 9 to Dec.28, 2012, and are equipped with aheated steering wheel. NHTSA re-ports that in these vehicles, the steer-ing-wheel fastener may not havebeen installed properly, causing thesteering wheel to become loose andseparate from the steering column.

2013 Buick Encore Recalled

Mitsubishi is issuing two recalls for its2013 Outlander Sport compact crossover,according to the National Highway Traf-fic Safety Administration.

The first is to address a fuel pumpproblem that affects 3,724 all-wheel-drive-equipped Outlander Sports man-ufactured from June 11- Dec. 11, 2012.These vehicles may be missing a fuelsending unit harness, which could re-

sult in a false fuel tank level reading.The second recall affects 4,539

Outlander Sports with faulty brake stoplamps manufactured June 11- Sept. 11,2012. NHTSA reports that the brakelights may illuminate intermittently andthe shift lever could also be moved outof park without pushing the brakepedal. This condition could cause acrash.

Mitsubishi Issues 2 Recalls for Outlander Sport Crossover


CSS USA, Inc.

A Smart Solution.The CSS Workstation Feaattures:es:ttuurreatn FtiotatrksWoSS W CSTheTThe CSS Workstation Features:A massive 179 square feet of �ltration area.Two huge input �lters (over 36sf ) clean the air going throughthe Workstation.Four Paint Arrest Filters (140+ square feet) and two ActivatedCharcoal Filters ensure the air going back into the environmentis clean and EPA compliant.

••••

Di!erent Sizes Availabbleebblleelabvails Azest Sient!erDi!D ——Including:g:ingudnclIIDi!erent Sizes Available—Including:13’x11’—Parts, pieces and motorcycles.30’x14’—Any full size vehicle.35’x16’x12’5” tall—As above but also Sprinter vans, small boats,and smaller RVs.60’x16’x12’5” tall—Full size RVs, boats, large trucks, etc.

•••

•

LLiigghhttiinngg:gg::ttiinngghhtLiLighting:Four large clear windows provide ample lighting.Additional stand lights can be placed outside the booth.

••

The CSS Workstation works the sameand just as e�ectively as a cross-�owpaint booth.

The CSS Workstation is EPA Certified.Ideal for the busy body shop-mobiletechnician-smaller shop with limitedfacilities.

Phone:904.567.3825Toll Free:866.910.0889info@carcoonusa.comwww.carcoonworkstation.com.coontiiootaattksstrrkkwwoonwoncooarc mom.cawwwwwwww.carcoonworkstation.com

55

99mm

Pro-Spray Launches YouTube ChannelPro-Spray Automotive Finishes recentlyreleased a branded YouTube channel tohelp Pro-Spray users improve the qual-ity and efficiency of their jobs. The URLis http://www.youtube.com/prosprayaut-ofinishes.

Visitors to the site can view a li-brary of resourceful, high-quality videosfeaturing veteran Pro-Spray technicaltrainer and instructor Bill Warner. Thechannel’s current playlist includes:• Pro-Spray in Action: Awesome rideswith Pro-Spray paint• Basecoat Tips and How To’s: Bestpractices to improve your paint joband bottom line • Bumper Repair and Refinishing: Re-view of the six simple steps• Spray Gun Essentials and Tips: Sim-plifying the process• Tech Tips and How To’s: Applica-tion tips from the pros

“Pro-Spray’s passion for our in-dustry, product and people drives ourcontent decisions,” explains LauraYerkey, Pro-Spray marketing man-ager. “With the Pro-Spray YouTubechannel in place, we now have the op-portunity to share our knowledge andexpertise with refinishers around theworld.”

YouTube is the leading onlinevideo community that allows people todiscover, watch and share originallycreated videos. The video-sharing web-site allows people to easily upload andshare video clips on youtube.com andacross the Internet through websites,blogs and e-mail.

Future plans for the Pro-SprayYouTube channel include regularly de-livered original content focused on techtips, how-to’s and FAQs, as well as in-troductions to new Pro-Spray productsand discussions of industry events andtrends. To stay abreast of all the latestnews and content, viewers can becomea youtube.com/prosprayautofinishessubscriber.

The Pro-Spray product line de-livers a comprehensive, versatile, andhigh performance waterborne and sol-vent intermix color system supportedby a full range of primers, clearcoats,hardeners, thinners and support prod-ucts to body shops worldwide.

The Refinish Distributors Alliance(RDA) has added new member Red-shaw Paint Supply, Inc., with head-quarters in Omaha, NE.

Redshaw Paint Supply, Inc. isowned by four individuals withAndy Weissinger as principalowner. Redshaw has four locationsin Nebraska—two in Omaha, one inLincoln and one in Fremont. Thecompany has been in existence since1954 and is a single line Axalta Coat-ing Systems (formerly DuPont) dis-tributor. They carry the DuPont,Spies, Nason, DIC and Aviation linesof paint.

Robert McKenzie Jr., Execu-tive Director of RDA, said, “We areexcited to have Redshaw Paint Sup-ply as part of the RDA/IMPACTgroup and know they are a great fitwith our organization.”

RDA/IMPACT is the largest na-tional group of refinish jobbers ded-icated to providing quality servicesand products to their collision shops.

RDA has 16 members, whichrepresents 180 locations and cover 27states. Members service over 3,500collision centers throughout theUnited States and represent a cross-section of all major refinish brands.

Refinish Distributors Alliance Adds New Member

The Martin Senour Company has in-troduced its new 2013 Global ColorManual.

The new manual offers colorcompatibility guides as well aslarger paint chips—actual chips, notink—which include larger viewingholes making for easier color identi-fication. The new Martin Senourmanual enables painters to improvetheir efficiency, accuracy, and speedin the color-selection process. Themanual also provides color chipsand detailed information for exteriorbody colors, accent, interior, andeven those available underhood col-ors.

The 2013 guide’s new layout isalso more user-friendly in that it in-cludes larger and bolder type fonts,comes on thicker and more durableprinted pages, and features paintchips that are twice as large as thosein previous manuals.

Presenting information on moremanufacturers than in previouslypublished manuals, the comprehen-sive Martin Senour 2013 GlobalColor Manual is available at a costthat is 36% less than last year’s edi-tion. When ordering, please use partnumber: MA5289.

Martin Senour Color ManualFeatures Actual Paint Chips

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RDA’s First Collision Solutions TrainingSeminar Gets Excellent Reviewsby Melissa Jolls, Marketing Director

On March 16 in Dallas, TX, BernieBlickenstaff, President and CEO ofPro Finishes Plus, presented an elec-trifying training seminar to 105 RDAmembers, their sales people and keyemployees.

Blickenstaff gave an engagingpresentation on understanding theneed to continually differentiate our-selves to remain successful and com-petitive. He stressed the importance ofsetting ourselves apart not by sellingprice, but by using the value addedprograms we offer. This was an op-portunity to demonstrate “it’s not justthe deal” that sells in the collisionmarket today. Value added programsdistinguish us against our competi-tion.

Adam Duersch of IndustrialFinishes & Systems summed it up bysaying, “Bernie gets it.” Everyonecame away with valuable informationand new programs they can use withtheir customers.

The objectives at this meetingwere to explain and show first-hand to

the individuals whodirectly interactwith the end userhow to implementand make these pro-grams work forthem. These are theindividuals who ex-ecute sales and mar-keting strategies atthe shop level.

We would like to thank our spon-sors: Evercoat, Saint Gobain and PPCfor helping to make this event the suc-cess it was.

The only question left unan-swered at the end of the day was,when is the next training seminar?Everyone will be there!!

For more information on RDA/IM-PACT visit their website at www.im-pactcollisionsolutions.com or contactMelisa Jolls at 908-251-5713 or email:[email protected].

by Ed Attanasio

If you know anything at all about air-brush art, you’re familiar withMickey Harris. He’s a householdname in the airbrush world, knownmost for his military art, but alsorenowned for his realistic style, hispatriotic zeal and his willing to usehis art to raise money for charity andjust makes people happy. By teachingother fledgling artists about airbrushtechniques and creating breathtakingscenes that have appeared at carshows all over the globe, Harris is en-joying his busy life as a painter, con-sultant, artist, teacher, inventor andmentor.

Harris, 56, has been painting for34 years and has produced thousandsof murals on metal, including cars,trucks, motorcycles and assortedmediums. He embarked on a career asan airbrush artist at the age of 19, inFt. Walton Beach, FL, painting on t-shirts to learn the trade. After absorb-ing as much as he possibly couldabout airbrush art and refining hisskills, Harris made a significant im-pact on the car paint art industry andtoday he is considered one of thefinest airbrush artists in the entireworld.

As a publisher, Mickey foundedAirbrush Magazine in 1994, and as arespected industry leader he waselected President of the InternationalAirbrush Association twice in the1990s. Mickey’s work has appeared inmore than 100 publications, includingon the covers of King of the Roadmagazine, Truckin’ and Airbrushmagazine, just to name a few.

Mickey has also appeared on awide range of TV shows includingappearances on Overhaulin’, Gearz,Car Crazy, Drag Race High and iscurrently working with an investmentgroup for his own television show

and has also been a guest on numer-ous talk shows and news broadcastsover the years. He was featured onthe Travel Channel’s show calledKing of the Road, in which he wasshown painting the world’s most de-tailed 18-wheeler, with more than2,000 man-hours, and over a millionstrokes of the airbrush in 1999. Oneof Mickey’s show trucks captured 22“Best of Show” awards and he alsowon the prestigious “DuPont TopGun” award four times. Harris’ im-ages can sell for as much as $100,000and celebrities such as Jay Lenocovet his work.

Traveling to shows, seminars andpublic appearances year-round, Harrisdoesn’t have a retail store or a studiowhere people can see his work. Heworks out of body shops in differentparts of the country to complete hisongoing list of projects.

“I have a home in Tennesseeand another one in South Dakota, soI work out of body shops in eacharea. I do 2-3 large projects everyyear, which are basically completevehicles, but I also do 10-12 smallerprojects every month—primarilymotorcycles, tanks and hoods, forexample.”

Mickey’s painting style is her-alded for its incredible depth and de-tail, complemented by his knowledgeof color, form and perspective. In ad-dition to his artwork, Mickey has beenteaching the art of airbrushing for over20 years, through seminars for theUnited States Sign Council, AirbrushMagazine, SATA, the InternationalAirbrush Association, Airbrush ActionMagazine, BASF and Sign BusinessMagazine. Mickey has also paintednumerous murals for the United StatesAir Force and painted nose art on nineB-1 Bombers.

Mickey Harris is known formany things, but his seven aviation-related paintings currently hanging inthe Pentagon are probably some ofhis best-known, he said. “I’ve gottwo new paintings for the Penta-gon—they’re ready to go. But I’vereally made my career doing the au-tomotive stuff I do. That’s what I pur-sue and that’s where I really make myliving. I’m an artist, but in the end it’salso a business, so I pursue the proj-ects where I can make money andfeed my family. The rest of the thingsI do, such as donating my art forfundraising charity efforts for the

military, are also very important andmeaningful to me.”

In 2002, Mickey’s Heroes truckgained a lot of media attention andthat’s when he started being knownfor doing amazing, real-life militaryscenes on cars and motorcycles, hesaid.

“The Heroes truck was a tribute to9/11 and it got a ton of exposure. Soafter that, people who were looking forthat type of art started finding me onthe Internet. All of a sudden, I receiveda lot of referrals for more memorialtype stuff. There wasn’t any consciouseffort to get into the military art, but itjust happened after the Heroes truck.Don’t get me wrong, I love doing this

type of work. My father was a fighterpilot, so I was an Air Force brat andthat’s why I have a close bond to themilitary and appreciate the sacrificesthat our soldiers make.”

