Fix them for the lifetime of the vehicle. It’s a matter of overall torsional strength instead of collision strength, he said.Īlso, there’s the basic matter of repair quality. “I’m not fixing cars to make it to the next trade-in,” Felder said. Often, a trunk floor wasn’t structural, but the absence of one would lead to the back of a vehicle twisting around, according to Montanez. “It’s a secondary or tertiary structural component,” Montanez said. Olson suggested the notion of a quarter panel being nonstructural would be proven wrong by crashing a vehicle without one. Why all the fuss about quarter panels? For one thing, in contrast to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety view that quarter panels are typically cosmetic, P&L Consultants co-owner Larry Montanez said he knew of at least four OEMs that specifically called the components structural. Olson said Volvo will sometimes require a shop’s spot weld over a factory weld - unless it’s structural.įelder pointed out that when an OEM issues such instructions, it assumes the repairer is using a new panel, not a donor one with a weld nugget. A spot weld atop a spot weld tends to be called for in instances where there’s three or four layers, he said. P&L Consultants co-owner Larry Montanez said OEMs typically require repairers to put their spot welds next to the factory ones. The 2015 Honda Civic featured in the show had a location with 18 factory welds but a requirement for 20 in the aftermarket, according to Olson.Īsked if these repair shop spot welds could be applied over an existing factory spot weld location, Olson said, “Generally, no.” Thus, OEMs require shops to add more in certain cases to be safe, he said. Olson said that resistance spot welds produced by tools in a shop are often smaller and not as strong as those delivered by factory equipment.
“It’s not up to the technician to decide,” Felder said.
One has to check the OEM repair procedures. How the OEM built the vehicle and how you fix it might not be the same, and a repairer can’t assume that duplicating what they saw on the vehicle will work, according to Olson.
Knowing why involves consulting the OEM repair procedures for a quarter panel replacement. “It’s all about the why,” Vehicle Collision Experts CEO Mark Olson said. “It’s not really about an OEM position statement,” she said. Referring to a position statement without that foundation means “you’re already at a losing place” during a negotiation, she said. Logic and science prevents collision repairers from safely installing a used quarter panel, collision repair experts said last month on “Repair University Live.”Ĭollision Hub CEO Kristen Felder said it’s important for shops to go beyond knowing that an OEM doesn’t want used quarter panels to understanding why they don’t.
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