National AutoBody Research (NABR) announced the launch of the new VRS labor rate survey for luxury brands and special vehicles.

Intended for collision repairers who work on highline vehicles and have luxury brand manufacturer certifications, the online survey is free and easily accessible on the NABR website.

Through the survey and its VRS technology, NABR measures and reports the market-based labor prices collision repairers charge for working on luxury brand vehicles such as Audi, Bentley, Mercedes or Tesla, as well as special vehicles such as the new Ford F-150 or Nissan GT-R.

“This new survey fills a large gap in collision repair pricing information and enables a new level of pricing sophistication for repairers,” said Sam Valenzuela, president of NABR. “Previously, there was no easy way for a repairer to know what competitive market labor rates were for working on luxury and special vehicles, or to know whether their price was above or below market.

“Now, the VRS provides a solution by measuring market rates nationwide and reporting them with complete data transparency, showing what individual shops around the country charge for repairing these highline vehicles. Better information will help everybody – shops, insurers and consumers alike – to know how to price these high-end repairs.”

Eric McKenzie, director of body shop operations for Park Place Dealerships, added, “The significance of this new survey and new pricing data cannot be overstated. This is a real breakthrough for the industry, helping us all understand market prices nationwide for repairing highline vehicles. Intuitively, shops know they cannot charge standard door rates for repairing these luxury brands, given the tremendous investment required to achieve those manufacturer certifications. Yet, it is not really clear what the market price is either, so this new VRS survey will shine light on that topic, to everyone’s benefit.”

Some collision repairers make significant investments in training, tooling, equipment and facilities in order to achieve certifications from certain luxury vehicle manufacturers. These investments often go into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. In order to cover these enormous costs and earn a return on those investments, some repairers choose to charge higher labor rates when repairing special vehicle makes compared to other mass-market brands. Yet other shops charge their standard posted rates for these high-end vehicles, consequently working at less than sufficiently profitable rates, with long payback times and low ROI.

Now, with this new survey, those repairers have the opportunity to report these special labor rates to an independent third party in order to help define the true market rates for repairing these types of vehicles. These special rates are then accessible through the VRS on an individual shop basis, from a nationwide view down to the ZIP code level.