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Northeast Shops Still Recovering from Sandy by Chasidy Rae Sisk
When Hurricane Sandy charged into the East Coast in late October, she devastated many homes and businesses. Her most vicious attack was perpetrated in NY and NJ, leaving millions with flooded properties and no power. Sandy’s effects on the auto body industry were no different. Many collision repair facilities in the area were destroyed, and equipment and tools were demolished. Some have still not reopened as of the middle of December. Three shop owners took the time to share their stories. Bobby Zigman, owner of Colli-
sion Depot in Oceanside, NY, suffered personal and business losses as a result of Sandy since his home is near his shop and both were flooded. Zigman notes that the storm left five or six feet of water in his shop and parking lot, completely wiping out all of his shop and office equipment. Though Collision Depot technically remained open after the storm, the flooding ruined equipment and lack of both phone connections and electricity prevented them from performing any actual repair work for about two weeks. Zigman’s dedicated employees still went to work, and he paid them to help restore the shop and See Still Recovering, Page 33
2012 Adding Up to a Record Year for MSO’s Shop Consolidation, All Major MSO’s Add Shops
FIX Auto USA Fix Auto USA added a franchise model to network membership in January 2011, and currently has 50 franchise locations operating in four states: See Record Year, Page 31
P.O. BOX 1516, CARLSBAD, CA 92018
CARSTAR CARSTAR Auto Body Repair Experts is North America’s largest Multi-Shop Operator (MSO) Network of independently owned collision repair facilities with more than 400 locations in 31 states and 10 Canadian provinces. CARSTAR recently expanded its business development team to accelerate the expansion of the
MSO network into two of the fastest growing regions—the Western U.S. and the Southeast. Shops that join CARSTAR pay a one-time joining fee ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, and then pay a percentage of sales each month, according to former CARSTAR CEO Dan Bailey. Typical monthly royalty fees are .75 percent to 2 percent of sales.
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The pace of acquisition of both smaller MSOs by larger ones and independent shops has substantially increased during 2012. The rate of acquisitions has been running at more than two shops per week for 2012.
VOL. 31 ISSUE 1 JANUARY 2013
California Autobody Association Recaps its Legislative Efforts from 2012 The California Autobody Association had another successful year in 2012, reports David McClune, CAA’s Executive Director. CAA President Dave Picton implemented an aggressive marketing campaign for the association in 2012, which brought in over 75 new members. In addition, the president and the board made improvements in the CAA website to further educate the association members.
CAA state chapters continued to work with the Labor Enforcement Task Force (LETF) by scheduling meetings to educate members, explaining their inspection process and the areas that the task force focused on to fight the underground economy through education and enforcement. CAA has continued in 2012 to improve on Rule 1147 that passed Sept. 9, 2011 in the South Coast Air Quality Management District
by John Yoswick
(Chicago) for a total of about 600 Select Service shops.
See CAA Recaps 2012, Page 9
Industry Year in Review—A Month-by-Month Look at the Most Interesting Collision News of 2012 A lot happens in the collision repair industry, so trying to compile it all into a single year-end review is a challenge. But here’s our look at what we saw as among the most important or just plain interesting and memorable news item, event or quote from each of the last 12 months.
January State Farm’s George Avery announced that his company is testing the electronic parts ordering system “PartsTrader” with two collision repair businesses. He declined to identify the shops, saying that it is too early in the testing “to put those folks George Avery under the microscope and ask, ‘What do you think of the new system?’” Lots of shops have since voiced what they think of the system. By the end of the year, the program was being rolled out to a fifth market
February John Borek of Autocraft Bodywerks in Austin, TX, wasn’t accepting the explanation from American National Property and Casualty Company (ANPAC) that an appraiser working on its behalf was just using “an outdated document” when denying the shop’s supplement for color sand and buff. In a follow-up letter to the Texas Department of Insurance, Borek pointed out that the document looked like a page from the Audatex guide to estimating, but shows that color sand and buff is included in refinish times; Borek says an Audatex manager who searched the Audatex/ADP “Database Reference Manuals” back to 1993, concluded that the page is “most certainly not a document from ADP/Audatex.” “This manufactured document can only achieve one goal, which is to convince uneducated consumers and shops that this operation is included See Year in Review, Page 52
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