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Rob:
Welcome to our podcast. All about the car brought to you by Schierl Tire and Service. I'm your host, Rob Hoffman an auto service specialist with over 44 years of industry experience. Back with me in the studio today is Bryan Call. Bryan's a 39 year veteran in the automotive industry. Hello Bryan.
Bryan:
Hey Rob, how you doing today?
I'm doing fine. And Jodi Bushman team leader of our Marshfield tire and service center. Hello, Jodi.
Jodi:
Good morning, Rob.
It's good to have you aboard. It's great to have you both along on the ride today, we would also like to welcome a very special guest today, Chris from Art's Body Shop in Marshfield, Wisconsin. Hello, Chris.
Chris:
Hello, Thank you for having me today.
Hey, thanks for being here. Well, it would, oh, only be fitting that we talk about the auto body repair business. Since we have an industry expert right along with us today. So let's hop in, buckle up and hit the road. Like everything else. Automotive, the auto body and collision repair business has really changed over the years, back in the early 1900's, yeah, I'm going back aways, the mass production of the Ford model team made it affordable for more people to own an automobile. However, the common transportation back then still was the horse, trains, and bicycles. For this reason mechanical and body repairs were specialized and performed by bicycle mechanics, machine shops and actually the car manufacturer themselves. Well as the number of cars and trucks increased, so did the need for quality auto body repair facilities. It's estimated that over 1.4 billion automobiles are on the road today and this number continues to grow. With numbers like these, accidents are bound to happen. You know, I picture bumper cars at a carnival. Chris, is that in ringing your bell?
For some people? Yes.
So you've seen Jodi drive.
We've seen Jodi drive. Yes.
You know it's, David's the one who does the accidents, not me.
But it's your car, right?
It is.
Where did it all begin for you, Chris? I mean, when did the idea of career in autobody repair start for you?
Well, I guess for me it started when I was pretty young. I was about 14 when I started in the body shop and really the guy that owns it now, his wife did daycare for me and my sister. And I got to a point where I was too young to be around the daycare. And he said, you're coming with me. You're you're got too much energy. I go burn it off for you. So he brought me to the shop and that's everything else from there is history.
Oh man, you've been locked into this for a long time then. So you're kind of a car guy like Bryan and I are really going way back.
Yep. Yep. So as of right now, I've got 22 years or so, so
Oh yeah. You're into it. And there's no getting away from it at this point.
Not anymore. I'm locked in forever so...
So how long has Art's Auto Body been in business?
So Arts has been around really since the late forties. We were incorporated in 52. So very long time been in the same location since it started currently my partner and I bought in five years ago. So we're gonna be the fourth generation of owners.
Wow.
Wow. That's amazing. So obviously you learned from a young age and grew with the business, but did you enroll yourself in any kind of school or how did that work for you.
So...
As it's changing over the years?
Yeah, so I spent my high school years working for the body shop and getting a lot of training there. And after high school, I went to Fox valley tech in Appleton. At that time they were,
They were the place to go. Yeah, it's a great school.
I haven't talked to anybody that's been there lately, but I would assume that they've kept up with the technology and everything. And at that time they were the place go. And I would think they still are.
There's not too many technical colleges that deal with the body work.
Uh very few. The other ones that I know of are Green Bay, Madison and Milwaukee.
And currently they're trying to get a program started in Wausau. And I have a tech that I enrolled in that program where they're trying to do they had a free six month course. They had a grant from the state to do it, to try to generate interest. So I sent a gentleman there and he still currently works for us. So...
So on an average, how long did you go for before?
So I went for a two year program, which is pretty normal for the autobody industry. Green Bay run, at least at that time, they ran a trimester. So they ran three semesters in a row and then you were done. So that was a year and a half.
Oh.
So with changing technology, I would imagine you have to continually be educated on the latest and greatest is that right?
Oh yeah. It's changing all the time. I mean, these cars are coming with more and more conveniences and conveniences and luxuries than ever before. And so we're constantly going to classes and retraining and updating along with the equipment and everything that goes along with that.
So when you actually are doing a, I'm not gonna say this, right. Cause I'm not in the body shop business, but when you're doing a repair, a collision repair, you're pretty much having to deal with every aspect of the vehicle. Is that correct? Steering, suspension, electronics, modules.
Yeah. It all comes into play. So there's certain fields that we don't specialize in. So we'll do the parts changing and then we'll have another shop, do the alignment or something like that. Cause we don't specifically do the alignment, but it all comes into play cameras and sensors and modules and airbags and programming. It's a constant battle to really keep on top of what's on the vehicle.
So this really is much more widespread and, in depth, in what we've been used to Bryan.
