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2017 Southern Automotive Repair Conference to be Held in Biloxi, MS, April 21–22 The 2017 Southern Automotive Repair Conference (SARC) will be held Friday, April 21st and Saturday, April 22nd at IP Casino, Resort & Spa in Biloxi, MS. According to event organizers, SARC’s purpose is to provide an annual industry forum for collision repair professionals in the Southeast region, where attendees can visit exhibits, receive important updates and information, stay abreast of new vehicle technologies, promote consumer safety, and succeed in the marketpla-ce. Themes of the event include OEM Perspective, Status of Independ-
ent Shops, Training in a Hi-Tech Age, and Innovative Resources. Conference hosts are the state auto body associations of Alabama (ALARISE), Georgia (GCIA), Louisiana (LACIA), Mississippi (MSCRA), and Tennessee (TCRA). These associations will have tables at the Conference to provide information and help exhibitors and attendees get the most from the Conference. Attendee Check-In and Registration begins at 11:00 am Friday morning. Friday morning pre-sessions with Assured Performance and Symach See SARC 2017, Page 19
ABAT Welcomes New Executive Director, Jill Tuggle
The Auto Body Association of Texas, las/Fort Worth area. formed in 2014, welcomes Jill Tuggle “After a few years of hard work as their full time Executive Director. and brake dust covered hands,” Jill re“We are very excited to members, she moved into welcome Jill as the Auto Body sales and marketing for that Association of Texas Execucompany. Her next step was tive Director,” said ABAT starting her own company President Burl Richards, “we working specifically with colknew we had reached a point lision centers, marketing to where we needed someone to agents and managing promodirect the operation.” tional events. She has been an Jill Tuggle, Jill comes to ABAT with Executive Director advocate of ABAT since its ina solid background in the auception, being instrumental in Auto Body Association tomotive/collision industry. the success of the first Texas of Texas She started her automotive Auto Body Trade Show. career in 2003, as a customer service “Jill is bringing new ideas and enrepresentative delivering wheels and thusiasm to our association,” shares tires to collision centers in the DalSee Jill Tuggle, Page 8
VOL. 35 ISSUE 3 MARCH 2017
Service King Considering Sale, Bloomberg Says The private equity owners of auto repair-center operator Service King Paint & Body LLC are considering a sale of the company, people with knowledge of the matter said.
Service King’s owners, Blackstone Group LP and Carlyle Group LP, have had discussions with bankers about starting a sale process this year, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The company could fetch more than $2 billion, the people said. No final decision has been made
and the firms may elect to keep the business, the people said. Spokesmen for Blackstone and Carlyle declined to comment. A representative for Service King didn’t immediately respond to e-mailed requests for comment. Blackstone agreed to buy a majority stake in Dallas-based Service King in 2014 for an undisclosed sum, estimated to be about $650M, as part of a recapitalization that saw Carlyle reinvest to take a minority stake, according to a statement at the time. Service King traces its roots to 1976, when founder Eddie Lennox opened the first location. The company has 309 repair centers in 23 states, according to its website. That’s up from 177 centers when Blackstone struck the deal in 2014, and 47 locations when Carlyle first invested in 2012.
CIC Panel Discusses Scanning, Need For Following OEM Repair Procedures by John Yoswick
The value of pre-scanning collisiondamaged vehicles was reiterated a number of times by panelists at the recent Collision Industry Conference (CIC) held this January in Palm Springs, CA. Jake Rodenroth of Collision Diagnostic Services (maker of the asTech remote scanning system), who said his company did just over 6,000 vehicles scans in December, cited an example of a vehicle problem found in a prescan that the shop—and potentially the vehicle owner—would otherwise not have known about. The scan showed one fault code, related to lost communication with the airbag control module, triggering the shop to check the instrument cluster. “What we found was pretty alarming,” Rodenroth said. “We found this had been a [used] car, and someone had sewn a resistor into the wiring harness
to cheat the airbag light from coming on.” Chuck Olsen of AirPro Diagnostics, another remote scanning service provider, said preand post-scanning removes liability issues for collision repairers and insurers. “I know the condition of the vehicle Chuck Olsen when it came in, and I know the condition of the vehicle when it went out, so [as the shop] it’s not going to be my fault,” Olsen said. CIC attendee Gary Wano, an Oklahoma shop owner, posed a realworld analogy for a question often discussed in the industry: Does an insurer owe for a scan if the scan reveals nothing wrong? Wano said a few weeks ago, his son came home from school See CIC Panel, Page 20
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