I-CAR® to Expand Tech Expertise, Capabilities

The suit alleges Leif’s employees routinely yell at adjusters, threaten to have them arrested or to sue them personally and carry around knives and talk about guns “with the intention of frightening GEICO adjusters.”

The proposed amended lawsuit also alleges once customers bring their vehicles to Leif’s, the shop “often encourages its customer to allow Leif’s to ‘handle’ all issues related to the insurers, including notifying those insurers that particular vehicles are on their property.”

But the shop, the amended lawsuit alleges, “often…intentionally delays” notifying GEICO about such vehicles, “racking up unnecessary or improper fees and expenses (including but not limited to storage fees) while a vehicle is at Leif’s.”

It alleges Leif’s obtained a “power of attorney work authorization” from a customer for a vehicle repaired at another shop and paid for by GEICO. That vehicle had been repaired using a “refurbished part,” which Leif’s removed and replaced with a new OEM part “even though there was no valid reason to do so.” The shop sought to be paid for this work, “along with hundreds of dollars in unnecessary fees and costs, and has in fact held the vehicle in question for over two years.”

The amended lawsuit also alleges Leif’s “will perform hundreds if not thousands of dollars of work” related to teardown of “an obvious total loss,” while refusing to allow GEICO to inspect the vehicles because the shop “knows that if these vehicles are inspected, GEICO will process them as total losses.”

It also alleges Leif’s accepts funds GEICO pre-pays based on an estimate, performs less work than is specified on the estimate, but then retains the excess funds.

Leif’s and Hansen have asked the court to deny GEICO’s motion to amend the lawsuit, saying rather than simplifying or narrowing the scope of discovery, as GEICO contends, the amendments “undercut months’ worth of discovery conferrals and progress made, at great expense to [Hansen and Leif’s], and do much more than ‘clarify’ and ‘simplify’ the allegations.”

The shop and Hansen have argued nothing in Oregon’s anti-steering law “provides for any express exemption at all, let alone a specific exemption” like the one GEICO is seeking. They also have told the court GEICO should instead seek an order halting “the violating behavior” it alleges is happening at Leif’s, rather than seeking “a judicial revision of the anti-steering law.”

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I-CAR® on Aug. 26 announced plans to significantly expand its technical expertise, capacity and capabilities, providing new infrastructures to support the ongoing creation and delivery of relevant and best-in-class education for the collision repair inter-industry amid an era of extraordinary vehicle technology change.

A hallmark of the expansion plans, underway now, includes the addition of a second technical center in the Chicagoland area to serve as a catalyst for advanced research and development, uniquely reflecting the ongoing and emerging technology complexities associated with Electric Vehicles (EVs), Hybrid Vehicles (HV), Advanced Driver Assisted Systems (ADAS) and beyond.

The new Chicagoland site will expand upon and complement I-CAR’s existing technical center in Appleton, WI.

Source: I-CAR

Continued from Page 22 Barris Kustom

scene. Clarence Catallo’s ’32 Ford coupe had already been worked over by the Alexander Brothers in 1959, but it was Barris Kustom’s roof-chopped incarnation of Silver Sapphire that was immortalized on the cover of the Beach Boys’ “Little Duece Coupe” record.

Chevrolet Aztec

Based on a 1955 Chevy, but incorporating custom tail fins from a Studebaker Hawk, DeSoto bumpers and an incredible cantilever roof, the Aztec was built for (and with the help of) Barris’s friend and roommate, Bill Carr.

After Carr sold it in 1961, the Aztec’s story gets weird, and involves bank robbers, a murder and an FBI drugs bust. But it was restored in the 1990s and recently cropped up for sale with Mecum.

The Hirohata Merc

One of the most influential custom cars of all time, this one came about when Bob Hirohata asked George and Sam Barris to modify his 2-year old 1951 Mercury coupe. The top was chopped and the B-pillar removed, making it look like a hardtop, and almost every other bit of metal on the car was re-shaped in some way. Inside, the dashboard was hand-painted by legendary pinstriper Von Dutch.

While the famous Barris shop might be closing, it looks like it might live on in spirit. George’s daughter, Joji Barris-Paster, who has handled much of the running of the business for the last 20 years, told the L.A. Times the garage’s historically significant contents will be boxed up and moved to another location which will eventually be open to the public. The Best for Much Less.

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