Toronto, Ontario — 2019 has been a year of exciting news and significant revelations when it comes to the world of collision repair. Before the close of the decade; here are the top five reported stories of from Collision Repair mag this year.
From cuts made to Ontario’s College of Trades, to the industry’s need to know about ADAS calibration, Collision Repair has covered it all. Catch up now in anticipation for next year’s equally exciting line up!
Acura’s excessive oil consumption problem
Class Dismissed: Shops issue insurer report cards
Collision repair facilities and auto insurers have a delicate—sometimes fractious—relationship. Unfortunately for the brave men and women of Canada’s repair sector, the balance of power is rarely on the repairer side of the equation.
Last year, Collision Repair turned the tables on auto insurers. It issued a survey to Canadian auto repair companies.
In the survey, the magazine asked readers to issue grades to the big players in the auto insurance sector. The areas up for review related to the timeliness of insurer payments, the dispute management practices used by the insurers, and the businesses’ overall approach to bodyshop relations.
Grades were given out to private insurers (Intact, TD Insurance, Aviva, Statefarm, Wanwessa, Dejardins, Co-operators) and public ones as well (Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, Saskatchewan Government Insurance and Manitoba Public Insurance).
This year, the magazine reissued the survey.
This year’s ‘class average’ of C+ across all fields, slightly down from 2018’s B+. While this could be the result of the participants feeling less generous than last year, there is a more likely explanation. As the top-scoring insurer actually saw its grades rise, it seems that relations between auto repair facilities and businesses have not improved.
And who was the top-scoring business? Yet again, the Co-operators came out on top—with an A, up from an A- last year. In fact, this year, the Co-operators was the highest rated auto insurer in every category.
SGI also deserves special mention. Its dispute management practices—rated 70 percent last year—were rated a 75 percent this year, up six places and into second in the category.
One respondent explained that SGI was actively working to improve its disputes management process.
“Lately SGI has been pretty good. They are at least listening to the industry’s concerns and trying their best to address them well, at the same time they are trying to keep cost in line.”
Another wrote that its billing process had been well received by businesses.
“As long as the shop has the paperwork done properly, SGI pays via E-transfer every Monday. Sometimes a larger claims things get held up in the system, but, for the most part, it is pretty good.”
While Aviva, TD Insurance and Wanwessa each dropped three places in the category, Intact was widely criticized for letting its disputes with shops turn nasty.
“Intact has become the bullies of the insurance industry,” wrote one respondent. “They have image desk reviewers that are there to cut and chop with no justification. It is beyond comprehension.”
“Intact bullies the client to move the vehicle to a non-certified facility,” wrote another.
“As part of a 20 group, we hear Intact is an issue across Canada. Who can afford a 6 percent rebate to Intact to be on their Rely Program?” wrote yet another.
Yet again, public insurers MPI and ICBC brought up the rear, each scoring last or second last in every field. The pair scored C- for their efforts—down from C+ in 2018.
MPI received particularly sharp reviews, with one repairer writing, “MPI is not concerned with settling disputes. They only are concerned with winning, and making sure the body shop loses.”
“Intact hasn’t increase labour rates in Edmonton since 2007,” complained a second repairer.
Another put it more simply.
“All levels of MPI are belligerent towards shop owners.”
Ford cuts Ontario College of Trades
The Making Ontario Open for Business Act, which also scuttled plans for a raise the minimum wage, also lays out plans for the creation of a new government organization to handle some of the OCOT’s duties, with any others reverting to the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities.
While Doug Ford’s government has said the College is a “source of unnecessary and burdensome complexity for skilled trades employment in the province,” not everyone agrees. Speaking to Collision Repair on the condition of anonymity, one member of the provincial organization described the closure as ‘unfortunate.’
“The move will not benefit technicians or the general public,” the source said. “The College of Trades’ duties will still need to be performed.”
Founded in 2009, the College’s compliance and enforcement officers are mandated to ensure restricted trades like autobody and collision repair are either trades licensed or registered apprentices.
Parts Disruption: Toyota Canada apologizes to collision community for ongoing delays
In an email to Collision Repair, Toyota Canada apologized to members of the public and the collision community who have been affected by delays in their parts distribution network.
Over the past few weeks, bodyshops around Canada have faced long delays for parts from Toyota Canada.The company also said the parts delivery delays–which some Collision Repair readers report to be up to four weeks–have been caused by a planned systems transformation.
“While we are doing everything we can to minimize any disruptions during these systems changes and return to our normal service levels as quickly as possible, we recognize that these changes may affect some of our customers and dealers,” wrote David Shum, Toyota Canada’s corporate communications team lead.
While the details of the problematic systems transformation remain unclear, Toyota Canada did confirm that it was unrelated to the soon-to-open Eastern Canada Parts Distribution Centre in Clarington, Ontario. The planned move from its current location in Scarborough will not occur until the spring of 2020.
Toyota Canada also told Collision Repair that it welcomed calls from concerned customers.
“We encourage any customers with questions or concerns to contact our customer service centres at 1-888-TOYOTA8 or 1-800-26LEXUS,” Shum wrote.
The collision industry needs to get serious about ADAS calibration
Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are taking over the auto industry. A report by the IIHS and NHTSA found that approximately half of the vehicles produced in 2017-2018 had ADAS as a standard option on the vehicle. Furthermore, AAA found that ADAS was either standard or available as an option on 93% of model-year 2018 vehicles. It’s not just standard on luxury cars either – Toyota has had ADAS standard on over 90% of their vehicles since 2017. Nissan puts ADAS in every Altima, Rogue, and Sentry (among others) it sells. And it’s been standard on every Honda Accord sold since 2018.