I can't even imagine what you have to go through.
Yeah. It's more than just paint and paint and sheet metal for sure.
And everything's bent up and doesn't fit when we work on stuff. It's basically putting the part back where it was when you do it, the part isn't where it was or where it's supposed to be.
Right. Exactly. And some parts are missing completely. Cuz a lot of it is composite or plastic or fiberglass and it just explodes. It explodes and disappears and it's not even there until you go to put it together and it's like, well, I'm missing something here.
Speaker 1:
What was it like before?
So back to this schematic, we go and try to figure out what's missing. So it's very involved and it's very detailed and there's, there's a lot of things that go into it. And so our guys have to be trained on, like you said, almost every aspect of the car. And so everything from frame repair, painting, sheet metal changing, changing coolers, AC all that stuff.
So it definitely should be more than just Art's Auto Body.
Yeah, it should be, it should be Art's Do It All. And you know, not only are you involved in everything we've just talked about with the mechanical and body and everything, but I would assume that you get into the human side of it too, cuz you're really a piece of this chain effect from the time the accident starts or a deer hit or whatever the case may be, it gets towed to your shop or you bring it to your shop. And then you're a part of the insurance I would assume. And...
Absolutely.
Talking to the person, the distraught person, I mean almost have to have a psychologist there on site or are you that person?
Yeah, me and Paul we're that person. So when something happens, we're the ones that meet with the customer and the insurance company, if that gets involved, which is more often than not. But then the adjusters and parts ordering and, and the whole gamut of everything that goes into it. So gotta be really hands on with a lot of different people and try to organize everybody so that everybody is on the same page, understands what's going on. Cause a lot of times a customer you can talk to them and a lot of it just goes kinda over their head cuz one they're upset cuz they just got into an accident. And two, they don't necessarily know all of the lingo and the language and what it all entails. So to try to be able to explain it to somebody so that they're confident enough in you that you're gonna get the job done right for them is, is a big deal too.
And that's where it pays to, to go to a place like yours that has experience. Right?
So they get the best experience.
Well, if I can intervene here, I personally know what kind of job that Art's Autobody does. I've worked with Chris actually a couple times now in the last couple years.
A couple times?
A couple times. Nothing real major, nothing like what he was talking about. Replacing tons of parts. Obviously we could do it at our location. However, Chris has been amazing him and Paul by getting it taken care of, they actually one time they came to the office here and picked my vehicle up, went, took care of it and brought it back. This last one, recently we dropped the vehicle off. Chris, they took care of it said here, the keys are above here, stop in this week and took care of it. There was no kinks or anything. It was great. And I love it. They do a really good job.
So he made you Feel as good as you could feel about an accident.
Absolutely. And here's the thing with it. I've known Chris since he was about four years old. So... I know his parents.
Oh, so this goes way back. That really takes us to the next subject that I kind of wanted to bring up is Chris being that you are a part of the human part of it, like, and just as Jodi was saying here, how it made her feel good with the service that you give, but let's say an individual does get in an accident, whether it's a deer hit or involves two cars or whatever the case may be. Obviously it's a distraught situation. People are emotional. I'm sure there's some tears maybe before they get to your shop, but what would you recommend to that person that has that accident? What do you do first? So it just happened on the street corner. What's the next step?
Well, I think the first step is to make sure that you're all right and just kinda take a moment in the car and just take a breath and just collect your thoughts with what just happened here. After that, I would definitely recommend calling the police so that they can do their job and determining if it's a two car accident, they need to determine fault so that so call the police, make sure that they get there and then just make sure you have your insurance stuff in order, they're gonna ask you for that kinda stuff and then contacting your insurance, make sure that they know what happened and what's going on. And then it's a call to your body shop. You know, if you need to have it towed or if it's drivable or things like that. So...
We actually do have a link on our website at allaboutthecarpodcast.com it's put out by AAA and just mirrors. Pretty much what Chris just said on what to do when you are that unfortunate in that unfortunate situation. So make sure you check that out and heck print it out maybe even, and keep it in your car. I don't know.
Yeah, absolutely. And if there's something there that, that you don't do you forget to do or, or you're confused about there's people that are gonna be around that have answered those questions it's can be a very unnerving kind of thing that happens. You know, it's say you're out in the middle with nowhere and you hit a deer and you can't drive it away because the radiator smashed and the transmission goer is, is out of it. It can be a very scary thing to, to deal with. But just making sure you can get somebody there with whether it's police or a tow truck driver. And then after that there's people that can handle it and answer questions.
So it Sounds like the key is really to make sure you call the police.
Yeah.
Cuz they'll help you through the situation and make things safe at the scene.
