BodyShop Business Staff Writers, Author at BodyShop Business - Page 1629 of 1641
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How Crash Parts Suppliers Stack Up

Survey yields surprising results about shop owners’ and managers’ satisfaction with OEM, aftermarket and recycled parts suppliers.

Do Database Times Really Matter?

Point CounterPoint

One Man’s Rust Is Another Man’s Restaurant

Joe Grigas was a man with a dream. He’d purchased a dilapidated 1954 Desoto 2-door coupe and took it to Bob Young at Main Paint and Body in Akron, Ohio, to restore it to its former glory. But as Bob and his crew unraveled the old vehicle, signs of too many years in the rustbelt

Is the Insurance Company Also the Shop’s Customer?

  Rick Little, Owner Rick’s Auto Sales & Service Inc. Coshocton, Ohio Viewing insurance companies as your customer is an unhealthy and dangerous thing to do and will only lead to giving them complete control of the industry. We need only to look at the healthcare industry to see how subtly and completely this is

How to Get Paid, “What’s The Most Effective Approach to Get Insurers to Pay My Labor Rate?”

Labor rates have always been an area of contention between shop owners and insurance companies. From time immemorial, the two camps have been divided on the issue, and monumental arguments have arisen any time this subject is broached. So before we can arrive at any real answer to the labor rate question, we must first

Doggone Drivers

A dog caught illegally driving a pickup truck that smashed into an O’Reilly Auto Parts store will not be charged with any driving violations, say Springdale, Ark., police. The owner of the truck opted not to press charges against the offending canine. Police say the owner of the truck, Michael Henson, entered the parts store

A ‘How-To’ Guide for Increasing Labor Rates, BodyShop Business, February 2006

Rather than belabor the exhaustive list of reasons labor rates need to rise, let’s focus on what type of market conditions act to create higher – or more frequently increasing – prevailing rates in individual markets. By Tigger (from his view in the Thousland Acre Wood) No one in the collision repair industry would argue

How to Drop 13 DRPs — and Live to Tell About It

It didn’t take long to learn that more volume doesn’t always equal more money.

Will Insurers Eventually Purchase All Parts Directly from OEMs, Eliminating Shop Profits on Parts?

I’m going to play the devil’s advocate and say, ‘Yes, but only if we continue in our present path of doing nothing to stop them.’ We wouldn’t even be discussing this problem if all shops realized that the repair contract is between you (the shop) and the vehicle owner. Contrary to common, but misinformed belief,

Does Association Membership Benefit a Collision Repair Shop?

Richard Lata, owner Martinsville Collision Martinsville, Va. Opinion: No We’re on DRPs with 12 different insurance companies, and we’re not even a big shop – I’m only 6,500 square feet. I’m an independent, and I’ve only been in business five years. In that five years time, I’ve learned how to go out and get work

Is It Ok to Cost Shift to Help out the Adjuster and Get You Paid?

I find the practice of cost shifting morally repugnant. Why is it morally wrong and illegal (fraud) if I as a repairer charge a customer differently than the actual repair performed, but when an adjustor "bends" his company’s rules (even if it’s for our "benefit") that it’s somehow OK? I don’t understand the double-standard. The

Should a Shop Charge When It Buys Technical Reference Material?

Bob MacCargar, owner C&G Paint, Body and RV Swansboro, N.C. Opinion: No We’re supposed to be professionals. When you go someplace else and have something repaired, they don’t charge you for an instruction sheet to repair your item. You’re supposed to know how to repair your item and be educated on repairing that item. There