First this year we had Autodex, the UK’s fifth largest independent bodyshop group
now Wilcox Motor Bodies
These were both big repair facilities,i blame the banks,insurance companies insisting on very expensive pas 125 and the general downturn
Be warned your favourite bodyshop may be next
My recommended local independant man has just about now walked away from his insurance supplier due to all the new rules and expensive paper chase
lets put it this way you weld a wing on and you have to log the time you left the power on and at what wattage and who did the actual welding,can you imagine in a busy bodyshop having to deal with that every time you pick a tool up or have to refer to a diagram on how to remove a bumper when you know there is a better way.
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lets put it this way you weld a wing on and you have to log the time you left the power on and at what wattage and who did the actual welding can you imagine in a busy bodyshop having to deal with that every time you pick a tool up or have to refer to a diagram on how to remove a bumper when you know there is a better way.
surely they just do the job...then fill in all that carp afterwards and 'make it look good'
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surely they just do the job...then fill in all that carp afterwards and 'make it look good'
There's an old saying in our line of work.......'Drawn as built'
MD
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the increase in car safety has mean't that cars get written off a lot more easily and thusly a big reduction in the work for bodyshops as the older style repairable cars devalue and become economical write offs a lot quicker. Mind you if bodyshops didn't charge such ridicules prices for resprays and fixing stuff because they think insurance companies would pay the price they wouldn't be in such a fix, £3k for a respray with no other work? you can get a nearly new car for that much....
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Wow I had no idea Autodex had gone. We used them to repair some vandal damage on SWMBO's old Fiesta Zetec-S and they made a lovely job of it.
I think Pizza man's explanation makes sense. Cars now are designed with lots of sacrificial parts to minimise the effect of impacts on occupants (crumple zones, airbags, dash mouldings, seat cushions, pretensioners etc). It's not hard to see how even a relatively minor knock on a 4 yr old car could require replacement of lots of these expensive components which quickly approach or exceed its value. The panel damage is just the tip of the iceberg.
Edited by DP on 20/05/2009 at 12:13
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My friends dad was a taxi driver for a few months a couple of years ago, he had a fairly minor accident in his 307 SW diesel but it set off every single airbag in the car, he was fine but the panel damage combined with the amount of interior that needed replacing due to airbags wrote the car off. Apparently he was the first in the country to set all the airbags off.
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The paper trail is to ensure if say 5 years down the line a wing failed to hold up properly and caused a part in a fatal accident the trail goes back to the fitter for manslaughter rather than the md of the insurance company that paid the cheque.
Its all litigation protection for the men in suits,no more no less.
Thing is how many times can you tick the boxes after the repairs have been done before you are caught out,they are now even told where to actually put the welds as well,so bodyshops are just becoming automated workshops with skill being left at home.
I havent even mentioned how much it costs to be accredited to the scheme and if you arent then you will be shut soon as your only work will be passing trade with gatepost knocks
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£3k for a respray with no other work? you can get a nearly new car for that much....
I suppose cars are just catching up with most other consumer 'durables' - becoming steadily less durable because it is often more expensive to repair than to replace. Cars are in a pincer movement - whole cars lose value faster, while repair parts get dearer. It has been true for calculators for decades, and usually for washing machines too. Like many others I feel it is disgraceful waste, but when everything is decided purely by what insurance cos. will pay (unless an owner is passionately devoted to his vehicle), not too surprising.
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Unfortunately, good bodywork repairs still consume a considerable number of man-hours (or person-hours), so labour costs on (say) a complete re-spray are very high compared to the cost of materials. This is not likely to change.
I guess if we all drove more carefully, many more bodyshops would be forced to close :-)
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Labour rates are set by the insurance company a bodyshop can only argue that due to say corrosion etc they need a bit more time
The insurers even nominate where the bodyshops get their panels /paint/ lights from.
I wonder how many of you are aware that in a lot of cases there isnt even an insurance assesor going round looking at damaged vehicles as in a lot of straight forward cases its all done by downloaded photos of the damage direct to the insurer they then use a computer programme to calculate costs of parts labour and whether indeed the car should even be written off
My man doesnt even get paid storage charges on his land and gets the bare minimum to drag what may be hulks in
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bodyshops falling like flies >>
I am not sure what the problem is here.
If there isn't enough work, these places will close.
If they are closing because they are not getting paid enough by the Insurance Co., then surely a point will be reached where the balance between demand and supply will be restored and the correct level of payment made to keep the bodyshops open.
i blame the banks,insurance companies insisting on very expensive pas 125 and the general downturn >>
Autodex are reported to have been party to the PAS125 scheme.
