Repairs that Pay
Most collision repair professionals – the frame guy and the painter all the way through to the manager and the owner – take pride in repairing automobiles correctly for their customers. Not many people in any business are so cold and callused that they can sell a product or service they believe is
Hearing A Lot From Veteran Techs: How Hard It Is To Work In This Industry Now
They came, they took, they conquered. They sneered at my hard-won skills, took away my individuality and are replacing my surroundings with drab collective armies of smiling Mao men who are receptive to being told what to think, say and do." — a long-time bodyman on the invasion of his body shop "jungle" by business
My Girlfriend’s Gonna Kill Me: “I’m Ben Affleck”
It was a cold, wintry day in December 1997 – that awful week between Christmas and New Years. (You know how it is. Tons of work to get through the shop in a short week.) It was about 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, and we were having one heck of a snowstorm. In fact, this
Hot Driver = Unsatisfied Customer
Today’s A/C-dependent consumers need their air conditioning.
Full Metal Traffic: Ford & Bullet-Proof Vehicles
The Town Car BPS (Ballistic Protection Series) is designed to protect its passengers, for a price!
Staffing Your Front Office
Front-office systems come and go. Some are too complex or based on inaccurate forecasts. Others were doomed by unrealistic expectations. But it’s not an impossible goal.
Choosing Sides
t’s official. The industry is equally divided: 50 percent of shops are on direct-repair programs and 50 percent aren’t.
Have You Hugged Your Air Compressor Today
The heart of any body shop is the compressed air system. Often mistreated and misunderstood, the air compressor is usually taken for granted – until it ceases to function. The cost of metal men not being able to sand and painters not being able to spray paint mounts really quickly when no one has any
10 Reasons to Live Where You Work
You’re a collision technician. In fact, you’ve probably been working as one for years. You know your craft, you have the experience and you put in your typical eight-hour days, five days a week. You’ve probably also noticed that at the end of the year, your gross and net earnings have been sliding downward. So
Training Techs – A Guide for the Do-It-Yourselfer
Our workforce is incredibly knowledgeable, skilled and talented. But this didn’t just happen. Someone had to train them; someone had to be their instructor or mentor. The ways people learned the craft are probably as varied as the number of techs out there. Schools trained many, but probably not as many as you might think
2003 Industry Profile
Today’s Shop Owner The Market Purchases and Expenditures Insurer/Repairer Relations People and Paychecks Shop Operations
Thanks for the Lessons: Learning to Drive
My daughter is learning to drive. I now know the true meaning of fear. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not a terrible driver. She’s just 16 and easily distracted. Something piques her interest (an extra cool car, someone she thinks she knows or a fire truck pulling up to her favorite movie theater), and our