Yep.
So for somebody that is maybe not real mechanical or doesn't understand the inside and outside of a car, how do they decide if their car is drivable or not just vaguely. And what would you say about that?
Sure. So if you're gonna do a quick walk around, make sure all the tires are pointing in the correct direction.
That would help.
And then after that, just take a look under the car and make sure there's no fluids leaking out. After that, you can refire the vehicle, take a look at your lights that are on the dash. Your car will tell you for the most part, if it can go or not, it will give you lights. That will say low coolant. Or there's something like that. Or low oil pressure. I mean just very simple checks. If it doesn't get past those three things, don't drive it.
Listen for strange noises.
Yeah. That's a good one. Find it up if the fan is, is messed up, it'll hear it knocking on something and that's a good indication.
And you'll know.
Oh yeah, yeah. You'll know pretty quickly within the first probably two minutes of everything you'll you can figure out if it's not drivable.
Drives slow, start off really easy. Make sure the brakes are there.
Right.
Jodi, were you able to drive your car away?
Yep. absolutely.
So not too bad then. Huh?
No, Nope. But they drove down there. Chris stopped what he was doing and he came out and took pictures, took care of it. So it was nice. It was very nice.
That's a amazing to see what happens in an accident. It's things that you think would never be repairable and what guys with your talent can do. And these cars are made to crush and a lot of people don't realize that.
That's actually a safety aspect.
Yeah. It absorbs the energy right?
Yeah. So it's a, it's a dispersion thing. Right? So when the plastic goes flying and crushes and smashes, it's supposed to do that. It's taking the energy, dispersing it away from the passenger compartment. So a lot of these things, they look way worse than what they really are because of that energy dispersion that is built into 'em.
So it's by design is what you're saying.
Absolutely. It's kind of the same thing. If you watch any kind of racing, especially like formula one, when they, when they hit the wall and everything goes flying apart, that is by design and, and our passenger cars are built in much the same way.
It's kinda a good show too.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Put your heart on edge when you see that you think, oh my dear is, he still alive?
You always get the old timers that say, ah, these things are just made all of plastic these days and they can't withstand a hit here or there. Well it's by design.
Yep, absolutely. You know, and, and some of it is the fuel consumption stuff, trying to light them up. But at the same time, they are designed to crush in a certain way with the lightness of the material. It's a hand in hand thing and that's why they do like the crash tests and things like that. So, I mean, I'd think of a car like Subaru. They had a five star rating for many years and there is made as, as good as any other vehicle out there, if not better. And they're made out of the same materials, lightness and the fuel economy and everything. And they're, they're designed to be that way.
Now, Chris being in the body shop business, do you work directly with the car owners insurance company? How does that work?
Yeah, so we work with pretty much every insurance company that's out there. I haven't run into one that we don't deal with. So pretty much the customer can call their insurance company and say, this is where I'm gonna go.
And so they have that choice.
They have that choice.
Okay.
No insurance company can tell you where you have to go. Now, if you don't know where to go or you don't, you know, so you've never been in an accident. You've never needed a body shop. They have shops that are in their. They call it a network and people are more than welcome to use the shops in their network. But otherwise, if you have a shop you want to use, or that you know is a good shop, you have the choice to go where you wanna go.
I don't think it's like years ago they made you get like three estimates and they chose where you,
I remember that.
Yeah. About 20 years ago. 30 years ago.
Sure.
And you didn't have a choice. You had to go where they...
Yeah. So those days are, are past us. You do not need to run around from shop to shop to get different estimates. Just tell 'em Nope, this is where I'm going. And this is where it's gonna get fixed. And then we work directly with them. A lot of this stuff is done over the computer now. We don't have a lot of individual adjusters that show up anymore. There's a couple that have 'em, but a lot of it is our photos and our estimate that we upload straight to the insurance company and it's worked directly right through us. So it takes a lot of the confusion away from the customer. Cause they're not having to do that. But to that point, they they're coming out with these photo apps where the customer takes the pictures of the damage, sends it into the insurance company and they cut you a check.
Really? The, the customer does?
Yeah. Yeah.
That's sounds like a good thing for the insurance company.
It is exactly a good thing for them.
All the hidden damage that can be there.
So gets to be a little bit of a frustrating thing to work with, but we get through it. They say that it makes it easier for the customer, but it's actually easier for the insurance company. But even with that, you bring it to us. We deal with it. We get the right people on the phone and we take care of it.
So like if you would call the insurance company and you know, it's like, they got a $1,500 check, but it's $3,000 worth of damage. They will actually cut another check because of the extra?