So, what is the collision repair industry doing about it? It seems the industry has only just got the message on scanning cars. But there’s a far-more serious and expensive issue that’s already here, but that very few are paying serious attention to: the need for collision repairers to recalibrate ADAS systems on a vehicle as part of the repair process. Like scanning, I will make the claim that ADAS recalibrations will need to be performed on almost every vehicle (with ADAS) during a repair.
However, unlike scanning, and unfortunately for repairers and insurers, ADAS calibrations can’t be done in 10 minutes or less with a relatively cheap tool. They’re much more expensive and involved. But it’s critical that they be done. Soon, vehicles equipped with ADAS will be a large part of a body shop’s workflow. This article is a wake-up call for collision repairers to get serious now about ADAS recalibrations, for the following reasons:
- ADAS doesn’t work unless it’s properly calibrated;
- ADAS issues are often invisible to scan tools – the only way to know that ADAS is functioning properly is to perform a recalibration, therefore:
- ADAS recalibrations will need to be performed on most vehicles equipped with ADAS following a collision.
ADAS doesn’t work unless it’s properly calibrated
Every day, millions of people rely on ADAS systems to get themselves and their families to their destination safely. That’s why it’s scary to know that just changing the windshield on a car can cause it to steer into traffic if it has a front-facing camera. That’s what happened to one Nova Scotia man after he took his vehicle to a Speedy Glass location after getting his windshield replaced there.
It only takes high-school-level geometry to work out that a front camera with a horizontal deviation of just one degree will be looking at the wrong lane at a distance of 130 metres. What this meant for our the Nova Scotian man was that his ‘lane keeping’ systems were actually steering him into oncoming traffic.
The problem ADAS systems pose for our industry is that they’re mostly not smart enough to not developed enough to know when they’re misaligned or mis-calibrated. They will continue to function in their compromised state until they are either fixed or turned off by the driver. Until then, they may pull vehicles into the wrong lanes, apply autobraking under overhead bridges, and potentially pose a continuous and active safety threat for the driver.
The IIHS recently conducted a study where they intentionally mis-calibrated the front camera. When the front camera was off by just 0.6 degrees to the right – a tiny fraction – the car misperceived the lines on the road by about two feet on either side. This small deviation caused the vehicle’s autobraking to fail spectacularly when they tested it, causing the car to smash into an obstacle at 32 km/h when travelling at a driving speed of 40 km/h. What would have happened if the camera was misaligned by 1 degree? 3 degrees?
ADAS recalibrations are often invisible to scan tools
You might think that there’s an easy solution: scan the car, and if there are no faults, everything is working fine. But that’s a dangerous myth that needs to be dispelled.
By now, we all know that there may be fault codes in the car even if there aren’t any dash lights. But did you know that ADAS systems can malfunction without immediately creating a fault code? We saw an example of this in a recent article on a malfunctioning Nissan radar system. Only after driving the vehicle for approximately 15-20 minutes did the ADAS sensor indicate a malfunction and create a code. Just repairing the car in the body shop and performing a post-scan would not have flagged the issue.
It’s an unfortunate reality that many businesses in the collision and glass repair industries have figured out “tricks” to replace ADAS sensors and connected body parts without triggering a fault code. But they are doing so at the expense of driver safety. It’s not a trade-off ever worth considering.
It’s not enough to do a vehicle scan; the only way to know the ADAS is functioning properly is by recalibrating the sensor and taking the vehicle on an extended road test ( and driving the car around the block doesn’t count).
ADAS recalibrations will need to be performed on most vehicles with ADAS following a collision
That’s why nearly every OEM that sells cars in North America, with the exception of Mitsubishi, has the same minimum requirements for when an ADAS recalibration is required:
- After a R&I/R&R of a vehicle part is attached to an ADAS sensor
- After replacement of an ADAS sensor
- Damage to the sensor mounting locations
Some OEMs have stricter requirements.
Honda, for example, requires the front camera to be calibrated after every collision. Some OEMS like Volkswagen/Audi and Toyota require ADAS recalibrations after a wheel alignment. But they all have the same basic recalibration requirements – if you’ve replaced a sensor or removed a part attached to a sensor, or if there’s damage to the sensor mountings, it needs to be recalibrated. Period.
What does that mean? Vehicles with radar in the front bumper cover or grille will need to be recalibrated if you take the bumper off, even if it’s just a small scratch or ding that needs to be repainted. Ditto It’s the same case for a blind-spot in the rear bumper (if painting is allowed at all). The front camera needs to be recalibrated every time a windshield is replaced.
So why did a recent CCC research report find that 6% of claims for current year vehicles had an entry for a replaced sensor, but only 1.9% had an entry for a recalibration? Entries for ADAS recalibrations should be significantly higher than 6%, because it must also be done where a body part attached to the sensor is removed, and in some cases where an alignment is done or where there is any collision or structural damage to the area. CCC’s The data from this report highlights a major failing in the industry when it comes to ADAS.
There’s no excuse for neglecting this important area. The major players in the auto glass repair industry have been on board with ADAS recalibrations for years, and they have processes and equipment in place to identify ADAS on a vehicle and recalibrate the sensors. The same cannot be said for the industry leaders in the collision repair industry. This must change.
Insurers and repairers have a duty to return the vehicle to the customer in its pre-loss condition. You wouldn’t send a car out without scanning it to make sure there’s no faults. We can’t stick our heads in the sand and cross our fingers when it comes to delivering an ADAS-equipped car back to the customer.