Harris greatly values his decade-long relationship with SATA, he ex-plained. “I started working with SATAback in 2003, when I met the Dan-AmCompany people from Spring Valley,MN, and immediately liked TonyLarimer at SATA. I was doing semi-nar programs and we started a rela-tionship and Tony and I eventuallybecame very good friends. Dan-Amhas really good people there and I likeworking with them because their wordis gold, and that’s hard to find. SATAand Dan-Am invited me to go to Ger-many for the SATA 100th anniversaryand I did a painting demonstrationthere at the SATA factory in 2006.They had a James Bond theme at theparty, so I dressed up like Bond andwalked out with a couple of mini-jetguns under my jacket and painted on acanvas to the James Bond theme song.It was a blast!”

Hooking up with SATA to de-velop a new airbrush has been an ex-


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Renowned Painter Mickey Harris Co-Designed the SATAgraph 4

Legendary airbrush artist Mickey Harris usesthe SATAgraph 4 on all of his creations. In thisphoto, Harris is painting a scene from the Viet-nam War on a motorcycle

Mickey’s Tribute to the Heroes of 9/11 isknown as his First Responder Tribute Silverado


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citing and fulfilling experience, hesaid. “I sat down with the peoplefrom SATA to develop the SATA-graph 4. It took two years of devel-opment to get it where it needed tobe. It was introduced at this year’sSEMA Show and people immedi-ately liked it. We wanted to come upwith an affordable airbrush that wasa good airbrush that can work wellin the trenches. I call this the AK-47

of airbrush guns, because you canbeat the hell out of it, throw it in themud and it keeps working. It retailsfor $149, so it’s absolutely competi-tive. It’s got good German engineer-ing in it, but one of the things I likethe most about it is we’re able tomake it here in the good old USA. Itell people it’s German engineered

and American made.”Harris uses SATA airbrushes al-

most exclusively for many reasons, heexplained. “I really like all of SATA’sairbrushes, but the SATAgraph 4 hassome great features. It’s got a tip pro-tection cap that’s reversible, so you’llnever lose the cap, which can be aproblem with other airbrushes outthere. We believe it’s going to be the#1 selling airbrush within the nextfour years, because it’s a better prod-uct.”

Passionate about every aspect ofhis life, Harris describes himself assomeone who is “old, but still runningaround like I’m 20 year-old.” Headded, “I love what I do, but I’mstarting to realize that it’s a littleharder now to operate at a high level.I just hope I can live long enough todo everything I want to do. Right now,I’m very happy, because I’m reallyenjoying my life; working harder nowand producing better stuff than ever.So it’s a good time!”

One of Mickey’s most celebrated vehicles isthis 100th GM Anniversary Chevrolet Suburbanthat was unveiled at SEMA 2011

need to be able to strategize as an in-dustry and have a plan. Being in-formed without having a plan won’tget us there. That’s part of what thismeeting is, to formulate our voice.”

I-CAR’s decision, announcedjust the week prior to the meeting, waswidely criticized by those in atten-dance. In late 2011, three national

trade associations(later endorsed bymore than twodozen state and re-gional groups)asked I-CAR totake on the task ofcommunicat ingwith the automak-

ers in an effort to increase the amountand availability of OEM repair proce-dures. As recently as late January, I-CAR CEO John Van Alstyne said hisorganization was moving forwardwith a planned roll-out this summer ofa 5-pronged approach to the issue, butthe members of I-CAR’s board in at-tendance at a March meeting votedunanimously to halt the program.

The request from the trade groupshad indicated such an effort would sup-port their statement that OEM repairprocedures are the industry “standard”for repairs. Meeting attendee TonyPasswater, executive director of theIndiana Auto Body Association, saidbased on his past involvement with I-CAR, he believes it was the word“standards,” more than the concept ofexpanding the availability of OEMprocedures, that led to the decision.

“That’s where they all cringe, es-pecially on the insurance side,” Pass-water said.

Meeting attendee Dusty Womble,an I-CAR board member and an oper-ating partner in Roger Beasley Colli-sion Center in Austin, TX, said theI-CAR vote would not have been unan-imous had it not taken place at the firstboard meeting he’d missed in fouryears.

Meeting attendee Barry Dorn,a Virginia shopowner, said he feltit was importantthat people ask I-CAR what led tothe decision.

“I implore all ofyou to talk to thefolks at I-CAR

about what happened, ask them to ex-plain why they voted the way theydid,” Dorn said. “To me this is inex-cusable. In my opinion, I-CAR hasbeen hijacked by special interests.”

But meeting attendee Scott Biggsof the Assured Performance Network,which joined the national associationsin their 2011 request to I-CAR, notedthat it was a decision made by the I-CAR board, not staff.

“It should be noted that the staffdid a huge amount of work in the last18 months to address a lot of thethings that we wanted them to do,”Biggs said. “Most of those things

they’re going tocontinue to do.”

What won’tcontinue, Biggssaid, is I-CAR’splanned creationof a “council” tohelp facilitate andfilter the commu-

nication between automakers and theindustry. Biggs and Schulenburg eachsaid the conceptual solutions for thecouncil was one aspect of I-CAR’splan they hadn’t been “entirely com-fortable with.”

“I-CAR seemed like a good fit atthe time. But any organization thatisn’t willing to publicly and clearlystate that the OEM repair proceduresare the standard for repair probablyisn’t a good partner for what we’relooking to accomplish here,” Schu-lenburg said. “So while there’s not alot of detail I can give, what I canshare is a large subset of the original

requesters do in-tend to create anindustry council toaddress collisionrepair proceduralstandards. The pri-mary mission ofthis council willbe to gather feed-

back and provide input to the OEMsto address deficiencies in the libraryof procedures and issues or questionthat arise form the industry dialog. It’sabout communication.”

Meeting attendee Dan Risley ofthe Automotive Service Association,which also was among the organiza-tions requesting I-CAR’s involvementin 2011, said communication will beimportant because there “are some in-stances where the OEM repair proce-dure probably may not apply.” Henoted, for instance, that Honda calls


Repairer Roundtable

See Repairer Roundtable, Page 42Barry Dorn

Scott Biggs

Dan Risley

Aaron Schulenburg

Search:Autobody Newson Facebook


by Ed Attanasio

A body shop owner came up to me ata California Autobody Associationmeeting recently and shared his tale ofwoe. A Multi-Shop Operator (MSO)had opened a location in his home-town, where he had been doing busi-ness since the 1970s. The presence ofthe MSO caused him concern, espe-cially when he lost a DRP to his newneighbor and several of his top techsas well. His first instinct, he said, wasto step up his marketing, social mediaand advertising efforts. When he thentold me that he had borrowed $50,000

for marketing andwanted my opin-ion on where themoney should bespent, I was a littleflabbergasted.

My first ques-tion for him was,“Why did you waitso long?” It surelywasn’t what hewanted to hear atthe time and he cer-tainly didn’t likewhat I told himnext. “It might be a

little too late.”I always tell people that marketing

is a churn—an ongoing endeavor. Youneed to do several forms of marketingall the time to some degree. I ask bodyshops how many hours are you or yourstaff willing to dedicate to marketing,which includes social media, public re-lations, advertising and the Internet? Iexplain to them that marketing is notsomething you do when your car countdrops or when you have a couple slowmonths in a row.

The biggest mistake body shopsmake with marketing is having unreal-istic expectations. I have heard these

statements from body shop ownersmore than once. “We did some cableadvertising, but it didn’t work.” (It turnsout he tried it for one month and whenthe phone wasn’t ringing off the hook,he got out of his contract.) “We didn’tget any new customers from our radioadvertising.” But when I asked himhow did you track the results (or lack ofthem) he didn’t have an answer.

But, fear not. If you’re in a tightsituation and want to fast track yourmarketing, you can still save the day ifyou work smart and jump in with bothfeet immediately. It’s not the best wayto do it because the majority of anymarketing won’t probably show anysignificant positive returns untilyou’ve been plugging away for sixmonths to a year. When you embarkon a marketing plan, it’s like plantinga little seedling. It’s going to takesome time before it will grow rootsand eventually produce fruit.

Here is a scenario where a bodyshop owner moved quickly and did allthe right things to save his 23-year-oldshop from folding when an MSO cameto town. Allen Sutfin, 54, the ownerof Golden Valley Auto Body, was sur-prised when a shop with a name simi-lar to his moved into his hometown ofYuba City, CA. Only a couple milesapart, the two shops were immediatelybeing confused with each other. (Thename of the MSO is being withheld).

Suftin quickly realized he had aproblem on his hands. “People startedcoming in here asking me When did youopen the new shop?” Suftin said. “I toldthem it’s not my shop! Right then andthere I knew I was in trouble, especiallywhen I learned that some of my cus-tomers mistakenly brought their cars tobe fixed there, thinking it was my shop.”

Suftin has built a strong founda-tion and a large customer base in YubaCity, where he was born, so when he

saw what was happening to his busi-ness, he didn’t get mad—he got even.“I came to the conclusion that my

main advantage over this new shopwas my longevity in town,” Suftinsaid. “We’re a locally-owned and op-erated business and we’ve been heresince 1990. We have second-genera-tion customers coming here. Hey,competition is always going to bepresent and it can get pretty intense inthis industry. But in this case, I waslosing cars not for my reputation, butbecause of a mistaken identity. We losta few jobs right off the bat and that’swhen I asked myself, what can I do?”

Rather than taking the time tocarefully contemplate his next move,Suftin acted definitively and startedmaking things happen literallyovernight. “I started doing larger adsin our local newspaper, the Yuba CityAppeal Democrat,” he said. “We onlyhave one newspaper here, so I wantedto be in there as often as I could. We’vebeen picked as the best body shop intown for the past three years by thispublication, so we starting leveragingthat. In all of our ads, we began incor-porating the phrase ‘locally owned andoperated’ and started emphasizing ourlocation, to avoid further confusion.”

Ramping up his community out-reach also became a priority, Suftin ex-plained. “We’ve always been involvedin our chamber of commerce and havehosted charity fundraisers here at theshop over the years. But now, these ef-forts took on a whole new importance.Charity events are a win-win, becausewe’re helping those in need and gettinga lot of free publicity in the process,from the Appeal Democrat and thelocal radio stations here in Yuba City.”

To complement all his other mar-keting efforts, Suftin devised a broad-cast plan that involved both local radioand cable TV advertising. “We got onthe air and made a statement,” he said.

“It was our way of telling the com-munity that we’re not retreating andthings are still the same. We kept stress-ing we’re Golden Valley Auto Body andyou know us—we’ve been here formore than two decades and there’s agood chance that you or someone youknow has had their car repaired here.”

By pushing his exemplary trackrecord and the quality of his work,coupled with an avalanche of market-ing, Golden Valley Auto Body wasable to stay busy, while most of thename confusion was alleviated. Suftinis looking at a profitable 2013 and hisrole in the business community isstronger than ever. What advice can heoffer to other body shops all over thecountry whose business is threatenedfor one reason or another?

“Fight it, any way you can,” Suftinsaid. “Marketing was the key for us,because it was our way of telling ourstory and clarifying who we are. Nowthe message is out there, and the ad-vertising we’re doing today is simplysupporting that. Any company is goingto run into competition and adversity,but by using your resources and notpanicking, you can survive and keepyour good name intact.”

Is ‘Reactionary’ Marketing Too Little, Too Late? Maybe Not.

with Ed Attanasio

Social Media for Shops

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

As part of his ongoing community outreachefforts, Suftin has helped his hometownwherever and whenever he can. When theYuba City Fire Department’s Dalmatian statuewas vandalized, the staff at Golden ValleyAuto Body got the mascot looking doggonegood once again

Alan Suftin had toimplement some

marketingstrategies quicklywhen an MSO

with a similar namemoved into hishometown andthreatened thesurvival of his

23-year-old shop

A 1940 Ford Coupe featuring PPGpaint and custom painted by CharleyHutton won the 2013 Ridler Award atthe Detroit Autorama.

