From Wreck to Right
It’s a dark stormy night. You realize that you’ve strayed from the main paved road and are now traveling down a gravel one. The road is soft. Your vehicle isn’t handling well. It’s raining so hard that the car’s windshield wipers can’t keep up, and the ditches on both sides of the road are very
Multiple Shops, Multiplied Profits
Name: Alamo Body & Paint, Inc. Location: San Antonio, Texas Owners: Wayne Baker Established: 1973 Square Footage: 80,500 (total of three locations) Number of Employees: 152 (total of three locations) Repair Volume: 1,150 cars per month (total of three locations) Average Repair Ticket: $1,300 They say everything’s bigger in Texas. Take Alamo, for instance. (No,
Three of a Kind
In my 27 years in the industry, I’ve never seen paint problems more infrequently than I do today. Massive, critical paint failures are extremely rare in any shop that uses a single brand of automotive finishes from start to finish. The few times in the last couple of years that I’ve gone to look at
Protecting the Health of Your Business
They go hand in hand – the health and well-being of a small-business owner are essential to the health and well-being of the small business.
Streets of Gold: Shurway AutoCenter Ltd.
Name: Shurway AutoCenter Ltd. Location: Brooklyn, N.Y. Owner: Giovanni "John" Scarfo Established: 1981 Square Footage: 17,500 Number of Employees: 20 Repair Volume: 150 cars per month When the first immigrants arrived at Ellis Island, they believed the streets of America were paved with gold. Obviously, they weren’t truly paved in a precious metal. But, to
Car Mending On A Mega Scale
Name: Chesrown Collision Center Location: Denver, Colo. Owner: The Chesrown Automotive Group and Republic Auto Nation Group Established: 1987 Square Footage: 60,000 (total); 20,000 (body shop and mechanical shop) Number of Employees: 63 (total); 27 (body and paint) Repair Volume: 350 cars per month (collision only) Average Repair Ticket: $2,000 (collision) Ever wonder what it’d
Strategic Partnerships
No business exists in a vacuum, least of all a collision repair shop.
Tool Time: Common Hand Tools
Can you imagine finishing a weld with a file and emery cloth or sandpaper? Can you imagine prepping a panel for plastic filler with a piece of sandpaper powered only by elbow
grease? Can you imagine removing 25 different types of screws and bolts with a socket and a screwdriver – again, powered by
only elbow grease?
The Tale of One Shop Continues…
……with Paul and Teresa Slate
Body Shop Boot Camp
While the collision shop of today is repairing existing vehicles, the cars of the future are off the drawing board and plans for production are underway. Increased use of aluminum and plastics, computerized navigational systems, crash-avoidance computers and sophisticated adhesives are all becoming part of our reality.