"Richard Fagan, managing director of Autodex ... Fagan has been involved in the ABP steering group for the PAS 125, which helped write the standard requirements bodyshops must meet when seeking accreditation.
He believes the PAS 125 should be the minimum standard for any insurer to look for in a bodyshop."
Autodex are reported to have got in to difficulties due to a downturn in business:
"Volumes dwindled from the start of this year and the business was put up for sale in March and ceased receiving new work.
However, as cashflow dried up its finance companies declined to increase support.
In a statement, Autodex said: ?Autodex ceased accepting new work at the beginning of March as the sales process had commenced. It was initially hoped that a single buyer would be found for the whole group, but it was subsequently decided that a breakup of the sites would attract more buyers and result in a speedier sales process.?
Edited by jbif on 20/05/2009 at 13:08
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Thanks jbif and i have already read all that and i did absorb it (i wasnt aware they were an instigator of pas though)
I now see that they are a case of falling on their own sword as they couldnt be cost effective seeing as they were holding the pas flag when in fact the insurers whom i asume they worked for were finding cheaper bodyshops to use
It reminds me of universal salvage that banged the drum for abi categorisation and end of life centres,they banged on govt doors so often they were given a key but look at them now,gone ,taken over by copart an american company that has shown keep your head down do the business and fill the till never mind being a goody goody to your shareholders when in fact they were failing them
Edited by bell boy on 20/05/2009 at 13:17
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This is probably rubbish, but there was a bloke on the radio some weeks back who said his business was failing due to the banks. They would no longer loan him money to buy, import and sell some product which had a limited shelf life. He was not prepared or able to fund it himself, he clearly regarded that as the bank's job.
The bank asked why they should be the ones taking the risk on this guy's business -if he failed to sell then they would lose out, not him. This is, I guess, their new attitude to risk. Seems sound to me too, seeing as we appear to have reached where we are by banks allowing people & companies to overstretch which resulted in bad debts etc.
I've no idea if this has any bearing to the company above, but if companies were depending on banks for cash flow (??) they probably need a different business model now.
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"bodyshops falling like flies"
Presumably it's due to supply exceeding demand.
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Very true Smokie. Businesses not funded by sales, but by ongoing credit lines will fail when that link gets broken.
If businesses work on the principle that stocking, marketing, production & development are funded by forward credit, it means that even if they sell & thrive in good times, their profit levels are compromised by the repayment premium.
That is, the cost of the credit (say 5%) comes off gross profit (in addition to the capital of course..) - that 5% often means the difference between survivability in a downturn & premature capitilulation. How often have we heard a company boss complaining that he/she has a 'viable' business but the banks won't advance funds to cover cashflow or raw material costs for upstream contracts? What?? The idea that previous profit is used to fund work/costs before next invoicing steam comes online seems to have been forgotten.
It's just like the 'poor old consumers' who find themselves having to live within their means & not getting ever increasing 'subs' from credit lines - many companies seem to think they can flip the same trick ad infinitum too.
It just ain't gonna happen in the real world the so-called 'credit crunch' has led us into.
I'd prefer to call it a reality crunch.
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There are (were) many small companies (and some quite large ones) started with the premis that the business model required credit, and LOW credit at that. There are (were) some large very large companies that were sick and only survived of late due to plentiful cheap credit.
The companies with the unsustainable (becuase its fundamentally flawed) buisiness model based on credit to replace cash flow will fail.
We have yet to see those companies who have come to rely on cheap credit failing. And fail they will because credit will become very expensive very qucikly when the economy swings from deflation to rapid inflation (thats coming to)
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The unwillingness of banks to extend credit facilities is seemingly a very common reason now for businesses closing. Lots in the press about Anthony Worrall-Thompson and his chain of restaurants going into admin, due, he says, to LLoyds TSB refusing credit (though he was unwilling to put his house up as security, and immediately bought back 2 of the restaurants).
However, I did read the other day that the Pendragon motor group, who made a £200 million loss last year, have managed to renegotiate their credit to get them through the next 3 years.
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Turnover at the Just Car Clinic, the quoted car repair firm, fell down 4 per cent in the first four months of this year
they say market demand was held back by reduced road usage and higher insurance excesses.
chairman David Hickey, said: "Conditions during 2009 have been challenging with underlying market repair volumes being adversely affected by the economic recession.---------------
end quote-------
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