The Ridler Award is presented tothe most outstanding car or truck mak-ing its debut appearance at the Detroit

Autorama, held March 8-10 in Detroit.This is the third time in six years that

a PPG-finished entry has won the award.The coupe, named “Checkered

Past,” is owned by Ron and Deb Cizekof Bennington, NE, and was built byAndy Leach of Cal Automotive Cre-

ations in Omaha, NE.Hutton, a noted painter in the cus-

tom car world, did the paint work at hisshop, Charley Hutton’s Color Studio, inNampa, ID, where he created and mixedthe red and gold custom colors usingPPG waterborne Envirobase products.

1940 Ford Coupe Wins Ridler Award in Detroit


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by I-CAR staff

During the Collision Industry Confer-ence meeting in November 2011, I-CARreceived a joint request signed by repre-sentatives from SCRS, ASA, AASP andAssured Performance Network, request-ing that I-CAR support various OEM re-pair procedure initiatives in connectionwith the requesting organization’s asso-ciated position statement that OEM re-pair procedures are the recognizedindustry repair standard.

Over the past seventeen months,I-CAR has worked towards definingprocesses, capabilities and resources toenable the organization to support therequest in a manner that aligns with theorganization’s vision, mission and dutyto represent the interests of the Inter-Industry with neutrality, and for thecollective unbiased benefit of the Inter-Industry.

Despite the significant effort putforth by the I-CAR Board and Staff,given the organization’s duty to theInter-Industry, and the reality that thereare open disagreements on the relatedtopic of standards across the Inter-In-dustry, the I-CAR Board of Directorsdecided that I-CAR will not proceedwith implementation of a solution inresponse to this request as originallypresented. The I-CAR Board of Direc-

tors enacted this decision at its March7, 2013 I-CAR Board of DirectorsMeeting by unanimous consent ofthose board members in attendance atthe meeting.

In terms of the organization’s dutyto the Inter-Industry, on the basis of neu-trality, the following three points wereimportant in the Board’s decision:● The need for I-CAR to represent thebest interests of the industry in an un-biased manner, avoiding the possibleperception that I-CAR may be cateringto the interests of any particular indus-try sub-segment(s) to the possible dis-advantage of others.● Potential difficulties constructingand managing the requested “Council”that met both the needs of the re-questors and I-CAR’s Inter-Industrycharter.● The fact that although OEM proce-dures are widely recognized as the in-dustry baseline for repairs, and I-CARpoints to OEM procedures as such,there are opportunities to define rec-ommended repair processes that wouldsupport and/or supplement OEM pro-cedures given the span of possible re-pairs, consumer and insurer interests;while maintaining an unwavering com-mitment to complete & safe repairs.

The I-CAR Board of Directorsthanks the requesting organizations for

bringing forth the request. As I-CARidentified early on, much of the pro-posed solution that was developedbuilds on work that I-CAR already doesto serve the industry. And certain ele-ments of the solution are closely linkedto I-CAR’s strategic initiatives for 2013and beyond. Thus, seeing value in cer-tain elements of the proposed solutionthat would benefit the Inter-Industry,the I-CAR Board will work with staffto reframe and evaluate these elementsas independent projects for implemen-tation as follows:● I-CAR recognizes an opportunityto expand its technical processes andresources to better support the indus-try’s interest to improve repair pro-cedures and related repair processdefinition, and to provide real-timerepairability technical support for theindustry. This was a key part of ourproposed solution and remains underconsideration.● OE Linking Pin—I-CAR maintainstechnical relations with OEM’s today.Our plan was to further expand this ac-tivity linked to expansion of our tech-nical processes and resources, and thisremains under consideration.● Technical ISAC’s—I-CAR runsISAC’s (Industry Segment AdvisoryCouncils) today, our plan was to ex-pand these to include an OEM Techni-

cal ISAC and various technology fo-cused ISAC’s, and this remains underconsideration.● Repairability Summits – I-CAR runsRepairability Summits today, our planwas to expand these, and this remainsunder consideration.● Knowledge Portal—The primarygoal with the knowledge portal was toprovide enhanced Inter-Industry acces-sibility to the knowledge required toperform complete and safe repairs.There were 5 key elements to theknowledge portal, each adding uniquevalue; therefore, each element will beconsidered on its own merit.● All related initiatives will be subjectto further Board review consideringalignment with I-CAR’s charter, im-pact versus Inter-Industry definedneeds, prioritization versus other I-CAR initiatives, and funding require-ments.

I-CAR’s goal is to be of greaterservice to the Inter-Industry whilebeing true to its Inter-Industry charter.The Board and Staff of I-CAR remainsconfident that these initiatives holdgreat promise as steps forward for bothI CAR and the Inter-Industry.

See John Yoswick’s article on thecover of this issue for reaction fromcollision industry participants at CIC.

I-CAR Declines Facilitation of OEM Repair Standards

by Melanie Anderson

Darryl Hollenbeck, 45, of VintageColor Studio in Concord, CA, is athird generation custom painter andcar restorer. His grandfather ownedone of the first body shops in Oaklandback in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s

and later sold his shop to Hollenbeck’suncle. Darryl’s father worked in theshop as well, with Darryl joining thefamily business at age 21.

With 25 years experience, Hol-lenbeck has owned Vintage Color Stu-dio restoring hot rods and custom cars

for the past 10 years. Most of the vin-tage cars he works on date back to the‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s, with the ‘newest’car he’s ever worked on being a 1966Shelby Mustang.

“I love cars. I was born into it,”said Hollenbeck. “I love the challengeof taking something old and rusty andturning it into something beautiful andaward-winning.”

Hollenbeck has won severalawards, including the award he won

for painting John Mumford’s 27 TRoadster, built by Roy Brizio StreetRods, which won “America’s MostBeautiful Roadster” at the recent 2013Grand National Roadster Show inPomona, CA. He’s won that awardtwice. The first time he won the awardwas in 2005 for painting PaulHansen’s Moal Built 1932 Roadstercalled ‘Seduced.’

Over the course of his career, Hol-lenbeck has custom painted well over100 cars, many of which have gracedthe covers of hot rod and custom carmagazines. Several of those magazinecovers are featured on his website atwww.vintagecolorstudio.com. He ownsthree hot rods himself—a 1950 Mer-cury from his late father, a 1957 ChevyWagon and a 1932 Roadster that he’sstill working on.

Some of Hollenbeck’s favoriteprojects include restoring historicalcars that were originally customizedback in the ‘30s and ‘40s. For exam-ple, Hollenbeck restored a 1949 Mer-cury that belonged to Sam Barris(George Barris’ brother). Hollenbecksaid this car was the first Mercury tobe chopped and customized and it wasa new car when Sam Barris did it in1949. Hollenbeck also restored the1936 Ford Jack Calori Coupe, whichwas the November 1949 Hot Rod

Magazine Cover Car, and was Best inClass Winner at Pebble Beach in 2005.

Another famous historical car thatHollenbeck has worked on is the AlaKart, originally customized by GeorgeBarris and owned by Richard Peters.The car survived a fire that destroyedBarris’ shop in 1957. The car, namedfrom a menu at the time George Barris,Richard Peters and friend BlackieGejeian met at a local coffee shop todiscuss the car, is based on a 1929 Ford

Pickup and cost $15,000 to build. Pe-ters and Gejeian built the undercarriage.It won the prestigious “America’s MostBeautiful Roadster” award at the Oak-

land Roadster Show two years in a rowin 1958 and 1959. The Ala Kart isknown for being the first show rod thatturned into a model car kit. The AlaKart was restored by Roy Brizio StreetRods in 2011 and Hollenbeck did the

paint and body work on the car withArt Himsl doing the graphics.

Another favorite project Hollen-beck worked on was Vic Edelbrock’s

father’s 1932 Roadster that was re-stored by Roy Brizio Street Rods in2004. Otis Victor Edelbrock, whodied in 1962, was an American auto-motive aftermarket performance partsengineer, racer and is considered one


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Third Generation Custom Painter Was Born Into the Business

Custom painter Darryl Hollenbeck picturedhere in the rearview mirror

This 1932 Roadster was owned by Vic Edelbrock Sr

Hollenbeck painted this 1949 Chevy truck for Eric Clapton

of the founders of the hot rod move-ment. The 1932 Roadster was the per-sonal car of Edelbrock Sr. and wasalso as a test vehicle back in the ‘40sat the El Mirage Dry Lakes in south-ern California.

Hollenbeck said the average proj-ect takes about three months, fromstart to finish, with the paint work it-self taking about 10 days. Some ofHollenbeck’s famous customers in-clude English rock guitarist Jeff Beck,singer Eric Clapton, and James Het-field of Metallica.

The recent change from solventsto waterborne paint isn’t somethingHollenbeck is thrilled about. Like

many painters, he appreciates routineand using the new water-based prod-ucts has changed up the way he’s usedto doing things.

“Now we gotta try to make waterbase work for what we do, and it’sgeared more toward the collision in-

dustry,” he said. “It does have its ad-vantages in what we do, but you getused to doing something a certainway, then all the sudden the EPAchanges everything on you.”

He says waterborne is easier to use,but takes longer to dry between coats.For example, he said it used to take himeight hours to paint a Roadster with sol-vent and now that same size car takes

about 12 hours to paint using waterbase.He also acknowledges that the

water-based paint colors are more vi-brant, but adds that a custom line ofwater-base products for custom workdoesn’t exist yet. Hollenbeck has beenusing PPG for nearly 30 years, sincehe was “in high school and just startingto mess around with paint,” and saysthe PPG brand is very user-friendly.

“There isn’t a custom line of waterbase,” he said. “For instance, CandyApple Red isn’t available in water baseso you have to figure out how to makeit and that takes more time.”

According to Cindy Schauer, Seg-ment Communications Manager withPPG, the company is not launching anew waterborne platform for the custompainter, but over the last few years, PPGhas made some products that work wellwith their current waterborne brands,Envirobase High Performance andAquabase Plus, that make it easier to usein a custom finishing situation.

Darryl Hollenbeck’s Vintage ColorStudio, 2330 Bates Ave, Suite B-1Concord CA 94520 Phone : 925.671.7773www.vintagecolorstudio.com


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1936 Ford coupe

Hollenbeck restored this 1932 Roadster

The famous Ala Kart originally customized by George Barris won “America’s Most BeautifulRoadster” in 1958 and 1959

1932 Ford 5 window coupe

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The Collision Repair Education Foun-dation is encouraging collision indus-try businesses to take an active part intheir local collision school programsby assisting them in applying for the2013 Ultimate Collision EducationMakeover $50,000 school grant. Two$50,000 grants (one secondary, onepost-secondary) will be awarded thisyear, as well as several secondaryprizes of $10,000.

Below are the top 3 reasons whyindustry members should be workingtogether with their local collisionschool programs on the 2013 UltimateCollision Education Makeover grantapplication: #3. Establish connection with localcollision school, instructor, adminis-tration, and students. Now is the op-portune time for industry businesses tobecome fully engaged with their localcollision school programs. By meetingwith school administration, the colli-sion instructor(s), and their students,local businesses can view firsthandwhat their collision program needs areand coach them on what skill sets col-lision students should have by gradu-ation to ensure for the most efficientand capable professional possible. #2. Makeover applicant schools atthe top of Education Foundation’s

support list in 2013. The schools thatapply for 2013 Makeover grant re-ceive top priority for support by theCollision Repair Education Founda-tion in the coming year. Since theMakeover grant’s inception in 2009,the non-winning schools have re-ceived over $1 million (total) in dona-tions and support. Makeover applicantinstructors are also provided exclusiveopportunities to attend technical train-ing and receive other donations fromindustry supporters. #1. Congrats, your local school haswon and their $50,000 collision wishlist will be fulfilled. There will be atleast two selected Makeover winningschools this fall and local industrymembers taking an active part in theapplication process can help enhance aschool’s application. Many collisionschools are facing severely reducedbudgets and this grant will transformthe winning collision programs formany years to come. An industrymember’s guidance and support ofhelping a local school apply for theMakeover grant could lead to thatschool being selected as one of thewinners.