Yeah. So that's called a supplement and that's something that happens on 95% of the vehicles anyway, off of our initial estimates. Even the ones that we write. Cause there's just no way to see everything that's behind these and grills and things like that. Cause like we were talking before, there's so many features that you don't know that don't work until you get it apart. And so we do a supplement and it's just like the original photo documentation, receipts, and invoices of everything that we needed to get in addition. And we send it in and they cut another check direct to us A lot of people ask that question. Well, why, what happens when it's more than your estimate? And that's the solution we do a supplement to it. And it's taken care of directly.
A lot less stress for the guest.
They can't test drive 'em ahead of time to see what works or not.
Not so much. We have that opportunity here in our business. We can verify the complaint, but the only complaint here is that it's wrecked and it needs to look good again,
It's broken,
It's broken. Speaking of which, so there's a car with a boo boo sitting on your front steps the Monday morning. How does the owner of that vehicle get around? How do you coordinate transportation as that's very important to all of us these days for the next, what two, three weeks or more or less.
At best,.
At best
Situationally depending.
So we offer some loaner cars, we've got a few and a lot of shops do, but some shops, don't one thing that, that we try to recommend to people that it's really important to make sure you have rental coverage on your policy, really make sure that that is on there. Cause that will guarantee you a decent car to drive for a lot of 'em are like 30 days. And for the most part, we can get it through in that 30 days. So it's just doing your due diligence to make sure your policy reads what it's supposed to. We have those loaners, but they're not always available. And it's a lot of times they're out with other customers. So...
Are rental cars available now?
You can usually get one within a day or two. We have two places in town that are pretty good about getting you a car.
You hear the horror stories about rentals not being available cuz there's no new cars available to sell
Or they're like a thousand dollars a week.
Yeah. They're pretty expensive, which is important to have the coverage. So that you're covered.
On an average, how many vehicles do you think you get done in a week? Obviously, depending on the damage that's on there.
Somewhere between 10 to 15 cars. So we've got pretty fortunate to have a pretty good base of technicians. Then they cruise. I mean they, they they're thorough. They do a good job and they'll do what it takes. If it's staying late one night or coming in early or they understand that people need their cars back.
Well, as with every all about the car podcast, we always break away for a Wisconsin road trip. And this time we're gonna hop in the car and we're gonna go subterranean. Cave of the Mounds. Have any of you ever been to cave of the mounds?
Heard of it.
No.
Never been there.
Mm-Mm me either.
We actually have plans to go taking the grandkids and I'm excited to go. I like caves and this is one that's pretty close to us here in central Wisconsin and not too far away. So it's in the blue mounds area, just roughly 25 miles west of Madison. So not far away, it's at the Brigham farm and the members of that family have been living on the same site for about 112 years before the cave was discovered. The land where the cave was found had been used as a dairy farm by Charles Brigham senior kept purebred Jersey cows. It was the first farm in Wisconsin to keep track of scientific dairy records and has been doing for over 50 years. So it's really interesting as far as the history goes and in 1903, part of the farm had been turned into a limestone quarry and that really pretty much started it. They started to dig holes and dig out the limestone and start blasting and voila opened up a big hole in the ground. The cave doesn't go very deep, but it does. Well's see, it takes up about 692 feet for a total length. Well, lot of different caverns, a lot of different walkthroughs and they've got it all lit up and easy to walk through right now. You can actually do a self-guided tour. And when you go on that tour, you walk about a fifth of a mile. So it's a good little hike. So the cave opened for guests first on May 30th, 1940, just in time from a Memorial weekend where more than 58,000 visitors would come to see the beautiful cave over the next 27 weeks. So it became really popular, really fast. And as you can imagine, the family started to really make some money. And that has just changed over the years. Fast forward, millions of visitors later, the caves wooden walk ways were replaced with concrete, theatrical lighting there's picnic areas, walking trails, rock gardens, gift shops, and a visitor center that have all been developed. And you know, what's really nice about this cave is it's 50 degrees year round. So it's 24-7-365. They're open pretty much year round 50 degrees. So in the summer time, it's a great, cool place to be. And in the winter time it's a warm place to be. And like I said, they're open from nine to five weekdays and tours. You can take a self-guided tour. They give you tours, whichever way you want to go. There are a lot of things on the surface to see and do. And so it's a great thing for the family and plan to take them there. So make sure you check out our info link on the Cave of the Mounds at allaboutthecarpodcast.com and you can get all the details there. So back to business, we're back in the car and we're talking about auto body repair and we have our special guest, Chris from Art's Autobody in Marshfield, Wisconsin with us. And thank goodness he's with us because we are lost in this auto body thing. It's involves so much more than we thought it would. It's a lot more than just replacing a body panel these days. And we just found that out a little bit ago here in our talk. And Chris, you also do frame repair. Is that accurate?
