Mitchell International has released the first quarter 2011 edition of its Industry Trends Report (ITR) — the company’s quarterly publication that highlights industry-related trends, news items and statistics.
This edition’s Quarterly Feature, "Paint by Numbers: A Deep Dive Into Refinish Data," by Mitchell’s Vice President of Industry Relations Greg Horn, explores whether all vehicles are treated equally in the refinish process by comprehensively examining refinish data for one year of appraisals, comparing vehicle age, type and origin.
Mitchell says the aim of this analysis of paint refinish data is to identify significant differences in average paint blend and masking for overspray hours in estimates, rather than to advocate or refute any OEM refinish procedure or recommendation. Every damaged vehicle is unique, and the proper repair procedure must be done on an individual basis, the company states.
"Contrary to what you might think, recent Mitchell data shows that older vehicles – surprisingly including larger trucks and SUVs – may receive lower hourly additional paint operations compared to newer cars, newer being one-year-old or less in this case. In contrast, these new vehicles, again those 1-year-old and less, may require more blend time than a 2-year-old vehicle," said Horn.
Horn added, "There is a good reason behind these differences in paint refinish estimate hours. Larger vehicles like SUVs and trucks feature ample panels with enough area to allow shops to effectively blend the base color within the damaged panel.
"Our study also took country of origin vehicle mix into account to determine paint refinish hours. In estimates where blending was specified, we found that when we compared blend times by vehicle country of origin, age and type, we saw higher blend hours for European and Asian nameplates compared to U.S. manufactured vehicles – including estimates where masking for overspray was specified."
The complete Industry Trends Report can be downloaded in PDF format by visiting www.mitchell.com.