Instructors are advised to beginthe application early which is avail-able online at CollisionEducation-

Foundation.org. The Makeover grantis available to secondary and post-sec-ondary collision school programs na-tionwide, with priority going tonot-for-profit/public schools. The ap-plication is due May 31, 2013 and thewinning schools will be announcedduring an industry reception to be heldat SEMA 2013.

As part of the Makeover grant ap-plication, schools provide their ownitemized wish list, which can includeany tools, supplies, and equipmentthat are needed by the collision pro-gram. Each of the winning schoolswill have their $50,000 wish list ful-filled through the Collision Repair Ed-ucation Foundation and industrydonors/supporters.

The goal of the Ultimate Colli-sion Education Makeover grant is tohonor a school that has been doing anoutstanding job in educating studentsin collision repair, but needs some fi-nancial assistance to improve theirprogram’s teaching materials andequipment. With strained school budg-ets, the Education Foundation and in-dustry supporters have the opportunityto bridge the program’s financial gapand to make a difference in the livesof the students studying collision re-pair.

Collision Education Makeover School Grant Applications Due by May 31Axalta Coating Systems is offeringnew damage analysis and productionmanagement courses for the heavyduty truck market.

The HDT Damage Analysiscourse provides a standard damageanalysis approach to write morecomplete estimates and increase con-sistency of estimates to raise repaircenter’s gross profit and increase thepercentage of closed repair orders.

This one-day class includes nu-merous hands-on exercises related tothe commercial vehicle collision in-dustry, which emphasize the princi-ples taught during the course.

HDT Production Managementcourse focuses to assist implementationof lean principles relating to blueprint-ing, proper parts management and pro-duction controls in a commercial vehiclerepair center. Key techniques to improvetechnician efficiency, reduce cycle timeand improve customer satisfaction areexamined in this one-day course.

Industry experts from TeamMarketing Group are the main con-tent contributors and will provide theprimary instructors for these courses.

For additional information or toregister, contact your local AxaltaCoating Systems representative orcall 1.800.438.3876.

Axalta Offers Courses

Aaron Clark has been named As-sured Performance Co-Op Network’svice president of national certifica-tion and network development andwill be based at corporate headquar-ters in Irvine, CA.

“We are thrilled to have Aaronjoining our executive team to workclosely with our staff and membershops driving the Certification pro-gram. He has the perfect backgroundto help expand the impact and valueof body shop Certification for all in-volved,” said Scott Biggs, CEO ofAssured Performance.

Clark has worked in the auto-motive and collision repair industryfor more than 25 years as a bodyshop owner. Clark previously oper-ated five body shop operations in theIndianapolis area, which he sold toABRA Auto Body & Glass.

Clark founded the Indiana AutoBody Association (IABA), served aschairman of the Society of Collision Re-pair Specialists (SCRS) for the past twoyears, and served on Assurance Perfor-mance’s board of directors for four years.

“This new position fully lever-ages my knowledge as a former shopowner, and interests in the well-beingof the collision industry,” said Clark.

Aaron Clark Named VP atAssured Performance

the plaintiff’s vehicle glass claim on be-half of another glass shop who per-formed the replacement,” he adds. “Weare hopeful that we will be voluntarilydismissed from the case.”

When asked about how “TheSafelite Advantage” warranty comesinto play, Melina Metzger, the com-pany’s public relations manager says,“Safelite’s warranty is for SafeliteAutoGlass. Safelite Solutions doesn’twarranty other shops’ work.”

Ammons and his law firm havesuccessfully sued Ford, GM, Conti-nental Tire and Cooper Tire in rollovercases in the past year.


Safelite and Toyota

A Vermont couple have been chargedwith burning down their own autodealership business.

Ed and Tammy Davis of FairHaven, VT, were charged with arsonfollowing the fire at Ed Davis Autoand RV.

Investigators determined the firewas set deliberately and alleges theDavises were responsible. Ed Davis,49 and Tammy Davis, 46, are sched-uled to appear in court May 20

VT Couple Charged With Arson

There is enough controversy in the in-dustry today to write three or four dif-ferent stories on the hot topics. I willnot contribute to the proliferation ofpropaganda and conspiracy theoriesby discussing parts or insurance com-pany direct repair programs. I haveanother controversy for shops to rallyaround.

Due to my executive position andthe company I am employed by, Ihave not been able to share my viewspublicly or within the confines of mycorporation. Don’t feel bad for me.That’s why I write these articles. I canshare my thoughts and experiencewithout placing my job in jeopardy. Ican only imagine what would happenif I decided to challenge “The Institu-tion” and talk about what is widelyconsidered heresy amongst insuranceexecutives.

Several decades ago, it was com-mon practice for shops to help cus-tomers with their “out-of-pocket

expense.” Shops would attract and as-sist their customers by paying a tow billor a portion of their rental car expense.Some shops went further and decidedto cover the customer’s deductible.

How was this possible? It wasbecause there weren’t a lot of laws andregulations strictly prohibiting the be-havior of cost-shifting. Insurancecompanies knew about it, although wedidn’t take direct action to address it.

It was easy to cost-shift 40 yearsago because OEM sheet metal partswere very expensive. Parts were threetimes the price they are today. Theywere also three times the size andweight. OEM parts were expensivebecause there wasn’t any real compe-tition. (The aftermarket parts industrywas still only in its infancy.) If youhad to replace a fender, you ordered agenuine OEM part from the dealer-ship. Because parts were expensive,shops could write for a new part andrepair the old one. This allowed shops

to make a lot of money on labor, savethe customer money and still do a saferepair.

Life was much easier for bodyshops back then. Direct repair pro-grams didn’t exist, which facilitatedthe body shop industry accepting thewidespread adoption of cost-shift-ing. Now, because of legislation,cost-shifting is considered fraudu-lent.

What about deductibles? There islegislation in many states that pro-hibits a shop from “saving” or “reim-bursing” the customer’s deductible.Here is where I am going to stray fromthe herd: I believe shops should beable to advertise and implement de-ductible saving programs. Shopsshould be able to decide whether ornot they want to offer incentives totheir consumers as a means of gainingbusiness. I think we refer to that ascompetition in the marketplace.

I do not believe I would find acolleague here in the insurance indus-try to support my ideology. The prob-lem is trust. I suppose this cunning oldwily insurance veteran still believesthat shops have some integrity. Butevery piece of legislation ever pro-posed or enacted was put in place be-cause generally my industry doesn’ttrust shops to do the right thing. No-body will publicly make that state-ment, but it is fact. Insurers believe

that it is impossible for a shop to offera significantly discounted deductiblewithout cost-shifting.

I agree to some extent becausethe profit margins in the shops are cer-tainly not what they were in the 70s or80s. But if a shop decided they wantedto reduce their profit margin to gain acustomer, why should it be illegal?Isn’t that the true definition of a directrepair program? I am not sure howproviding a discounted deductible isany different. After all, shops agree toprovide a parts discount or reducedlabor rate in exchange for being on adirect repair program in order to gainbusiness.

I am not advocating for “cost-shifting” or committing fraud. I amnot supporting shops writing all OEMparts so they can repair them or re-place them with aftermarket parts. Iam suggesting that shops should beable to offer whatever discount theywant to customers, up to and includ-ing reduced deductibles. Consideringtoday’s economy, customers may bemore apt to have their vehicle repairedrather than cashing out.

If it was up to me, I would trustyou to do the right thing. You shouldalso know that I do not employenough adjusters to reinspect everyvehicle we insure, thus rendering myopinion moot.

But I trust you.

Shops Should Be Able to Offer Whatever Discounts They Want

with Rick WhiteShop Management

with Stefan GesterkampPaint Management

with Gonzo WeaverGonzo’s Toolbox

with Richard ArnoldJobber Journal

Mainstream Media

with Dale DelmegeAsk Dale

Mainstream Media

Automakers’ Actions and Analysisby Autobody News Staff

Shop Showcaseby Autobody News Staff

with Ed AttanasioShop and Product Showcase

with Ed AttanasioConsumer Callout

with Walter DanalevichShop Strategies for Savings

with The Insurance InsiderInside Insurance

with Rich EvansCustom Corner

with Chasidy Rae SiskCompany Connections

with Chasidy Rae SiskNortheast News

with Chasidy Rae SiskShop Showcase

with Erica SchroederShop Showcase

with Erica SchroederShop Snapshot

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


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You only get one chanceat the first repair.

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WISCONSINOHIO

PPG Appoints Frank Sklarsky as VP of FinancePPG Industries announced Frank S.Sklarsky will join the company asexecutive vice president, finance, ef-fective April 15, reporting to Chair-man and CEO Charles E. Bunch.

“David’s detailed understandingof PPG’s global businesses and deepfinancial management expertise areinvaluable, as demonstrated recentlyin his role supporting our strategicinitiatives to separate PPG’s com-modity chemicals business and to ac-quire AkzoNobel’s North Americanarchitectural coatings business,” saidBunch.

Also, effective August 1,Sklarsky will be named PPG execu-tive vice president and chief financialofficer.

David B. Navikas, currentlyPPG senior vice president, financeand chief financial officer, will con-tinue in his current role until August1, and will then continue as seniorvice president in a senior leadershiprole that will be announced later.

“We are pleased to welcomeFrank to PPG. His deep financialmanagement expertise and executiveleadership experience guiding strat-egy and operations with large, globalenterprises will be an asset to PPG aswe continue to grow and expand our

positions around the world,” Bunchsaid.

“Frank, David and I will workclosely together with PPG’s global fi-nance organization and the entireleadership team as we carry out thisimportant senior leadership succes-sion,” Bunch said.

Most recently, Sklarsky was ex-ecutive vice president and chief finan-cial officer of Tyco International, Ltd.,a global provider of security, fire pro-tection and flow control solutions withrevenues that exceeded $17 billion.

Prior to joining Tyco, Sklarskyserved as executive vice president andchief financial officer at both EastmanKodak Co. and ConAgra Foods, Inc.

Previously, he spent 20 yearswith Chrysler in a series of senior fi-nancial leadership roles. He also heldfinance positions with Dell, Inc., afterbeginning his career with Ernst &Young.

Sklarsky is a member of the boardof directors of Harman International In-dustries, Inc., and of Rochester Insti-tute of Technology. He holds abachelor’s degree in accounting fromRochester Institute of Technology andan MBA from Harvard BusinessSchool, and he is a certified public ac-countant.

Rising new-vehicle sales lifted aver-age dealership pre-tax profit to arecord $843,697 last year, a NationalAutomobile Dealers Association sur-vey shows.

The average store’s 2012 profitrose 6% from the previous record setin 2011. NADA began the annual sur-vey in 1970.

Dealers’ average return on salesheld steady at 2%, but profit rose be-cause of a sharp increase in demandfor new and used vehicles. Total rev-enue rose 9% at the average store to$38,359,930, Automotive News re-ported.

The rising profit has given deal-ers a reason to cheer this tax season,said John Bachle, an accountant atSartain Fischbein & Co. in Tulsa, OK.

“They’re always fun to deal with,but they’re much more fun if they’remaking money,” said Bachle, whosefirm has about 50 dealer clients.

The new-car department pro-vided 56% of the average dealer’srevenue in 2012, up from 54% in2011. The used-car department pro-vided 32% of revenue last year, un-changed from 2011. Parts and servicebusiness fell from 13% of the averagedealer’s revenue to 12%.

In 2007, the last full year beforethe economic downturn, new cars pro-vided 59% of the average dealer’srevenue, while used cars provided29% and the parts and service busi-ness provided 12%.

Dealers again benefited in 2012from low interest rates and factoryfloorplan assistance programs.

Last year, the average dealermade money on floorplanning: a $72credit per new car sold, according tothe NADA data. That was up from$48 per vehicle in 2011, accountingfor nearly half of the total increase inpretax profits.

Typically, the interest paid tokeep cars and trucks on the lot hasbeen a major expense. In 2007, the av-erage dealer paid $103,708 for floor-plan interest, or $167 for every carsold.