Absolutely. It's a very vital part of the collision repair because if the frame isn't straight, nothing's gonna fit. So you can tell right away where the fender and the door gap meets. If it's tight at the top and wide at the bottom, the frame is probably pushed up the whole front structure of the vehicle. As far as, as the, the front end is all tied to the frame and the structure of the vehicle, especially on unibody cars because there isn't really a frame there it's, it's just multiple layers of steel together to form that frame. And that entire structure is the whole base for how that entire vehicle fits and as well as how safety features function. So airbags, sensors, cameras, blind spot monitors, all that stuff is related to the main structure. And if it's not in the right spot, those systems may not function correctly. So it's a really important piece of the puzzle.
So Chris, how bent is too bent? What point do you determine that this car is not repairable when it comes to the frame or unibody? Do you have guidelines or?
Sure. So it's not necessarily how bent is too bent, It's how much it's gonna cost to do it. So in the frame area, if there's a bend, we determine if we can pull it or not. Usually if it's kinked, then it's a replacement time. So on a uni body structure, if it is crushed or kinked, then we usually pull to square, cut out the bed and put in new. If it's just bent or a soft bend, then we can pull it straight. And it'll be just as strong as before.
How do you straighten a pop can?
Yeah. I may not be explaining it real great.
No, I think you are.
If I could intervene here, guys, what exactly is unibody? I'm sure I'm not the only one that has no idea what you're talking about. I know what a frame is.
I'm pretty sure you are the only one. No, I'm just kidding Jodi
Okay. So the difference between a frame and a unibody is a full frame vehicle has a frame structure that can be that the body can be lifted completely off of. So a lot of your four wheel drive trucks and some of your full size vans have a frame structure that the body is bolted to. A unibody is where the frame is basically built into the body structure itself. So it's...
So like race cars.
Yeah. Kinda like that.
So it's just multiple layers of steel together. And with different strengths of steels layered together to create that frame structure, it is the structure of the car itself that the body is welded and melded to. The unibody frame does not have a separate frame. It is the structure of the car and in a unibody is mostly most of your cars compact, full size doesn't matter SUVs from small, too large SUVs
And uni body really isn't the new idea eitherIs it? Been around for a long time hasn't it?
Don't quote me, but I think it started in the late seventies. Definitely in the eighties. It was going on already.
The '79 Dodge Omni.
That's right.
So some of that stuff predates me, so I don't know exactly, but it's kind of around that era. So it's been around for a while.
You haven't repaired one of those for a while.
Speaker 2:
The 79 Omni? No they've been melted down a few times. they've come back as a different car.
So yeah. Frame repair just amazes me. So I appreciate that information. I just it always seems like magic on how that's done. So I would imagine you have specifications, factory specs that you go by to make it straight on your machine and you ever everything at hand to straighten it out.
Yeah. So we have resources. We, we have all of our specifications. There is a plus minus where you have to be within full frame. I believe it's within five millimeters on unibody structures it's within two. And we have a laser measuring system where we hang targets on certain points and we tell the computer which points they are and it bounces the laser off. And it tells us where the frame is off. So we can monitor the machine, pull it in the right spot. And then it'll tell us when it is in the correct spot.
That is cool.
Absolutely amazing.
That's pretty high tech.
Yeah. It's pretty neat.
You're sharing industry secrets here. so I would imagine many body shops do framework or is that pretty specialized?
Boy everyone that I've been to has got 'em.
They've got 'em. Okay. So that's just part of the part of the deal.
And they may not have a laser measure, but they have a measuring system of some sort, whether it's a tram gauge or even as something as simple as a tape measure, just to measure square is pretty easy thing to do. But most frame machines in the shop are gonna have some sort of measuring system, whether it's a mechanical measuring or if it's a computerized measuring.
So after all the big work, all the hard work of frame straightening, do you do wheel alignments then too? Do you do the final alignment to the wheels?
So when it comes to suspension, we will change the parts that are damaged. We actually got out of the alignment stuff even before I started there. So we usually take it to wherever the customer wants their vehicle to be aligned. So if they have a regular mechanic that has an alignment shop, we take it to whoever they're comfortable having lined it up.
OK. So that's kinda a separate process.
Okay. And glass replacement, you must be glass people too, right? Are you replacing windshield side windows?
Yes. we do plenty of that.
Glass is kind of a, it's an important thing.
