The Certified Automotive Parts Association (CAPA) achieved another major milestone in September when it reached nearly 62 million CAPA Certified parts.
“As the premier certification body for aftermarket automotive parts, this represents significant market penetration for CAPA parts with potentially 20,000,000 vehicles in the U.S. fleet with CAPA Certified parts installed,” said Jack Gillis, CAPA’s executive director.
This number represents the total number of parts CAPA Certified since 1990.
As CAPA continues toward the 100 million mark, it says it has made a major impact on improving the quality of aftermarket parts as evidenced by the following:
• Part applications have increased by 16 percent per year for the past five years.
• Seventeen new manufacturers were added to the program in just five years – there are now 43 manufacturers fully capable of supplying high-quality CAPA parts.
• CAPA parts in the market have increased by 13 percent per year for the past five years.
• CAPA plastic parts in the market have increased by 19 percent per year and lights have increased by 30 percent per year for the past five years.
• 2013 YTD statistics indicate that getting true, high quality parts into the hands of America’s collision repair shops and, most importantly, on the vehicles owned by American consumers is continuing.
One of the reasons why CAPA says it is able to keep in-depth statistics on parts in the market is because every CAPA part has a unique number on a two-part, tamper-proof seal that is fully traceable. This seal protects shops and insurers from inadvertently using non-CAPA parts and allows easy proof of use. Shops are reminded that if the part does not have the bright, distinctive, yellow and blue CAPA seal, it’s not a genuine CAPA Certified part.
“It doesn’t matter how the part is listed on the estimate, in a catalog, or on an order form – if the part doesn’t have the CAPA seal, it’s not CAPA Certified,” said CAPA’s Director of Operations Debbie Klouser.
While metal parts have been the backbone of the CAPA program, plastic parts (bumper covers, grilles, etc.) and lights are currently the fastest growing part categories.
“It’s no surprise that CAPA Certified bumper covers are in such demand as shops are tired of sagging, ill-fitting covers made of incorrect plastic materials,” said Gillis.
For evidence of the importance of the right material in plastic parts, see the exploding bumper.
While CAPA states that its standards are ultimately designed to protect consumers from poor quality parts, they also serve shops that want to maintain a strong reputation for both high quality and reasonably priced repairs.
On the lighting front, not only have CAPA Certified lighting applications increased by 30 percent a year, but the number of CAPA Certified lights in the market has more than doubled in the last five years.
“While these numbers are significant, there are nearly 1,000 additional lights in the CAPA Certification pipeline,” said Klouser.
One of the key reasons for the exponential increase of CAPA parts in the market, CAPA states, is that the standards themselves are strong, independently developed, truly effective and fully transparent.
“Anyone can look at the standards, and when they do, they’ll find them to be fully capable of identifying parts that are true functional equivalents to the car company brand parts,” said Gillis. “Furthermore, we congratulate the 43 CAPA Quality manufacturers who have been exponentially increasing the number of CAPA quality parts they produce.”
CAPA says it is indebted to its Technical Committee – 18 nationally recognized experts representing shops, insurers, manufacturers, distributors and quality control (CAPA TC Members) – for ensuring that the standards have been developed in accordance with ANSI Standards Development requirements.
“As a consumer advocate, I know that full transparency and public vetting of standards is an absolute necessity for consumer confidence and credibility,” said Gillis. “The bottom line: CAPA is not afraid to fully embrace full transparency.”
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