Last year, dealers made moneybecause they took advantage of pro-grams in which factories repay themfor interest. Brisk sales left dealerswith tighter-than-usual inventories, socars and trucks did not sit on lots verylong and dealers profited from the in-centives, said Carl Woodward, adealer accountant at Woodward & As-sociates Inc. in Bloomington, IL.

NADA Says Rising New-Vehicle Sales Lifted DealerProfits for a Record Year in 2012

The Boyd Group recently acquiredand opened four new collision repaircenters: In North Carolina, the threecenters are Wilmington Paint & BodyWorks, Factory Finish CollisionCenter and CBS Quality Cars. Thecompany also acquired Express AutoBody in Lakeland, FL.

Each of the shop locations willoperate under the Gerber Collision &Glass trade name. With these addi-tions, The Boyd Group now operates22 shop locations in North Carolinaand 38 in Florida. The company hasa total of 185 collision repair loca-tions throughout 14 U.S. states.

“The opening of these new loca-tions is in line with our stated growthstrategy of achieving 6-10% of growthin number of centers through single lo-cation additions,” said Tim O’Day,president and chief operations officerof The Boyd Group. “These centersallow us to better serve customers andinsurance partners in these marketsand we plan to continue to focus onexpanding our presence in similar at-tractive U.S. markets.”

Boyd Group Acquires FourRepair Centers in NC and FL

Cable’s Spike TV is planning thedevelopment of several non-scripted pilot shows, including oneabout investigating body shops.

“Auto Body Avengers” fromMatador, an independent mediacompany best known for travel-re-lated productions, features a groupof operatives who go undercover tospotlight auto body garages sus-pected of fraud.

The pilot description explainsthe show’s premise:

“With over 200 million reg-istered vehicles in the UnitedStates, it’s no surprise that autorepair shops are a booming busi-ness. Unfortunately, you don’t al-ways get what you pay for. Whilethe majority of auto body shopsare fair and honest businesses,there are unscrupulous ones whoseek to rip off unrespecting carowners by charging them for un-necessary or shoddy repairs. In“Autobody Avengers,” a team ofoperatives go undercover to spot-light the garages suspected offraud. Matador Network producedthe presentation.”

New TV Pilot, “Auto BodyAvengers” Coming to Spike

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The other day I heard about a lawsuitthat I would like to share with you(see article starting on the cover).

A Toyota dealer contacted Safe-lite to install a windshield into a 2005Toyota Tundra. The vehicle was in-volved in a rollover accident and thewindshield allegedly “separated fromthe pickup” resulting in two fatalities.Safelite contends that they only han-dled the claim and contracted with aindependent class company to handlethe installation and they should not benamed in the multi million-dollar law-suit. I’m not going to comment on themerits of the case but it reminds us ofthe importance of correct windshieldand glass installs.

Barrett Smith, President of AutoDamage Experts wrote: “This is whyit is so very import to be very carefuland selective when choosing a subletglass replacement company and otheroutside vendors to provide servicesfor your business. Just because you

engage another’s service doesn’t ex-empt you and your company from lia-bilities that may arise from a tragicloss such as this. Even recommendinganother service could land you inenough trouble to cost you tens ofthousands in dollars proving you haveno liability!”

Let’s take a look at the basics ofglass and windshields in particular.1) What is the function of a wind-shield?The main function of today’s wind-shield is■ It is part of the vehicle structure■ It is part of the frontal air bag sys-tem■ It restrains the passengers in vehicle■ And yes, it keeps the bugs off yourface.

One reason rollovers are so dan-gerous is that, when a vehicle rollsover, its roof can crush down on theoccupants, causing head injuries,paraplegia and death. Today’s vehicles

are engineered so that the windshieldprovides much of the stiffness neces-sary to keep the roof from collapsing.In fact, some experts say that thewindshield accounts for up to 60% ofthe cabin’s structural integrity in arollover.

Some vehicles, the passenger’sside frontal air bag is deflected off ofthe windshield and is aimed at thefront passenger seat. Just these twoexamples should serve to remind usthat installing a windshield takes morethan a phone call to your local vendorand you are finished. Not by a longshot.

2) Before going any further, let’slook at how glass is categorized.

All windshields are marked withtwo letters: AS stands for AmericanStandard. The number indicates theposition in the vehicle where theglass may be used, based on its opti-cal quality. AS1 is the clearest glass(at least 70% light transmission), islaminated, and can be used anywherein a motor vehicle (typically just thewindshield).

AS2 is tempered, with at least70% light transmission, and can beused anywhere except the windshield,and—

AS3 can be used in certain loca-tions in certain vehicles (it can be lam-inated or tempered, and has less than

70% light transmission.) AS3 is alsoknown as Privacy Glass.”

We deal with 2 types of glass:laminated and tempered.Laminated glass is a type of safetyglass that holds together when shat-tered. In the event of breaking, it isheld in place by an interlayer, typi-cally of polyvinyl butyral (PVB), be-tween its two or more layers of glass.The bonding process takes placeunder heat and pressure. When lami-nated under these conditions, the PVBinterlayer becomes optically clear andbinds the two panes of glass together.

Once sealed together, theglass “sandwich” (i.e., lami-nate) behaves as a single unitand looks like any otherglass.

Tempered glass is a typeof safety glass processed bycontrolled thermal or chemi-cal treatments to increase itsstrength compared with nor-mal glass. Tempering createsbalanced internal stresseswhich cause the glass, whenbroken, to crumble into small

granular chunks instead of splinteringinto jagged shards.

These two pictures and examplesof the marking on the glass. They areknown as “bugs” and will be found onall automotive glass and to identify


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www.toyotaofgrandrapids.com

Brunswick ToyotaBRUNSWICK

Toll Free 888-460-7080Direct 330-460-7080

330-460-7082 FaxMon., Fri. 8am - 6pm;

Sat. 8am - 4pmwww.brunswickautomart.com

Tech Notes

National News in BriefWEB WINDOW: - www.autobodynews.com

Regional News in BriefWEB WINDOW: - www.autobodynews.com

with Jeremy HayhurstPublisher’s Page

with Karyn HendricksShop Showcase

with David M. BrownShop Showcase

Shop Showcasewith Jeremy Hayhurst

Hey Toby!with Toby Chess

California Autobody Associationwith David McClune

Collision Repair Association of CA.with Richard Steffen

Insurers Excel at Steeringwith Richard Steffen

Year in Quoteswith John Yoswick

Transition Planningwith John Yoswick

Mainstream Media

My Turnwith Joe Momber

Toby Chess is an I-CAR program instructor, Training specialist, and former salvage yard operator.Toby is universally known in the collision industry for his work with first responders and advocacyfor body shops and consumers. He can be reached at [email protected]

Glass and Windshield Installs Must Be Handled by the Book

See Windshield Installs, Page 43


by Melanie Anderson

Crazy Painters Mitch Kelly, 53, hisfather Tom Kelly, 73, and sonThomas Kelly, 22, might be a littlecrazy with the schedule they keep.Based out of Bellflower, CA, thethree-generation trio don’t have muchfree time between painting custom hotrods, Harleys, semi tractor trailers,race haulers, motor homes and, re-cently, even a plane.

Owners of Kelly & Son TheCrazy Painters, Mitch and his dadTom still have yet to add “& Grand-son” to the sign, but the younger gen-

eration is holding his own with hiscomputer-generated design and logowork.

You might say painting is in theirblood. Mitch’s great great grandfatherwas striping horse-drawn wagons onthe Ford line before motors were eveninvented. Tom Kelly’s grand-father did pinstriping back inthe ‘40s, and Tom, whostarted in the business at age13, is well-known for work-ing with Von Dutch as wellas Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth.Mitch also started in the busi-ness at age 13, paintingwheels for his dad. Mitchsays his dad and grandfathernamed the shop “CrazyPainters” because of the air-brush work they did back in the ‘50sinvolved a lot of monsters, flames and‘crazy’ graphics and lettering.

Blue HeavenAt SEMA 2012, Mitch unveiled his1957 Bel Air Chevy called ‘Blue

Heaven’ and since then the car haswon several awards. In November, itwas selected as Goodguys Builder’sChoice Top 10 at the Goodguys 2ndFall Del Mar Nationals in Del Mar,CA. In December it won ‘Best inShow’ at the 15th Annual John ForceHoliday Car Show in Yorba Lindaamongst approximately 3,000 cars inthe show. In January, Blue Heavencame home with the ‘Best Paint’award in their division from theGrand National Roadster Show inPomona, CA, and in March, the carwas selected as a Vintage Air Cus-tom Rod of the Year Finalist at the

Goodguys 4th Spring Nationals inScottsdale, AZ.

Upcoming shows include theLong Beach Grand Prix and Cruisingfor the Cure in Orange County. Thecar will also be featured in an upcom-ing issue of Hot Rod Magazine.

Despite the car’s popularity andaward-winning looks, Mitch says it’stime for the car to go and he is lookingfor a buyer. Mitch is eager to start hisnext street rod project and has a ‘61Impala and ‘57 Chevy Bel Air con-vertible awaiting his attention.

“Rock My RV”Mitch, Tom and Thomas Kelly alsohave been busy taping episodes of anew TV show called “Rock My RV”which will begin airing on the Travel

Channel in May. Legendary rockerBret Michaels, a long-time RV devo-tee, will host the all-new “Rock MyRV” series. According to their web-site, Michaels leads a team of skilled,custom RV designers and fabricatorsto transform ordinary RVs into “out-rageous, badass, hooked-up mobilemansions on the road.”

The Kelly’s have recently paintedtwo motor homes for the show, aGMC for a gourmet sausage entrepre-neur and a Fleetwood for a Midwestfamily who travels the Californiacoast.

The GMC, Mitch said, lookedlike it had been in a hurricane withbroken fiberglass and rusted screws,nuts and bolts. Kelly and crew re-paired the fiberglass, replaced allhinges, sanded, base coated with hisall-time favorite red—PPG’s HotRed—and then added a black and goldpearl belly stripe while son Thomascreated an awesome 3D logofor the owner’s business.

“This was a three-Kellyeffort,” said Mitch. Thomasdid the design and logo work,Mitch did the mask off, andbase painting and stencilgraphics, and Tom Kelly,with his phenomenal air-brushing talents, added depthand shine with candies andpearls and created a 3D af-fect.

Mitch painted the 30-foot Fleet-wood motor home belonging to the

Midwest family black with goldstripes and red candy with graphics ina three-layer design in red and goldwith drop shadowing done in stages.Three sets of graphics lay on top of

each other. Tom finished it off with acustom 3D mural painted in the backof the motor home to commemoratethe wild and scenic California coast-line that the traveling family loves tovisit.

Kawasaki Motocross Race TrailerAnother recent project the Kelly menhave worked on includes a KawasakiVolvo tractor with a race trailer.Painting extravagant tractor-trailerrigs is a Kelly specialty. Clients in-clude professional motocross and su-percross teams and manufacturers.These jobs are great calling cards forthe Kellys as the trucks travel acrossthe country on nationwide tours withriders giving TV interviews anddoing commercials in front of theKelly custom-painted trucks.

What’s different about this newproject is that Thomas is solely re-sponsible for creating all the design

work. Proud Papa Mitch says his sonpresented his design ideas to the cor-porate Kawasaki race team decision

Crazy Painter Mitch Kelly, Father & Son Keep on Truckin’ in SoCal

Kawasaki team trailer painted by Mitch Kelly

Mitch Kelly’s 1957 Bel Air Chevy, called “Blue Heaven” has won several awards

A slice of heaven

Brian Deegan’s truck

makers who loved his work andagreed to the concept within five min-utes. The semi is painted black withwhite and lime green and a heavymetallic blue, with a green and bluepearl for sparkle. Mitch says you can’tsee the glitter until the sunlight hits itjust right and then the paint job“winks at you.”