The windshield actually is a structural part of the vehicle. I dunno if a lot of people know that. And so it has to be put in correctly with the correct materials and something you may not know is say we gotta change the side body of the vehicle. We have to take the windshield out, replace the windshield pillar, put the new piece in where the windshield is bonded to the vehicle. You actually don't paint that part. You mask it off because the paint becomes a weak part in the bond for that structural part of the windshield.
Interesting.
So like it probably dries it out even more?
Our paint in our shop is not like it is from the factory. So if we would paint that area where we're gonna put the windshield, your thing on the paint that is connected to the new piece of sheet metal is the weak point. So if you paint that and then you put the windshield in and they get into another accident, that's a weak point in that area.
And the glue just doesn't stick as well.
Right. The paint will actually let go before the glue will cuz the paint is the weak point.
New Speaker:
That's very interesting.
Wow. Science .
And everything.
No wonder you got involved when you were 14.
Yeah. .
That's why you know it all.
Other than that, it's not too difficult. You know, big thing about that is when you're cutting glass out to make sure that when you put it back in, there's no exposed metal because you can cause corrosion problems down the road, you get rust bubbles coming up. It'll cause a leak somewhere down the road. So other than that glasses too, too terribly difficult side and, and doors and things like that is now coming as a laminated, just like a windshield is where it's two pieces with a laminate in between. It's just called a safety glass. So when you get hit, it doesn't bust all over the place. It kinda stays in place that film will keep it in place. Kinda like a windshield. So,
So you don't end up with a million little pieces on the ground.
Yeah. You still end up with some shards, but it doesn't splatter all over the place.
Well, another thing that is pretty obvious to all of us in Wisconsin, as we see all the deer carcasses along the road, especially in the fall. So let's talk about deer hits. So what percentage of your business involves car deer collisions, would you say? And I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but I'm sure you live with this daily.
It is pretty much a constant for deer. It used to be where it was just the fall and maybe a little bit in the spring. And it is getting to gotten to the point where it is now a year around thing. Deer is probably somewhere in the market of 65% of what we do.
Oh my gosh.
Oh geez.
It is definitely the majority.
Wisconsin posted. We actually have an info link at allaboutthecarpodcast.com. You can check this out, but they posted that there's about 19,000 car deer hits annually in Wisconsin. feels like more doesn't it Chris but yeah. So that's 60 to 70% of your business. So this is you're living with this every day.
So do you hope for the hunters to have a successful season or not?
Oh, always. Yeah. They need to eat too. So...
Yeah, that's tough.
I'm a hunter myself, so I I'm okay with that. So there's plenty out there to, to cause accidents for sure.
So when you're out there by yourself and you've just hit one of these deer, do you call the police?
If the vehicle is able to drive away, you don't have to actually call the police and have 'em come out and do a police report, but you do have to register it through the state of Wisconsin. There's a, a website out there where you report exactly what happened in the accident.
So if you can drive away, you get back home, you go online and you report that accident.
Yep. If the car cannot be driven away, then you have to have the police department come out.
I didn't know that that might be useful information for our listeners. So Chris, do you get into vintage car rest, any kind of restoration at all? Do you have any projects go on yourself or do you take on any projects where somebody wants to bring back grandpa's pickup truck?
Sometimes once in a while we take on something like that, it's not necessarily our wheelhouse anymore. There are a couple of shops in the area that specialize in that. And I am fine with those guys doing that.
Not A fan of rust huh?
Yeah. Cause rust repair is kind of a thing of the past. Isn't it? Or specialized maybe.
Well, unfortunately, because we live where we do in the conditions that we have rust is something that we just end up dealing with. It's not something I necessarily wanna fix, but it's just something we have to deal with for us in our shop, we kind of have the, the prevention is better than the cure mindset when it comes to that. And so that's where our under coating and rustproofing comes in. So, you know, if you get a vehicle, even if it's not new, if it's clean, I would definitely recommend having some sort of rust proofing done. And here it's not a hundred percent. It's gonna make it last forever, but it's gonna make it so that if you have it for 10 years, it's still gonna be a solid vehicle 10 years later down the road.
It's amazing how many vehicles out there that are five, six years old and have a rust on em.
Oh, it, it's absolutely crazy how fast these vehicles are deteriorating away. And it's kinda one of those things where once you see it coming through, it's too late. You're gonna have to replace the panel.
Now has the material in cars and trucks changed to the point that's helping the rust issue.
No,
No, it's still absolutely not. .
I guess the only one that I would say that that's maybe better is so far the aluminum pickups from Ford, the military grade, aluminum, whatever that means they won't, they won't tell us specifically what grade that is, but whatever grade it is, it's working very well. And you can see it on other vehicles that have aluminum parts. We're fixing corrosion on them constantly, but it's, it's not the same grade.
