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NC Auto Body Shops Taken to Court Over Deceptive Practices Attorney General Josh Stein filed a lawsuit Sept. 25 against Sterling Paint & Body, LLC, Collision Warehouse, LLC, Sterling Gabriel and Nichole Gabriel over auto repair schemes in the Charlotte, NC, area. The suit alleges that these defendants pretend to be associated with car insurance companies to push consumers to turn their cars over for repair, begin repairs without owner authorization and charge car owners additional fees before returning their vehicle. The lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction, restitution and civil penalties for victims. “Businesses have a responsibil-
ity to treat their customers fairly,” said Attorney General Stein. “My office will take action against untrustworthy businesses.” The suit alleges that the defendants contact car owners involved in car accidents and sometimes claim to be calling on behalf of a car insurance company dealing with the accident. The defendants then ask the owners to bring their cars in for repair and ask owners to sign forms related to the transaction. However, these forms may actually include a power of attorney authorizing the defendants to complete repairs, negotiSee Deceptive Practices, Page 12
Did the John Eagle Decision Change Anything? by Gary Ledoux
The John Eagle decision of October 2017 was one of the most momentous in the history of the collision repair industry in America. Because Dallas-based John Eagle Collision Center did not follow OE repair procedures to repair some hail damage on a 2010 Honda Fit, resulting in severe physical and emotional harm to owners Matthew and Marcia Seebachan in a subsequent accident, attorney Todd Tracy represented the couple in a civil lawsuit which they won, forcing the shop to
pay $31.5 million in damages. Almost a year has gone by since then. Plenty of magazine articles have been written and seminars have been provided by Tracy and auto body associations about the effects of the lawsuit and how shops can protect themselves from experiencing a similar situation. Some ad-hoc conversations with shop owners and spurious social media postings by both shop owners and techs indicate that some shops have taken the John Eagle case seriously and made some positive changes See John Eagle Decision, Page 18
AUTOBODYNEWS.COM
Vol. 9 / Issue 9 / November 2018
Panel Says Struggle to Get Paid for Scans a Subset of Larger Debate About OEM Procedures by John Yoswick
For Wayne Weikel, the question isn’t whether collision shops should be compensated for the vehicle scans the automakers say are a part of proper repairs. Scanning, Weikel said, is just one aspect of OEM repair procedures that collision repairers should be following and for which insurance companies should pay. “Insurance companies have actuaries designed to price insurance policies. Auto manufacturers have engineers that can tell you how to fix a vehicle correctly. I don’t see how we conflate the two,” said Weikel, senior director of state government affairs for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Shops, he said, shouldn’t be
Wayne Weikel of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said collision repairers should follow OEM procedures—and be paid for doing so
placed in a situation of making the proper repair without proper payment. “That, we think, is wrong,” Weikel said. “The problem here isn’t whether there is a solution. The solution is that we need to use OEM procedures every time. The problem is making sure shops get paid for See Paid for Scans, Page 26
Jittery Days Remain for U.S. Auto Industry, Despite Trade Pact ‘Fight Over’, Ford Cutting Jobs by Bill Koenig, AdvancedManufacturing.org
The U.S. auto industry has seen one major headache go away. However, that doesn’t mean industry jitters have ceased. The Trump administration announced Sept. 30 that Canada will be part of a new trade agreement with the U.S. and Mexico. That will, essentially, preserve an automotive supply chain extending across the three countries that formed because of the North American Free Trade Agreement. “Aside from avoiding disaster, there really wasn’t much to gain or lose” in the new agreement, said Kristin Dziczek, a vice president of the Center for Automotive Research (CAR; Ann Arbor, MI) in an e-mail interview. “There will be some movement of supply chains to North American on the margins.” NAFTA will get new “brand-
ing.” It’s now going to be called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. “USMCA. That’ll be the name, I guess, that, 99 percent of the time, we’ll be hearing: USMCA,” President Donald Trump said Oct. 1, according to a White House transcript. “It has a good ring to it.” Of course, Trump isn’t neutral. He criticized NAFTA when he ran for office. “I have long contended that NAFTA was perhaps the worst trade deal ever made,” he said in discussing the new deal. “To me, it’s the most important word in trade because we’ve been treated so unfairly by so many nations all over the world. And we’re changing that.” One Fight Down…
See Jittery Days Remain, Page 60
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