Mitch is able to paint semis in ahuge 63’x19’x19’ paint booth, but hedidn’t start in a fancy, monster-sizepaint booth. He got his first semi-truck custom paint job back in 1992from the Association of VolleyballProfessionals (AVP). They wanted animage of a 30-foot volleyball playerdiving for the ball on the side of thetruck. Mitch said yes before he evenknew they could do it. Mitch recallsthey set up a projector in the drive-way and parked the truck on thestreet. They projected the image theywanted on side of the truck to sketchit out. Out of hundreds of custompaint jobs completed over fourdecades, this job turned out to be hisall-time favorite. Today, custom paintjobs on a semi run about $50,000. Ittakes about a week of prepping andanother four days to paint a semi,Mitch said.Truck for Brian Deegan

Mitch completed another recent trac-tor-trailer project for Brian Deeganwho races off-road trucks. Thomascreated the designs, incorporating allthe sponsors’ logos and Mitch paintedthe rig using his favorite PPG Hot Red,Titanium Silver and created a brightyellow to match the “Rock Star” yel-low. Mitch completed the black, red,silver and yellow look with red andgold micro sequence flakes.

Deegan of Temecula, CA, is a for-mer freestyle motocross racer whofounded Metal Mulisha, a freestylemotocross FMX team, and is a RallyCar Gold Medalist and winner of tenX-Games medals.

And a PlaneMotorcycles, custom vehicles, motorhomes, semi trucks. So, why not aplane? Mitch’s friend Dana Pontiouslives on an airport in the MojaveDesert and owns a 1955 Cessna 172,the second oldest Cessna 172 still fly-ing today. Dana has owned the planefor a few years and she’s been flying itbare aluminum. The plane needed apaint job. Who better than her goodfriend Mitch? The father of Dana’s fi-ance, Adam, happens to be a mechanicand rated with FAA to work on planes,so they tore the plane apart and they

hauled it in a trailer in 104 pieces toMitch’s Bellflower shop.

Mitch met Dana years ago as afellow dirt bike rider. “Dana is thekind of girl who hooks up atrailer to the motor home byherself, hauls it out to thedesert, gets out her bike andrides with the boys at thesame speed we did,” Mitchsaid.

Mitch recently spent along weekend prepping, seal-ing and painting the Cessna.He used PPG’s base colors, atitanium silver and white, tocreate a light gray with slightpearl metallic sheen. Ofcourse, he added his favorite Hot Redand then they covered the plane inblack and silver graphics. Mitch saidhis son went a bit crazy on the graph-ics and after three long days of addingcolor and graphics all over the body,tail and wings, Mitch was completely

worn out. Adam put the plane back to-gether and Dana made immediateplans to fly to Florida to pick up hersister to go to an air show and have

some fun girl time. Dana’s plans in-cluded showing the plane and flyingin a showcase.

“I have waited a very long time toget this paint job,” Dana said. “As I sitback and look at it now, it was wellworth the wait. It is better than I could

have ever imagined. I can’t believethis is my airplane!”

Can’t Move Without ItOne of the products that Mitch findsinvaluable in his shop is his mobilecar dolly built by DJS Fabrications

Inc. The dollies can bebolted to disk brakes, tiresaren’t necessary, and it al-lows a tech to work beneaththe car and works well forlow-sitting cars that can beput right on the dolly.

“They are invaluable forpushing a dead car around theshop,” said Mitch. “Currently,we have a 1982 low-riderCadillac getting customizedand it wouldn’t push any-where, so we have it on oneof Doug’s dollies. We can

move it wherever we want to work onit. If you can’t move it, you can’t workon it. They are vital to getting the jobdone.”

For more information about Mitchand Tom Kelly Crazy Painters, go to:www.kellyandsoncrazypainters.com.


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1955 Cessna 172 before paint job

Mitch Kelly and son Thomas Kelly

1955 Cessna 172 (after paint job) won “Grand Champion” in a recent air show

for replacement of sun visors afterairbag deployment.

“And you can’t even use thesame screws. You’re supposed to havebrand new screws, otherwise you’vejust deviated from the standard proce-dures from Honda,” Risley said.

Similarly, he said, Toyota callsfor the complete replacement of someseats after airbag deployment.

“And if you meet with Toyotaand you ask them, ‘Why can’t I justreplace a seat back,’ which was theprocedure at one time, their responseis a little bit different than you mightthink,” Risley said. “Most people as-sume it’s a safety issue. In this partic-ular case, the reason they want you toreplace the full seat is the impact oncustomer service. The material on theseat back wouldn’t match the seat bot-tom and customers were dissatisfied.”

Schulenburg acknowledged thatthe goal is not to give “automakerscarte blanche” in terms of proceduresbut to have two-way communicationwith them and to have mechanisms inplace to ensure it is a collaborative in-

dustry effort.“I think the key take-away is that

the industry can be assured that therewill be solutions for you,” he said.“Where we go is predicated only onthe needs of the repairers who areusing these procedures.”

The discussion of insurer-man-dated parts procurement system alsofocused on potential ways to addresswhat one Arizona shop owner termed“the death knell of the industry.”

Several attendees discussed ex-isting or proposed state legislation thatcould limit such programs. A bill in-troduced earlier this year in Maryland,for example, would prohibit an insurerfrom requiring a shop to use a specificvendor or process for the procurementof parts or materials necessary for re-pair of a vehicle.

A number of attendees also dis-cussed the importance of shops edu-cating their local parts vendors.

Although several attendees saidthat based on their conversations withState Farm they felt it was now in-evitable that the insurer will moveahead with PartsTrader, Schulenburgsaid he’s not so sure.

“I think ‘resistance is futile’ wouldbe a position I would want to take, too,

if I wanted to get people who were re-sisting to stop resisting,” Schulenburgsaid. “‘We’re moving forward with itregardless…’ is a great approach to en-courage people to stop questioning it. Ijust don’t know that that’s true. I wouldcaution anyone hearing those messag-ing points to take it with a grain of salt.”

Schulenburg ended the meetingby saying he looks forward to eventu-ally having hundred of repairers in theroom for future meetings.

“I see the discussion in the in-dustry moving to more proactive strat-egy versus just a reiteration of warstories and gripes and complaints,” hesaid. “That’s really healthy for our in-dustry to make that transition.”

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].


Continued from Page 31

Repairer Roundtable

Northern California Man Pleads No Contest toSelling Counterfeit ALLDATA ProductsALLDATA LLC, a provider of man-ufacturers’ automotive repair infor-mation and solutions for theprofessional automotive service andcollision repair industries, recentlyannounced the successful arrest andprosecution of a software counterfeit-ing operation. The company hasa long-standing program dedicated totracking down illegal sales of ALL-DATA products, an effort which rou-tinely results in prosecution.

In the most recent case, WilliamEdwin White, III, was arrested inDecember 2012, following a five-month investigation by the StanislausCounty Sheriff Department andSacramento Valley Hi-Tech CrimesTask Force. The two law enforcementagencies worked with the ALLDATAAntipiracy team to investigate the il-legally copied ALLDATA productsthat White had advertised for sale.

“We aggressively pursue soft-ware piracy,” said ALLDATA Presi-dent Jeff Lagges. “It’s theft, and ithurts our customers by driving upcosts. But it’s not the same as down-loading a pirated song—it’s poten-tially a consumer safety issue becausecounterfeiters don’t care if the infor-

mation is correct. We do care, be-cause incorrect information shouldnever be used to repair vehicles. Peo-ple who don’t realize they bought pi-rated software often call us tocomplain that the product isn’t work-ing correctly, which is why it’s so im-portant to purchase ALLDATARepair through our sales team or ourcompany website.”

ALLDATA licenses vehicle re-pair, diagnostic and maintenance in-formation directly from manufacturersand provides it to customers through asecure, Web-based portal.

“Manufacturers often add, re-move and change information,” saidLagges. “Offering our productsthrough online subscriptions allowsus to get changes to our customersquickly. So buying counterfeit ALL-DATA products not only wastesmoney, it’s a risky business that we’reworking hard to stop.”

Following the investigation andDecember arrest, White was foundguilty, sentenced and ordered to payrestitution to ALLDATA.

CCC Information Services recentlydonated $25,000 to the Collision Re-pair Education Foundation to helpsupport collision school programsand collision students. The fundingwill allow for four collision studentscholarships, which will be givenaway in May 2013 as part of the$300,000 in awards the Collision Re-pair Education Foundation is offer-ing.

CCC information Services willalso award a collision program with a$10,000 “Classroom MakeoverGrant” in order for the school to beable to purchase needed classroommaterial such as curriculum, comput-ers, audio-visual equipment, or otherrelated items needed for a school’scollision classroom area.

The winning school will be se-lected from the schools that apply forthe 2013 Collision Repair EducationFoundation Ultimate Collision Edu-cation Makeover grant. The applica-tion for the Makeover grant isavailable at www.CollisionEduca-tionFoundation.org and is due onMay 31. Schools who apply will beeligible for one of two $50,000Makeover grants, and an additionalsix $10,000 awards.

CCC Donates $25,000 to Education Foundation



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what type of glass it is.Vehicle manufacturers must meet

Federal Motor Safety Standards 208,212, 216 & 219 for glass and vehicleoccupant safety. Aftermarket installersuse urethane and primers that aremanufactured and tested to meet fed-eral and industry standards, but theyare not regulated by the government,which means that you better do yourdue diligence when subletting yourglass. (See form on page 45.) If youare not familiar with the safety stan-dards here they are:

FMVSS and AutoglassFMVSS205, FMVSS212,FMVSS216, FMVSS219See below for a look at a few of thepopular Federal Motor Vehicle SafetyStandards pertaining to auto glass, in-cluding a brief summary of each stan-dard.

571.205 Standard No. 205; GlazingMaterialsScope. This standard specifies re-quirements for glazing materials foruse in motor vehicles and motor vehi-cle equipment.Purpose. The purpose of this standardis to reduce injuries resulting from im-pact to glazing surfaces, to ensure anecessary degree of transparency inmotor vehicle windows for driver vis-ibility, and to minimize the possibilityof occupants being thrown through thevehicle windows in collisions.

571.212 Standard No. 212; WindshieldMountingScope. This standard establisheswindshield retention requirements formotor vehicles during crashes.Purpose. The purpose of this standardis to reduce crash injuries and fatali-ties by providing for retention of thevehicle windshield during a crash,thereby utilizing fully the penetration-resistance and injury-avoidance prop-erties of the windshield glazingmaterial and preventing the ejection ofoccupants from the vehicle.

571.216 Standard No. 216; Roof CrushResistanceScope. This standard establishesstrength requirements for the passen-ger compartment roof.Purpose. The purpose of this standardis to reduce deaths and injuries due to

the crushing of the roof into the occu-pant compartment in rollover crashes.

571.219 Standard No. 219; WindshieldZone IntrusionScope. This standard specifies limitsfor the displacement into the wind-shield area of motor vehicle compo-nents during a crash.Purpose. The purpose of this standardis to reduce crash injuries and fatali-ties that result from occupants con-tacting vehicle components displacednear or through the windshield.

Do you know what the black strip inthe photo is called and what’s it for?It’s called a Frit and it serves two roleson the glass. First, as a cosmetic fea-ture that is used to hide interior trimand pinchweld details. Second, the fritinhibits UV degradation of urethaneadhesives. While the frit will not com-pletely block the UV rays from pass-ing through the glass, it doessignificantly reduce UV light trans-mission. Most urethanes are not UVstable. If urethane is left exposed tosunlight for prolonged periods of time,it will yellow and turn chalky. Pres-ence of the frit will extend the lifetimeof the urethane adhesive system.

Many of today’s vehicles havebeen specifically designed to utilizethe windshield as a structural compo-nent of the vehicle body by providingincreased torsional stiffness. Vehiclemanufacturers are careful to select

special, high-modulus polyurethane(PUR) adhesives to bond the wind-shield to these specific vehicles. Re-lying on the windshield as a structuralmember, the high-modulus adhesivealso allows the OEM to minimize thethickness of the steel used to build thecar, thus reducing weight and costs.The high modulus urethane is morerigid when completely cured, and theproperties of the non conductive ure-thane do not interfere with the newersophisticated electronics in vehicles

Each urethane has its unique setof primers which are an integral partof the bonding process. Each urethanealso has a cure time (the time that ittakes for the urethane to harden) be-fore it is safe to drive the vehicle. It isimportant for the collision repair fa-cility to know what that cure time is. Ifthe urethane is not cured, the safety ofthe vehicle will not have been re-stored.