Yeah. I drive a 2013 Expedition in the hood and the, the trunk lid or the tailgate, our, the paint's flaking off,
They kind of corrode too underneath the paint.
Absolutely. Aluminum corrodes just like steel and I don't know why they call it different terms, but must be the scientific thing or whatever, but it does deteriorate away just as easy and the military grade for whatever reason is holding up. So, but everything else is not.
And that's been out there with Ford for a few four, four or five years now, maybe
2015 was when they came out with the first pickup.
Okay. So there's some time behind it already so...
Right. And we've had enough of 'em apart with box signs and cab harns and stuff like that. And we get into 'em and there's nothing inside those seams or anything that's has any sort of corrosion. So yeah, they were very true to their word when they said that it's it's corrosion resistant. So whatever they're doing, they're doing it right. But the rest of it, and I think a lot of it is some of the recycled stuff just doesn't hold up as long, you know? I mean, it's good for the environment and I, that's fine. I get that, but it's, it's gonna corrode and deteriorate faster and that's why it's important to protect it.
So speaking of the changes that, that constantly come, you, you had referred to earlier about the changing, you know, technology. Now we're dealing with electric cars and electric trucks are coming our way. How does that affect your business? Have you seen any Teslas? Have you seen electric cars?
Yeah, sure. So we've been dealing with hybrids for quite a long time already. It doesn't necessarily change what we do to fix the vehicle, but it maybe changes a little bit of the process cuz we have to be careful of high voltage, cables battery sensitivity is a big deal. Especially if you do any welding or anything like that. So like in the priuses, you have to shut down the car and shut down the battery and remove the battery out of the car before you can do any welding to it,
Actually take it right out.
Yeah. And it doesn't really present a problem. It's just another step that you have to know in the process. Right? So that's where the continuing education thing comes in. When it comes to vehicles, we got some pretty good vendors and dealers that continue to have classes and things like that.
Good resources for yah.
As far as full electric, we've had a few Teslas in and the hard part about Tesla is they are very stringent on who they will sell parts to. So you, you need to be a certified dealer for Tesla to sell you any parts, at least.
How do you do that?
At least on our end. And it's proving difficult. I have gone through their email and request process several times and have gotten almost zero response from them. So it's difficult. I mean, further down the road, it's, it'll become more with more common manufacturers coming into this. Ford's coming out with their truck. It's gonna be more accessible for us. It has to be, I mean, number one, selling truck in the world for how long, I mean, other vehicles coming down down the line that are gonna be full electric, entail us on being a little bit more up on procedure for how to deal with power down so that we don't destroy any computers or anything.
Now, a situation or condition that we didn't see coming of the pandemic that we've been dealing with now for almost two years, it's been tough for us to find parts at times.
Mm-Hmm .
I can only imagine what it's been for you and the auto body business, where you're really looking for a broader variety of parts. How has this affected your business?
It can be difficult. I usually try to order stuff far enough in advance that it's doesn't become an issue, but there are still things that are very hard to get anything that has to come overseas or across the border is the most difficult stuff. A lot of the foreign vehicles it's on the slow train for sure. And so you have to sort of try to plan for that as best you can. The good thing is our customers have been pretty understanding. Like they know, okay, things are hard to get right now. It may take a little bit longer. It's frustrating for our guys. Cause they, you get halfway or two thirds or three quarter of the way through a car and we need a part and well it's on back order and it's frustrating cause they can't finish a job. You know, our, our guys are very, they're proud of what they do. They want get it done in a certain time and they wanna make it right. And you know, so, and it's frustrating when a car sits there cause they can't finish it. And it's always kind of, I really need to get that done. So, but we work through it. We get you work past it. You know, right now I've got a car in there. I've had a hood on order for a month and a half. They still have no ETA. Finally got it in the shop. We got it apart. And now it needs a new radiator support, all that. And now there's no ETA for that. So that car might sit here until the first of the year before we, any of those parts, another example, we had a vehicle in, in February and it needed a new AC line. We didn't put that AC line until end of September.
Took from February to September to get that.
Wow. So the time of year that you need it.
During the summer.
Felt horrible for those people cuz they went summer without air conditioning and there was just nothing we could do. And they had called dealers all across the country and there was, I think, seven in the US and none of those dealers were giving them up because they're already for another customer.
And we have found also in our business, like you had just had said that for the most part they understand just with what we've been through with the pandemic and the changes that are happening daily to this day, they understand, but they're not happy about it. We're not either.
