Open Your Eyes: Shops Need to Follow OEM Procedures!

Published in AASPMN News – Thomas Greco Publishing

Once upon a time, vehicles entered a repair shop – mechanical or collision – and could be repaired based upon the repairers’ knowledge and experience. Those days are long gone!

With vehicles growing increasingly complex due to the use of new materials, inclusion of ADAS and telematics, not to mention the challenges related to electric vehicles (EVs), researching the OEM repair procedures for every job has become a necessity, even when the repair order calls for something as simple as replacing a bumper or a wheel alignment, either of which may require calibrations.

Even if a shop performed the exact same repair on the same year, make and model vehicle the previous week, requirements change constantly. “We can’t assume what we did yesterday, or on the car that we worked on before, is going to apply today,” Danny Gredinberg (Database Enhancement Gateway) says.

In fact, OEConnection’s Taylor Moss recently reported that OEC conducted a study on three OEMs over a six-month period and found that one in six procedures had a change during that period; that means that 300,000 out of 1.8 million procedures were updated in that time period! 

The first step to staying updated on these potential changes is acquiring access to the repair procedures; after all, without that access, how can you begin to follow them?

The most obvious option is going straight to the source. Most, if not all, OEMs offer various levels of access to their repair procedures, position statements and bulletins online, although accessing everything available may require a subscription to each manufacturer and figuring out how to navigate each site. Locating those sites alone may present challenges, but OEM1Stop.com provides links to over 40 manufacturers’ information portals. As far as navigation, Mike Anderson of Collision Advice offered detailed guidance on this several years ago in his “Learn to Research, Research to Learn” webinar series, available at youtube.com/@collisionadvice-calg. Anderson and Gredinberg also teamed up for a Society of Collision Repair Specialists’ “Quick Tip” video on the topic (youtube.com/watch?v=HggVnV2mJfw).

Subscribing to so many sites may be daunting, but there are other options as well. ALLDATA provides “the latest, unedited OEM repair information right at your fingertips, covering more than 44,000 engine-specific vehicles,” according to their website, while OEC’s RepairLogic “promotes safe and proper repair through easy access to OEM repair information, digital collaboration tools and advanced documentation capabilities.” I-CAR’s Repairability Technical Support portal also contains a wide variety of OEM information. 

Solera’s Identifix boasts direct access to OE data, updated MOTOR Parts and Labor Guides, expanded OEM manual coverage and more. This provider has teamed up with AASPMN to offer members a 20 percent annual discount on its Direct-Hit and Direct-Help subscriptions. Learn more at aaspmn.org/savings.

After obtaining access to the OEM procedures and actually performing the necessary research, what’s the next step? The repair planner must write an accurate blueprint, and then the technician must actually follow those guidelines. 

Ron Reichen (Precision Body and Paint; Beaverton, OR) recommends “implementing quality control (QC) checkpoints throughout the repair process. The person performing the quality control and approving the repair should not be the same person who did the work; it needs to be a different set of eyes, someone who is responsible for reviewing the work and determining whether it’s acceptable or not acceptable.”

Anderson agrees that shops should utilize quality control inspections and checklists to ensure they are delivering a quality product to the customer. Moreover, he urges shops to use an electronic QC process to prevent technicians from “pencil-whipping” the forms. “An electronic QC process ensures that every step is time- and date-stamped, a record that helps ensure – and document – that things were done properly.”

Documentation is another key component that allows shops to prove that the necessary repair steps were followed. Every step of the process should be documented using photos, videos and detailed notes. “With today’s complex safety and driving assist systems, we must adopt complete transparency and accountability through extensive and detailed documentation,” stresses Michael Giarrizzo (DCR Systems), who adds, “Improper repairs affect the safety and performance of these complex vehicle systems. The history of repairs will start to come into play in a subsequent accident. OE guidelines and work instructions are engineered so that the vehicle responds the way it was intended to in another accident, [and if it fails], the liability falls on the shop that did the repairs.”

Researching and adhering to OEM procedures on every single job may appear overwhelming, but vehicle manufacturers are the experts on the cars they produce, and their procedures are designed to ensure that vehicle performs the same way in a subsequent accident to protect its occupants – and if it fails to do so because a repair was performed improperly, they aren’t the only ones who will suffer. 

“We all remember the Seebachan case that finally broke that glass ceiling,” Mark Allen (Audi) weighs in. “Those poor people are in so much pain every minute of every day, and the money is not worth the pain. Could you live with your conscience knowing something like that happened? It’s a morality thing. The fact of the matter is, we’re charged with keeping those people safe, all of us – from the manufacturers to the insurers, right down to the technician.

“OEM procedures aren’t opinions or some sort of black magic; they are tested processes that we’ve developed based on factual data and evidence,” he adds. “Repair procedures are developed from a point of research that includes understanding the vehicle structure and how it was engineered, not simply because someone thinks it’ll work.”

Investing all this time and energy into researching and performing the proper OEM repair procedures on every vehicle seems like a lot of effort, but shops need to open their eyes to the possible ramifications if they neglect to do so…but knowing that you’re doing the right thing for your customers just may help you rest a little better when you close your eyes at night!