AASP Leaders Connect, Collaborate and Collect Info at National Board Meeting

At the end of April, state affiliate leaders of the Alliance of Automotive Service Providers (AASP) gathered at the I-CAR Chicago Technical Center (CTC) in Vernon Hills, Illinois for a full day of learning, sharing and interacting during the national association’s first meeting of 2023.

AASP/NJ’s Tom Elder (Compact Kars; Clarksburg) and Ken Miller (821 Collision; North Haledon) made the trip out to connect with fellow members of AASP National, tour I-CAR’s newly unveiled CTC and to share the goals and efforts of the Alliance with colleagues from around the country including Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Conversation went back and forth around the room as the leaders shared their experiences within their own membership groups along with information and education related to ADAS, Right to Appraisal, photo estimating, storage and administration fees and the liability repairers face if cars are not fixed to OEM standards.

AASP/NJ consistently works to lead its members toward the best resources available. Elder shared news of the association’s solid educational program they have instituted over the past three years with roughly 10 meetings annually – some virtual and some in person –which they have managed to put together at minimal cost.

Currently, the association is working to educate their member shops on Right to Appraisal (RTA) as there is an increasing problem with under-indemnification in the Garden State. Vehicle owners have the right to request RTA if an estimate is not significant enough, and shops across the state are seeing huge differences between what shops are writing and what insurers are willing to pay…often variances of thousands of dollars! “It’s not just a difference of a few hundred dollars,” Elder stressed. “Unfortunately, the number of people currently using RTA isn’t enough to make an impact on the insurance industry.”

Another huge issue is insurers’ unwillingness to pay for storage on totalled vehicles. Miller and Elder have seen insurers steer vehicles out of shops if an agreement is not reached, while the shop’s cost for storage and administrative fees rack up. Miller called the action “overly egregious” that an insurer would be willing to spend $5,000 to pull a vehicle from a shop just to save $10 on a labor rate.

Elder and Miller also relayed highlights from the successful 2023 NORTHEAST® Automotive Services Show which achieved pre-pandemic attendance records.

During her report, AASP National Administrator Judell Anderson shared the recent success of the AASP-supported Database Enhancement Gateway (DEG), supplied by its administrator Danny Gredinberg. Highlights included the DEG’s newly refurbished website and the significant corrections made to the estimating systems as a result of the DEG’s efforts. She applauded the DEG for its large impact on body shops all across the country that will benefit from those corrections.

“I don’t think you can point to anything else that has the impact the DEG has,” Anderson praised, adding that if more repair professionals took the time to submit inquiries, it would be even greater.

Meeting at the I-CAR training center allowed affiliate leaders the opportunity to walk through the new facility courtesy of a tour led by Bud Center, director of technical products and curriculum.

Center relayed the specific design requirements that were needed for the facility, especially for its ADAS calibration training area. I-CAR worked closely with the contractor to make sure the floor was completely level and flat as per requirements of many manufacturers when it comes to their ADAS calibrations.

“A self-leveling product had to be poured, a little at a time, and then 3D lasers were put all over the floor to make sure it stayed level,” Center explained. In fact, the contractor they worked with admitted he had never been asked to produce a completely flat and level surface previously.

Lighting is another key factor in ADAS calibrations. The lighting in the room is designed to be dimmed, so it can be adjusted to match daylight. According to Center, there are many situations that require lighting to match outdoor lighting, and without it, it can take a lot longer to set a dynamic calibration.

As AASP members stopped to look at the equipment, tools and vehicles used in EV training, Center reviewed the five-day process that starts with understanding the basics of electricity through the teaching of building electrical circuits. Once the trainees have developed an understanding about the different things involved in high voltage vehicles, they will be able to test and diagnose so they know what to expect when working on a live vehicle. Once that understanding is reached, trainees can work on a live vehicle with the proper PPE.

“We have people coming through here and saying ‘My head hurts trying to take in all this information and understand it all,’” Center said of the intense program, adding that people will comment that EVs are not widely seen. “It only takes one vehicle to kill somebody,” he noted, implying that a safe repair is as much about keeping your techs safe during the repair as it is about returning a safe car to the customer.

An overview led by I-CAR’s Mike Mertes and Jeff Peevy on how “cutting edge” innovations, such as AI, can be possibly utilized in training evolved into an eye-opening discussion on how technology advancements could be used as a recruitment tool as the group considered the future of collision repair.

I-CAR is in the early stages of developing a virtual repair planning game that, once mastered, would put that person in a more advantageous position over the average person entering the field.

Cars are more computerized than ever before. Although most of the world may not realize it, technical process skills are needed in addition to hands-on skills, Peevy stressed. “Once someone envisions something with wheels on it, they automatically think one has to be good with their hands.”

Changing the look of the industry is necessary in getting a new generation into the fold, but the biggest hurdle with this might be changing which skill sets shops are focused on when recruiting new employees.

The AASP National Board plans to reconvene at the SEMA 2023 show in Las Vegas.

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