Snap Shop: Windham Body Shop

Location: New Albany, Mississippi
Owner: Robbie Windham
Staff Size: 12
Annual Revenue: $2 million
Average Repair Order: $4,093
Monthly Car Count: 40

Shop Size: 10,500 Sq. Ft.

Repairing vehicles isn’t a job for Robbie Windham; it’s a lifestyle. Every customer who enters Windham Body Shop can expect to receive clear, transparent communication about what their car needs and know the team will work to deliver the best quality repair possible for their vehicle.

“The transparency is the big bit. Quality is the other thing. We try to explain to our customers you get what you get with the insurance company,” Windham said. “With Windham Body Shop, if you would like to have a higher quality repair, we offer that service as well.”

Windham grew up working on vehicles in his parents’ garage and helping out with the family business, Windham Appliances, which is the oldest business in town with 54 years of service. In high school, he knew collision repair was exactly what he wanted his future career to be and, after graduating, went straight to community college to take courses.

“It was just a garage out back in the yard. I used that shop there at the house to get started,” Windham said. “I would just go around to the used car dealers in town, grab some stuff, and just working like that. I started getting to where I could get a couple of entrant jobs.”

In 2009, Windham made the tough decision to build his own shop in New Albany, Mississippi. He didn’t have everything he needed to start fresh, but it was his goal.

“I didn’t really owe a lot of money on what I had, but I didn’t have the equipment I needed to do things. As the cars evolve, the equipment evolve and training evolves,” he said. “It was a hard decision because I didn’t know if it would work or not…I just kind of took a leap of faith, you might say.”

After 15 years of successful service in the community, it was time to expand. The shop underwent massive renovations last year, doubling the size of the production floor, investing in new equipment, and increasing staff size to include a full-time repair planner/blueprinter, an in-house bookkeeper, and two part-time front-end estimators.

The expanded production floor has a bay for structural repair equipment and a dedicated place for ADAS calibrations.

“It’s kind of a dual-purpose spot because we’re not constantly doing ADAS; I’ve built an equipment closet so all of our equipment goes into that closet,” Windham said. “We have an aluminum cleanroom that’s on the opposite side of it, so when you draw those curtains, you can use one side for the aluminum cleanroom and it blocks everything off for the ADAS.”

Across from the ADAS space are two Garmat paint booths arranged end-to-end so jobs can go in one end and out the other.

“We do disassembly and try to take anything off the car to do the refinish,” he said. “We do that so we can do multiple jobs in the booth at one time.”

Equipment additions from Car-O-Liner include a CTR9 resistance spot welder, VAS 6526/22-1 draw aligner, CMI 300 triple torch welder for steel, aluminum and silicon bronze welding, aluminum dust extractor, 5500 BenchRack, 3X 3D measuring systems and the EV01 and EV02 clamping systems.

Windham also uses Axalta Cromax XP paint, 3M sealer and bonding equipment, Bosch ADAS calibration system, Keco and Cam Auto glue pull repair equipment, Pro Spot suction post for GPR, Betag Flatliner, BETAG T-Hotboxes, BETAG PDR light, Snap-on aluminum dent repair system and air conditioning refrigerant recovery/recycle/recharge machines, and a Chief PNP90 self-piercing rivet gun for aluminum. The AC machines provide a significant upgrade to the daily work experience for his technicians.

As part of the expansion, Windham shifted away from direct repair and made a concentrated effort to acquire OEM-specific certifications including Ford, GM, Hyundai, Nissan, FCA, Kia, Genesis, and Infiniti.

“So that was one of the biggest changes that I made was to take the stand that you know, we're going to do what's right for the consumer,” he said. “I’m not anti-insurance, I’m pro-quality. And I feel like the customer needs to understand what they’re getting.”

Windham is interested in adding more certifications and will continue to improve the shop as he continues working on his goal of providing the best possible repairs for his customers as the industry continues to evolve.

“This is an industry that's ever changing,” he said. “We'll add other stuff, but I don’t know how quickly it’ll be. There’s always more to come.”