The pinch weld that has been re-paired or replaced, needs am epoxyprimer or a similar product applied tothe bare metal surface. Some vehiclemanufacturers allow refinishing thesurface, while others want onlyepoxy primer applied. All OEMsstate that there should be no bodyfiller applied to the pinchweld whereurethane is used due the fact that theurethane will not adhere to the sub-strate. Let’s take a quick look at ad-hesion failure.

Adhesive failure: The inabilityof an adhesive to stick to a surface.During adhesive failure, the adhesivecannot bind two surfaces together andseparates from the substrate.

Cohesive failure: The inabilityof an adhesive to resist internal sepa-

ration. During cohesive failure, the ad-hesive sticks to both surfaces, but cannot hold them together.

Many windshields and backliteshave antennas and defroster gridsembedded in the glass. A non-con-ductive adhesive should be used ifthe adhesive will contact the antennaor defroster lines when the part is in-stalled. Non-conductive adhesivesprevent interference with antennasystems and heated defroster systemsthat are contained in the glass. Manynew glass parts have the antenna, de-froster connections or buss barsaround the edge of the glass in thesame area that the adhesive is appliedto install a glass part. Using a con-ductive adhesive will affect the per-formance of the electrical system.Several adhesive manufacturers offera non-conductive product for theseglass applications.

A broken heated grid line on abacklite will affect the operation of theantenna. Many new radio and cellularphone antenna designs are incorpo-rated into the heated grid design in thebacklite. If a heated grid line is brokenit will affect the performance of theantenna. The line break will becomemore noticeable with the general pub-lic as diversity antennas gain popular-ity and reduce the need for traditionalmast antennas. There are aftermarketgrid line repair systems availablewhich can restore both the heating and

the antenna characteristics ofthe grid line.

Does the rain sensormodule come on the re-placement windshield? No.At this time, none of therain sensor designs requirethe sensor to be applied bythe manufacturer on the re-placement windshields. Theelectronic sensor that is onthe existing windshield in

the car must be removed and re-mounted onto the replacementwindshield.

How is the rain sensor attached tothe replacement windshield? Thereare special re-attachment kits for thereplacement industry, availablethrough your local dealer, which canbe used to re-attach the electronic rainsensor to the new windshield. TheCadillac kit consists of tape, cleanersand primers for replacing the Cadillacmodule. The Mercedes/BMW kit con-tains the tape and a new lens. Instruc-tions for application are included in all


Windshield Installs

See Windshield Installs, Page 45


by Susan GuyerFinishmaster Marketing Manager

Audit is a scary word—tax audits, fi-nancial audits, and process auditsoften conjure images of mounds ofpaperwork. There are different ap-proaches to running an audit, many ofwhich are cumbersome, completedone time and forgotten, or too com-plicated from the first step.

Simplifying the process andmoving away from a process audit toa Process Analysis will help you withcontinuous improvement. FinishMas-ter has built a system to help shopowners improve processes by gettingthe entire team involved, applyingsmall changes, and monitoring suc-cess over time.

Jeff Smith, FinishMaster DistrictSales Manager in West CentralFlorida, discusses shop audits he hasseen in the past. “I have seen auditsthat are 30 pages long with 100+boxes to check off. People are readyto be done before they start. Our ex-perience shows that less is better andit is more about observing and askingquestions than checking boxes.”Smith said they have built a processfocused around six key points thatlead to an effective and successfulProcess Analysis.

Take off the blinders. Look atthe shop from a fresh perspective anddo not assume that anything is per-fect. FinishMaster helps remove theblinders by tailoring the processanalysis to what each shops needs.

Chris Shrewsbury, CollisionDirector for Ferman Acura andChevrolet in Tampa, FL, talks abouthis experience with audits. “Insteadof one size fits all, FinishMaster’sProcess Analysis really looks at ourfacilities for ways to improve on anindividual basis and they help imple-ment the changes. Being able to con-

stantly see ways to improve allows usto adapt to an ever-changing indus-try.” Even if a process is documented,review it using the Process Analysisplan, there might be additional op-portunity for improvement.

Keep it simple. Smith said hestarts with one area that needs im-provement, such as color match.Having a “road map of questions” inadvance and asking more that come

to mind while walkingthrough the process allowsyou to uncover opportuni-ties for improvement. Smithcontinued, “It is importantto take pictures while youare conducting the processanalysis. This is not only agreat reminder of each step,but it is also an importantvisual aid when compilingthe analytics. Here are someof the basic questions spe-cific to color match asked

during a Process Analysis.• When is color matching done?• Is it done in the spray booth?• Do you use all color documentationincluding variant chips?• When do you do spray outs?

Keeping it simple and walkingthrough one process from start to fin-ish, rather than tackling an entire list,enables the group to more easilyidentify points of opportunity forchange.

Gain more input from Man-agement and Technicians. Focusingon the questions and answers gath-ered during the Process Analysis isthe best opportunity to gain insightabout current process and ideas forchange. If you ask the right questions,

in most cases, both the managementand the technicians will give youmore than enough opportunities forimprovement. Building the ProcessAnalysis through documented con-

versation leads to solutions. To set upnew processes and implementchange, there has to be buy-in fromall participants.

Match changes/Standard Op-erating Procedures (SOPs) to ma-terial movement. Think back to thecolor match issue reviewed duringthe Process Analysis. Once the cur-rent process is understood throughquestions and photo documentation,digging through the data is the nextstep. Identify areas that the smallestchanges will have the greatest im-pact. For example, with color match asuggested improvement is to com-plete the initial spray out when jamb-ing parts.

When implementing a smallchange, this is the perfect opportunityto set up SOPs.

“During the SOP setup, we usethe data collected to match all mate-rials, storage, and distribution to thetechnicians so there is com-plete compliance. When youcan match procedures to ma-terials with no options to stepoutside the defined SOPs,you have a very high successrate on both profitability andproductivity,” said Smith.

Monitor for success.Smith reinforced, “Makingmajor changes is why we seeother audits fail. Focusing onsmall changes has the mostimpact, and monitoring thosechanges is the only way to be suc-cessful.”

There are two simple steps onceyou have identified an opportunityand set new SOPs.

Step 1 is to build a follow-upcheck list. Basically, this is asmall analysis custom builtto monitor compliance on allthe agreed changes and newSOPs with key performanceindicators (KPIs). Most ofthe time audits are per-formed, the results go in theback of the desk drawer andimplementation is rare. Witha follow-up check list per-formed at preset intervals,the same issues will notcome up six months or a

year later. A check list has to be cus-tom built with each Process Analysisconducted at the shop.

“Setting up procedures thatmatch only materials in our facility

has increased both profitability andproductivity. With FinishMaster’sunique KPI tracking methods wemonitor our progress to ensure theprocedures are followed and thechanges are positive,” said Shrews-bury of Ferman Acura and Chevrolet.

Step 2 is to monitor performance.Again, everyone has KPIs andspreadsheets with more numbers thanmost can digest. Keep it simple. Haveonly pertinent KPIs and build a cus-tom tracking calculator that can mon-itor the effectiveness of the changesimplemented. This takes some cre-ativity and some help from Finish-Master, but when you sit down toreview KPIs it will include very spe-cific measures of implementedchange that show profitability andproductivity results.

Understand that the processnever ends. The continuous im-provement model is a key component

of making the Process Analysis suc-cessful. By removing blinders, allareas in the shop can be reviewedover time and check lists can be up-dated if better process ideas are iden-tified. Larry Lampinen, Owner ofNu Finish Collision in Brandon, FL,discusses his experience with Finish-Master’s Process Analysis.

“Most companies claim to havea lot of tools to help you, but yourarely see them used. To my surprise,FinishMaster came in day one doinga Process Analysis and has notstopped bringing me ideas for im-provement. The data the ProcessAnalysis provides ties material usageto an individual technician in corre-lation to their hours produced. Thisgives us a very precise way to seeprofitability by technician so we canidentify opportunities for improve-ment right down to a technician.Their implementation of best prac-tices has been a benefit to my overallperformance.”

Six Tips to Finding Success in Process Analysis

Chris Shrewsbury, Ferman Acura and Chevrolet withJeff Smith, FinishMaster

Chris Shrewsbury, Ferman Acura and Chevrolet withJose Bezares, FinishMaster Account Manager

Larry Lampinen, Nu Finish Collision with Jeff Smith

the kits.Encapsulated Glass has the

molding permanently attached to theglass. Most of the time when the glassis removed, the molding is damagedand a new glass and molding is nec-essary.


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Most & Least Expensive States for Car InsuranceLouisiana has the highest average carinsurance rates in the nation, followedby Michigan and Georgia, accordingto Insure.com’s annual state-by-statecomparison of insurance premiums.

Maine enjoys the least expensivecar insurance rates, followed by Iowa.

Georgia rose from the No. 10 posi-tion in 2012 to this year’s third-place spot.

2013 state rankings of car insuranceratesAvg. annual premium*1 Louisiana $ 2,6992 Michigan $ 2,5203 Georgia $ 2,1554 Oklahoma $ 2,0745 Washington, D.C. $ 2,0066 Montana $ 1,9147 California $ 1,8198 West Virginia $ 1,8169 Rhode Island $ 1,73510 Kentucky $ 1,72511 Connecticut $ 1,72312 New Jersey $ 1,69713 Alabama $ 1,66714 Missouri $ 1,63815 Massachusetts $ 1,62516 Pennsylvania $ 1,60417 Delaware $ 1,58618 Hawaii $ 1,58319 Texas $ 1,54520 Arkansas $ 1,54521 Maryland $ 1,528

National average $ 1,51022 North Dakota $ 1,50123 Wyoming $ 1,49624 Alaska $ 1,45525 Utah $ 1,43826 Kansas $ 1,43527 Minnesota $ 1,43228 New Mexico $ 1,43129 Tennessee $ 1,40830 South Dakota $ 1,39731 Oregon $ 1,38732 Nebraska $ 1,38433 New York $ 1,36934 Florida $ 1,36435 Mississippi $ 1,34536 Nevada $ 1,34137 Virginia $ 1,32238 Illinois $ 1,32239 South Carolina $ 1,28840 Colorado $ 1,27141 Wisconsin $ 1,22842 Arizona $ 1,22743 Washington $ 1,22644 Indiana $ 1,18345 Vermont $ 1,17646 Idaho $ 1,13347 New Hampshire $ 1,11248 Ohio $ 1,10649 North Carolina $ 1,08550 Iowa $ 1,02851 Maine $ 934

Source: Insure.com.

Axalta Coating Systems Holds Fleet Council MeetingAxalta Coating Systems (formerlyDuPont Performance Coatings) heldits 9th Fleet Business Council meet-ing in Paterson, NJ, on April 5-6 toprovide fleet business owners andmanagers with the leadership skills toimprove shop efficiency, enhanceprofitability and grow their business.

The Fleet Business Council isthe first forum of its kind in the U.S.Established in 2009 with a group of10 fleet customers from across theU.S., the Council brings together spe-cialists in heavy-duty truck, RV, busand commercial equipment repair andrefinishing.

The goal of the Council is topromote an environment where own-ers and managers can interact withother professionals, share best prac-tices and further develop their busi-ness management skills.

Led by industry expert MikeAnderson of Collision Advice andhosted by Axalta Coating Systems,the meetings are scheduled on aquarterly basis and are structured toinclude a discussion of financialmanagement principles, membershop tours and critiques, as well asguest speakers who provide industryinformation.

Valtek, Inc., located in Paterson,

hosted a tour of its shop that focuseson repair of heavyduty truck andequipment, fire apparatus, RVs andbuses.

A representative from ReliableEquipment presented an overview ofnew tools, equipment, and processesfor bonding and riveting on vehicles.