Yeah, for sure. You know, and it's, you know, I don't want the vehicle to sit there any longer than it has to either. You know, we don't like to leave things unfinished. You know, we wanna get it done. We wanna get it out to back to the customers so that they can get on with their life and get over what just happened with, with the accident. You know, it's...
Well, especially today, I mean your vehicle to almost everybody is more important now than what it ever has been.
It's our life blood for sure.
Yeah. A final question that I have for you, Chris, and we put you under the bright lights here, I realize, and I appreciate all your expertise, but I have always been just fascinated, especially these days with all of the colors that are out there on cars. And I've just been fascinated as to how you can match a four year old paint that obviously, or may have maybe not anymore, but goes through a fading process. How do you match that when you're only doing repair to one half of the car, there's some magic here.
It can be difficult. Sometimes there are some colors that definitely have their sore spots in 'em for us. But we have processes that we use. The big thing that we do is we blend and kind of explain what that is, you know? So say we're changing a hood and a right fender. So we don't just paint the hood and the right fender and put 'em on you paint the right fender and you blend the paint into the front door on the right side. So you paint a third or halfway into the door and you'll do a full clear on it. Cause your eye can't pick up that difference when you fade it through the door. If you just put the fender on to the door. Yeah. Your eye's gonna pick up that little bit of difference. But if you blend it in there, you can't pick that up. So that's one trick that we use to sort of trick your eyes so that you can't see the difference. We do tons of spray outs. So every time we paint a car, we make a spray out. So we have our own representation of what that color is and each color can have multiple variances. You know, it's not just, Hey, that's a white car or Hey, that's a silver color. That's a blue or a red that red might have 10 different variances that we need to choose from to make sure it's the right one. That's why we do our own spray outs, have our own representation of that variant. So we can get as close as we possibly can and then blend into the next panel. We also have a camera that we use. We can take a picture of the color and put it into our computer and it'll get us as close as it can without having a representation. And then that's when we do the spray out so we can see what it looks like.
Now it sounds like artwork to me
It can be a lengthy process, but we have such a database of colors now with all of our spray outs that I can pretty much take our spray outs, pick one out and we can blend it and it, and it's good.
So I gotta ask, I'm just gonna ask you, what's the worst color to paint? What's the least favorite color to paint?
Okay. So it used to be reds. Now it's kind of transformed into the charcoal metallics they're super sensitive to color changes, air pressure changes. I mean just a little bit of air pressure change can make it either lighter or darker and it can make a world of difference in what it looks like. Now, what is coming out and we actually, I'm looking at one tomorrow, they call it a quad coat, which means it's a four stage paint. So most paints are two stage you spray on the color, you spray on the clear. In the middle we have a three stage you spray on the color, you spray on the pearl or the metallic, and you clear over the top of that. And there's a lot of reds and whites that are that three stage or tri-coat paint. Mazda has decided that they're gonna come out with a quad coat, which means you have to paint it, clear coat it. Resand it. Put another color down and clear coat it again.
Wow. .
So we've only dealt with this one other time and it was just a minor repair on a fender. This one that's coming in is the entire side of the car. So it's gonna be really interesting to see how that's gonna work out.
Well, you may have to call me and I may have to come and see this .
It's gonna be
It sounds like a pretty cool process.
It's lengthy... And right now the battle is they don't really know how to charge for it. So we're sort of on the forefront of trying to figure out how we get paid from the insurance for it. It'll be fine that the company that we're working with will work with us just fine and we'll figure it out.
So just the opposite question, what's the color everybody fights over? I wanna paint that one. What's the good one. .
Black .
Yeah. Hides a lot, right?
I would've actually said white.
Well, let's see what Chris has to say.
White's tough cuz it's super sensitive to color changes. You know, if you get a little red or a little blue or a little green in the formula, one little mess up will change, completely change that color. White's finicky. A black pearl's usually pretty easy. There's they're usually pretty hard to mess those up. Otherwise they're all pretty standard for the most part. I dunno that anybody is really rushes to the door and says that's the color I wanna paint. Cause they're all, they're all pretty decent. It's the ones that they don't wanna do that I get.
That you get stuck with.
Oh, this color again. Do I really have to paint this color and yeah. Sorry.
Well, Chris, I really want to thank you. We all want to thank you for hanging out with us today and going for the ride with all about the car podcast. We learned a lot today about the auto body and collision repair all the way from ever changing automotive technology to what to do in the event of an accident, the dreaded accident. Then we took a break, went on our road, trip, Wisconsin and went subterranean by exploring one of Wisconsin's greatest underground attraction, Cave of the Mounds. So we hope to have you ride along next time on all about the car to listen to previous episodes, find additional resources or to simply send us a message head to all about the car podcast.com. We'll see you next time.
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