LIFE GOES ON – CAR PAINT CENTRE, TONGAAT
All over the country, there are a new wave of stores popping up that distribute vehicle refinish, especially in Kwazulu-Natal (KZN). Car Paint Centre is one of these excellent new shops.
Director, Sashen Singh, has a solid foundation in auto paints. The Singh family have been specialist paint makers for over 40 years in KZN. As you are unable to predict the future, our planned visit to see the operation coincided with the company’s second big weather event of the year. In January Car Paint Centre were deluged with a massive flood that knocked out over 40 tons of car repair products at the company’s new factory site. The new factory site is 6 000 square metres big and is based in Tongaat.
Sashen said that they had just got back on their feet from the flash flood when a tornado destroyed just about everything just outside Tongaat to the north. This once again is a rude awakening to how vulnerable we are to ever changing weather patterns.
The Car Paint Centre have four dedicated outlets in KZN. This walk-in-store in Tongaat is managed by Yvonne. Car Paint Centre’s policy is one of multi-brands when it comes to paint lines. The company now operate over 20 special mix colours per day for local DIY and body shop customers. The current product of choice is Carvello, from Luxor Paints.
Colour matcher, Cliffy says their spectrometer has been a major boost to colour matching accuracy, allowing for latest formula addition being spot on. The team at Car Paint Centre, is as you might imagine, up to their necks in trying to satisfy walk-in customers, with their need for a specific repair in hand.
In all the turmoil, Sashen was on his phone organising local donations and help to where it was most needed in the vital task of putting Tongaat back into some sort of normal order. It continues to be a mammoth task all on its own as thousands of the small town’s inhabitants have escaped the flooding with just the shirts on their back. Definitely not the best day to pay Car Paint Centre a visit, but in fact it was a privilege to witness this company and its people starting life in the face and soldiering on together as a team. Hopeful as always of their continued success.