Kirsten Klabunde, a certifiedCPA with Collision Advice, provideda detailed look into the benefits ofusing the statement of cash flows toanalyze business operations.

“Participating in the Axalta FleetBusiness Council has significantlyimproved the direction and prof-itability of our business,” said JoelForte, one of the owners of FinalTouch Coach Works in Valencia, CA,who has been a Council member forone year. “The networking opportu-nity to address real-world businessconcerns has proven to be extremelyvaluable.”

For additional information or tobecome a member of the Axalta FleetBusiness Council, contact your localAxalta Coating Systems representa-tive or call 1.800.438.3876.



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Car thefts in Massachusetts havedropped by 88% since the mid-1970s,when the state had the dubious dis-tinction of being the country’s cartheft capital, the Claims Journal re-cently reported.

Insurance experts and law en-forcement officials credit the dra-matic drop to anti-theft features,from transponder keys and immobi-lizing devices and vehicle trackingsystems, and to vigorous enforce-ment by police.

The Boston Globe reports thatthere were 1,575 reports of stolen ve-hicles in Boston last year, comparedwith 28,000 in 1975. In Massachu-setts, car thefts have dropped everyyear since 2001.

The state now ranks near the mid-dle of the pack nationally, a drop thathas helped stabilize insurance rates.

The bad news is that these daysstolen vehicles are less likely to befound. Many are shipped overseas orare driven to Mexico.

Car Theft Drops by 88% inMassachusetts

Matrix System recently promotedDavid Brunori to division presidentof Quest Automotive Products (QAP).

Brunori has 30 years of experi-ence in the collision repair andrestoration market and has beenwith Matrix System AutomotiveFinishes for 20 years.

Brunori currently serves on theBoard of Trustees for the CollisionRepair Education Foundation, theOakland Schools Education Foun-dation, and as an adviser for theOakland Schools' Technical Cam-pus–Southwest. He holds a bache-lor’s degree in chemistry and agraduate degree in business man-agement.

“Being named division presi-dent is an honor and a major accom-plishment in my professional career,”said Brunori. “I have always tried tofollow very simple guidelines: have avision, lead people and stay focused.I am looking forward to see what thefuture has in store.”

David Brunori Promoted toDivision President at Matrix

Chicago Pneumatic has announcedthat it is providing ten $1,000 toolgrants to the Collision Repair Edu-cation Foundation. These grants willallow students entering the work-force to have the best pneumatictools available to enhance their newskill sets.

Secondary and post-secondarycollision students attending careerand technical schools and collegeshave the opportunity to apply formore than $300,000 in availablescholarships and tool grants avail-able through the Collision RepairEducation Foundation and its indus-try supporters.

Other sponsored awards in-clude:• 3M Hire Our Heroes VeteranScholarships & Tool Grants• Alliance of Automotive ServiceProviders Massachusetts (AASP-MA) Tool Grants• ABRA Auto Body & Glass ToolGrants• Alcoa Foundation AluminumTraining Grants• CCC Michael Salvatore MemorialStudent Repair Technician Scholarship.

Chicago Pneumatic Gives$10,000 in Tool Grants

Cathy Bonner, chairman of theboard at Service King Collision Re-pair Centers, will be a featuredspeaker at the 2013 Paint, Body &Equipment Specialists (PBES)Spring Conference, May 14–16 atthe Embassy Suites Phoenix-Scotts-dale.

Bonner will present “ServiceKing’s Vision for Expansion andOutlook for the Industry.” In addi-tion, she will share her view of theCarlyle Group’s entry into the in-dustry and her outlook on multi-shop consolidation.

Bonner is a business entrepre-neur with more than 35 years’ expe-rience in leading a variety ofmulti-million dollar organizations inboth the public and private sector.

Fortune Magazine named Bon-ner one of the 25 most influentialwomen entrepreneurs in America,calling her “…smart, gutsy, and in-novative—as interested in making adifference as in making money.”

In 2010, Bonner was hired asService King’s president to developa strategic growth plan for the com-pany. In August 2012, the CarlyleGroup, an investment firm, pur-chased Service King.

Service King’s Bonner toSpeak at PBES Conference

The Collision Repair EducationFoundation recently announced that91 cents out of every dollar donatedwent towards assisting the future pro-fessionals of the industry.

Charity Navigator, America’sleading independent charity evalua-tor, advises that “the most efficientcharities spend 75% or more of theirbudget on their programs and serv-ices and less than 25% on fundrais-ing and administrative fees.”

The Collision Repair EducationFoundation having a 91-9% givingratio displays its’ commitment to theindustry’s future, while staying leanin its’ operational expenses.

Collision Repair EducationFoundation Director of DevelopmentBrandon Eckenrode noted, “It isimportant for charities to be account-able and transparent to their donors.We are grateful to our 175 donors in2012 for their record breaking $4.9million in giving, and it is our re-sponsibility as a not-for-profit organ-ization to ensure that the industry’ssupport reaches those in the mostneed. On behalf of the organization’sstaff and Board of Trustees, we thankour supporters and look forward tomaking 2013 a year to remember.”

Foundation Says 91 Cents ofEvery Buck Went to SchoolsThe following slate of eight candi-

dates are vying for four open seatson the SEMA Board of Directors.

Chairman-Elect Category1. Doug Evans, Source InterlinkMedia2. Tim Martin, K&N EngineeringManufacturers Category3. Al Azadi, Omix-ADA, Inc./RuggedRidge4. Kyle Fickler, Weld Racing5. Steve Matusek, Aeromotive, Inc.6. Tim Watts, Superlift SuspensionSystemsManufacturer’s RepresentativeCategory7. Jeff Bates, Bob Cook Sales8. Greg Bernheisel, Considine Sales& Marketing

This year the voting will takeplace online between May 15–June11, 2013. Voting is open to currentSEMA member companies andvotes must be cast by the member’sdesignated primary contact.

Winners will be announced inJune, and formally inducted in July.

For more informationabout the 2013-2016 SEMA Boardof Directors election, contact ArleneWood at [email protected] or call909-978-6678.

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NABC’s Operation Comfort Fundraising Kit AvailableThe National Auto Body Council re-cently announced that an OperationComfort Fundraising Kit—completewith camera-ready artwork forposters, flyers, donation cards and en-velopes—is now available on its web-site to make it easier for collisionindustry related companies to partici-pate in the NABC’s $1.5 million Op-eration Comfort Capital Campaign.

The NABC is spearheading in-dustry-wide efforts to raise funds topurchase, renovate and equip a30,000-sq-ft. training facility in SanAntonio, TX, for Operation Comfort’sAutoMotivation program.

Wounded soldiers in the Auto-Motivation program benefit from oc-cupational and rehabilitative therapiesas they work on automotive projects.

NABC-led efforts take the pro-gram to the next level by providingopportunities for disabled soldiers tolearn new job skills and acquire certi-fied I-CAR curriculum-based trainingfor new career paths in the automotiveindustry.

“Our industry also benefits in thelong-run because the outcome will bean increased pool of skilled, trainedtechnicians,” said Chuck Sulkala,NABC Executive Director.

Suggested fundraisers that com-

panies could implement include:• Donating a specified dollar amountfor each repair or product sold.• Matching each dollar donated by cus-tomers and the local community, and• Offering a special promotion withproceeds to benefit Operation Com-fort.

Creative development of the Op-eration Comfort Fundraising Kit wasdonated by Enterprise Rent-A-Car,which is also sponsoring a grand prizetrip to Walt Disney World® Resort forthe local shop that raises the mostfunds.

“We wanted to offer a fun incen-tive and challenge to encourage asmany companies as possible to join inour fundraising efforts for OperationComfort,” said Mary Mahoney, VicePresident for Enterprise.

The Operation Comfort Fundrais-ing Kit can be accessed via the NABCwebsite at www.autobodycouncil.org.The Enterprise-sponsored contest runsto June 30. The awarding of the grandprize will be based on funds receivedby July 4, 2013. The winner will be an-nounced at the NABC Board meetingJuly 23 in Boston. For more informa-tion about the Operation ComfortFundraising Kit, contact [email protected].

Hoffman Auto Body Fined $54K for OSHA ViolationsAn body shop in East Hartford, CT, isfacing federal fines totaling $54,300for repeated workplace safety viola-tions, according to a statement fromthe U.S. Department of Labor’s Oc-cupational Safety and Health Admin-istration.

The Hoffman Auto Group in-cludes three dealerships and two autobody shops. The violations are spe-cific to the company’s auto body re-pair facility at its East Hartfordlocation. The shop was cited for un-safe storage of chemicals and flam-mable materials.

The auto body shop was citedafter an inspection that began on Dec.6 to “verify correction of hazardscited during a 2011 inspection,” ac-cording to the statement.

The inspection revealed that haz-ards identified during the 2011 in-spection were still present a year later,including storage of flammable equip-ment and materials near paint spray-ing booths and electric panels. Thestored materials “limited access to ex-tinguish potential fires, presented fireand shock hazards and impededcleaning around the booths, which al-lows potentially combustible materi-als to accumulate,” according to thestatement.

Two citations, carrying $40,000in proposed fines, were issued due tothe repeat violations. Three other “se-rious violations” resulted in $14,300in proposed fines, according to thestatement. The statement went on tosay that serious violations occur when“there is substantial probability thatdeath or serious physical harm couldresult from a hazard about which theemployer knew or should haveknown.” Those violations stemmedfrom improper storage, disposal andcleanup of combustible materials, aswell as unlabeled containers of haz-ardous chemicals and an improperlylocated electrical outlet.

OSHA said Hoffman had 15business days from receipt of the cita-tions to comply or contest the findings.

The company is not contestingthe citations.

“The Hoffman family considersthe safety of our employees a top pri-ority and all issues identified byOSHA regulators in December of2012 at the East Hartford body shopwere rectified immediately and com-pletely,” the company said in a state-ment. “Additionally, we will makewhatever changes are appropriate tocontinue to ensure a safe workplacefor our employees.”

I-CAR®, the Inter-Industry Conferenceon Auto Collision Repair, recently do-nated $200,000 to the Collision RepairEducation Foundation.

The donation made by I-CAR isthe largest monetary donation that theCollision Repair Education Founda-tion has received since its founding in1991 and it will support the organiza-tion’s commitment to philanthropicand collision repair education activi-ties that promote and enhance careeropportunities in the industry.

In 2012, I-CAR committed to setaside $1 for every I-CAR class at-tended in 2012. In effect, this donationwas made possible by the Inter-Indus-try that trained with I-CAR through-out 2012. In 2012, I-CAR deliveredjust under 2,000 “student units,”which equates to just under 600,000credit hours of training. Due to thegoodness of the cause, the I-CARBoard made the decision to round thedonation to $200,000.

John Van Alstyne, I-CAR CEO& President said, “Thank you, Inter-Industry. Without your commitmentto training, I-CAR would not havebeen able to provide this level of sup-port to the Collision Repair Education

Foundation! Together, I-CAR and theCollision Repair Education Founda-tion are working closely to reinforcethe future sustainability of the indus-try.”

The Collision Repair EducationFoundation and I-CAR foster a part-nership that supports education for theentire Inter-Industry. I-CAR serves asa provider of technical training cur-riculum to the education sector,whereas the Collision Repair Educa-tion Foundation’s objective is to ad-vance Collision Repair secondary andpost-secondary education by support-ing funding for both schools and stu-dents.

“Our collective goals are to helpeffectively equip secondary and post-secondary schools. We aim to helpthem attract aspiring students and toproperly prepare graduates to add im-mediate value as future employees ofour industry. Independently and to-gether, we have a number of initia-tives under way to accomplish thisgoal. This donation on behalf of theInter-Industry will greatly help theCollision Repair Education Founda-tion advance its mission,” Van Alstynesaid.

I-CAR Makes Milestone $200,000 Donation to Collision Repair Education Foundation

May 2013 Great Lakes Edition

Documents

Transcript of May 2013 Great Lakes Edition