This past winter’s record-setting wrath in portions of the nation is prompting some body shop owners to begin thinking about climate-upgraded operational strategies in advance of whatever next season’s onslaught may bring. The harsh weather extremes were especially troublesome for regions unaccustomed to such low temperatures and deep snowfalls.
For starters, you might be seeing four-wheel-drive vehicles being deployed in-house to form a door-to-door limousine service of sorts; many collision centers suffered production interruptions because snowbound staffers were unable to make it into work.
Other challenges included weather-driven delays in parts delivery and insurance appraisals along with cramped parking lot space due to towering piles of plowed snow. Pavement ice buildups led to dangerous slipping and sliding during parking-lot vehicle maneuvering. Having to do repeated – and unreimbursed – washings of salt-encrusted cars was another issue.
Even facility design elements that are old ski-hat in typically rugged regions – such as setting aside space for snow piles alongside parking lots and selecting salt-tolerant plant species for decorative flower gardens – could now be attracting consideration in traditionally milder locales.
(According to horticulturists at White Flower Farm in Litchfield, Conn., if your salt-exposed delicate ornamentals are showing signs of distress, now – in the spring as soon as possible – is the time to wash salt spray off the leaves and flush the soil with fresh water. Picking out hardier replacement plants is accomplished by looking up your particular growing zone when making purchase decisions.)
Offering some solutions from up north where it can get really rough, “You do a lot of scheduling and you try to keep the cars warm,” said Ken Friesen, CEO and president of Concours Collision Centres in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. “Scheduling is important. We’re scheduled two or three weeks out. A lot of guys in the U.S. are content to take cars at the door,” he observed.
“You also always try to bring as many cars inside at night as you can so they’re nice and warm rather than wait until the morning,” Friesen advised, pointing out that Alberta’s frigidity is not as overwhelming as Americans might think. “It’s not like it’s 40 below all winter.” Bursts of brutal cold last for about a week, followed by more pleasant readings ranging from 25 to 40 degrees.
Corrosive costs
Although the assorted domestic climate calamities certainly resulted in a lot of valued repair jobs being brought in, an assorted array of production hindrances were putting a chill on any sense of celebration – at least for the time being – as the winter raged on.
February was the coldest month ever recorded in East Haddam, Conn., home of Eddie’s Auto Body. “It was very quiet until January, then we had two snowstorms per week and it never warmed up,” said owner Edward M. Lupinek. Usually there are alternating periods of lighter snows and cleansing rains to buffer a blizzard’s negative impact on operations.
“It’s a real cost. The work takes longer to produce,” said Lupinek. “With so much salt, you have to wash the cars even to see what color they are. We wash the cars up to four times during the repair process, and some insurance companies will reject line items for the extra costs. They’ll say, ‘We’re not paying to wash the car.’”
In addition to cleansing corrosive coats of road salt, each vehicle has to be consistently swept clear of accumulating snow. Time-consuming shuffling of the assembled cars and trucks is required to accommodate frequent plowings of the lot.
On the plus side of the ledger, “It definitely creates a lot of activity and we’re doing a lot of bigger crashes,” said Lupinek. “The snow banks are higher than the roofs of cars, and people are pulling out when they can’t really see,” he noted.
“As long as you stay above freezing the snow remains fluffy, but the snow banks have turned into ice banks that can tear the bumper off. They’re used to backing into a snow bank and it’s no big deal. But when it freezes it becomes a block of ice – they drive away but the bumper stays,” Lupinek explained. “As the weather breaks we’ll be seeing rocker panel crushes and door crushes. When people wash their cars in the spring we’ll get a lot of cosmetic stuff” as hidden dents, dings and other damage becomes apparent.
Significant impact
A single January storm that enveloped Boston dropped more snow than Anchorage, Alaska had all winter. The ongoing deluge refused to cease, culminating in a two-and-a-half-foot snowpack sitting outside of Boston Body Works.
“We have a problem parking the cars,” said owner Patrick Cibotti. Huge snow piles were reducing the lot’s available space. Parts procurement came to a near-standstill, stymied by non-navigable roadways. “Some of the insurance companies are a week behind in looking at the cars,” he said. “If the car is drivable we’re not even taking the job. We can’t do all the work. We lost three work days in one month.”
Vehicle wrangling was hampered as mountains of plowed snow clogged Boston’s already-notoriously narrow streets. “The tow companies say it’s very difficult because of that,” Cibotti said.
Heavy chucks of ice and snow slid from buildings and onto vehicles, leading to smashed windshields and crushed roofs; passing snowplows were encroaching upon parked cars, ripping off bumpers and mirrors while scraping along side panels.
Never in history has the mercury so low in High Falls, N.Y. “The impact has been significant on our business,” according to Karen Hoover, co-owner with her husband John of Jake’s Auto Body & Towing. Overly high utility costs were a concern and snow-covered roads blocked the flow of parts throughout the entire supply chain, affecting manufacturers, warehouses, wholesalers and shops.
“It’s led to delays of least three to five days in delivering vehicles to the customers,” Hoover reported. “If we had anticipated the parts delays we would have better informed the customers.” Come next year, “we’re going to try to set their expectations to be a little more realistic. Other than that, sometimes you just have to tough it out.”
And even if you don’t market tires, keeping an eye on them for your customers is a worthwhile service, she suggested. Balding rubber can heighten the risk of spinouts; teenagers are most vulnerable to this scenario when parents gift them the retired family car without first inspecting the tread: “Watch the tires for them.”
Black ice and light coatings of snow are especially troublesome on the roads. “We get more wrecks and more work in smaller storms rather than big ones. It catches them unaware,” Hoover said.
When warnings are issued that nastier conditions are on the way, residents tend to either prepare themselves – driving with both hands on the wheel and displaying nose-to-the-windshield alertness – or they hunker down at home, particularly on weekends. Weekdays, though, bring out a more accident-prone I’ve-got-to-get-there approach. “Everyone has to get to work and they forget what snow is,” said Hoover. “They think, ‘It’s no big deal because I have a Jeep.’”
Short-handed shops
Unprecedented bad weather battered normally tranquil Tennessee. “It barely snows or does anything here, and people think they can drive in anything,” said manger Tom Dale at Brown’s Body Shop, which has two outlets in Columbia and Franklin. “We had a lot of ice and there’s been a lot of wrecks. A lot of the insurance companies were closed,” he said.
“There’s a lot of short-handedness going on. That was an issue in itself,” Dale continued. “I had one guy out for a whole week because he lives up a hill.”
Pre-arranged cosmetic work was being set aside at A&J Body Shop and Wrecker Service in Athens, Tenn. “We had a couple of them cancel out because they didn’t want to come in because of the snow,” said shop foreman Joe Ambrose, pointing out that the towing segment of the business was thriving.
“There are a lot of cars off the roads and in the ditches. A lot of the cars are totaled-out, but about half of them are eligible for collision repairs. Once the shock wears off we’ll be pretty busy,” Ambrose said.
In Kentucky, unexpected amounts of snow kept coming. Six to seven inches of snow fell in a week, with another 14 inches accumulating in just two days. “The majority of the things we’re getting are when people are driving into snow piles and they’re raking a bumper across it and pulling it off,” said Kyle Wiersma, manager/estimator for Randy’s Body Shop in Paducah.
“The grocery stores are empty and we had a couple of days where we had some people who couldn’t get in,” reported estimator Daniel Beale at Quality Auto Paint & Body in Roanoke, Va. “It’s been pretty hectic. We had a lot of fender-benders but no really big accidents,” he said. “We’re booked out as far as we’ve been all season.”
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