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Louisiana Flooding
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California Regulator’s Stand On ‘Alt-OE’ Parts May Lead to Pressure To Clarify The Terminology
Sub-water: Flooded Cars Overwhelming
Credit: Scott Clause/The Advertiser
ucts in their used car lots. That situation may affect auto dealers far beyond Louisiana, he said. “It’s tough to get pre-owned veSee Overwhelming Flood, Page 32
Honda ProFirst Certification Reaches 700 Shops by Ed Attanasio
Gary Ledoux is pleased to see that 700 body shops are now members of American Honda’s ProFirst certification program, but he also knows that there is still much work to do to reach the goal of 1,200 shops
we heard from roughly 100 shops right away, asking ‘How can we join, and what do we need to do?’ We got a lot of the top shops in the country onboard quickly because they were already doing all of the things required by the program.” A lot of collision repairers were skeptical about the value of OE certifications in general, but pretty soon they changed their minds, Ledoux said. “Initially, not everyone thought that certifications were going to be around very
See Honda Certifies 700 Shops, Page 33
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When body shop number 700 recently became a member of American Honda’s ProFirst certification program, assistant national manager of Collision Parts and Service Marketing Gary Ledoux took a deep breath, knowing full well that there is still much work to do. To Ledoux, the ultimate goal of getting 1,200 shops in the program within the next 18 months seems very reachable. “When we first launched this program in April of 2015,
Some of those parts appear to be new, OEM parts but are being sold and delivered by non-OEM or salvage Discussion within the industry of “altparts suppliers, shops say. Others apOE” or “opt-OE” parts seemingly has pear to be slightly-damaged or blemraised more questions than answers this past year, but one state regulatory ished OEM parts that may or may not agency has a clear stand on arrive “repaired.” Given that shops don’t althe topic—one that may drive ways know what they will changes nationwide. receive when they order such “The term by itself, ‘alta part, the BAR said, conOE’ or ‘opt-OE,’ is not recogsumers certainly won’t know nized by the Bureau,” Jaime what those term mean on an Ramos of the California Burepair estimate or invoice. reau of Automotive Repair Jaime Ramos Shops in that state are free to (BAR) field operations and use such parts, Ramos said, but they enforcement division told attendees at NACE in Anaheim, CA, in August. can’t use those terms on the paperwork Ramos and other representatives without more adequately explaining what is being put on the vehicle. of the BAR said that it’s clear from dis“The BAR has no position on cussion with shops that a wide variety whether they are good or bad parts,” of types of parts are being lumped together under the “alt-OE” or “opt-OE” he said. “But the whole premise of See Alt-OE Parts, Page 26 category names in some markets. by John Yoswick
by Ken Stickney, The Daily Advertiser
The destruction of some 100,000 vehicles—maybe more—due to recent flooding may have left the southern Louisiana automobile market out of balance. Bob Giles, owner and operator of Giles Automotive in Lafayette, said on September 6 that area auto dealer business is brisk, but many customers who lost their vehicles to high water in the unnamed August 11–13 storm have no trade-in vehicles to offer when making their purchases, leaving some dealers short of available prod-
VOL. 7 ISSUE 7 OCTOBER 2016
MSO Symposium Looks at International Business Models, Slow-Down in Consolidation
pairer revenue (insurer- and customerpay combined) topping $34.1 billion. Consolidation of the industry by the so- That’s a nearly 5 percent jump over called “Big 4” multi-shop 2014, “and 2016 could also reoperators (MSOs) slowed main the same,” he said. significantly in the first To gauge the rate of MSO seven months of this year, growth, Romans looked at the but that isn’t a sign that total sales of the shops that the such consolidation is end“Big 4” MSOs – ABRA, Caliber, ing, a speaker at this year’s Service King and Boyd Group Vince Romans NACE predicted. /Gerber – acquired in each of the Industry consultant Vince Rolast four years. Those acquisitions mans of The Romans Group kicked off transferred $300 million in sales to the the half-day “MSO Symposium” durBig 4 in 2012, $265 million in 2013, ing NACE with a statistic-laden sumand a whopping $964 million in 2014. mary of the state of consolidation in the But that dropped to $535 million in collision repair industry. 2015, and totaled only $188 million in Romans said MSOs and the inthe first seven months of this year. dustry as a whole enjoyed a very good While the Big 4 combined added 178 2015 in terms of the growth of the overlocations last year, they added just 61 all market. He estimated 14.5 million this year (as of the end of July). ABRA accidents resulted in 11.3 million rein particular, he said, has “taken a breaSee MSO Symposium, Page 21 pairable vehicles in 2015, with total reby John Yoswick
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