UPDATE REVIEW OF OEM CERTIFIED REPAIR ADVERSE DEMANDS
The CRA have been in receipt of a number of complaints in regard to ongoing approval programme management companies who, despite a marginal market with low volume collision repair and decreased work supply, continue to implement costly and financially unreasonable provider specific repair approval pieces of specialised equipment.
CRA have had a number of complaints about draconian enforcements for SA certification in regard to selected brand repair in the aftermarket on equipment requirements. This is currently managed by independent audit operators who in recent times have been recommending or demanding that unless an approved premium repair centre purchases specific repair equipment, their approval will lapse. These pieces of equipment in more instances than one are already catered for on equivalent technical specification by other branded equipment and already in use which fulfils the exact same purpose. These requirements come at huge cost and on face value appear to block entrance of smaller facilities, which is a direct conflict of the Automotive Guidelines published by the Competition Commission.
Most procurement at present is of very little use in these arenas as the write off threshold remains untenable for a body shop to repair on extremely low work volumes and almost zero return on investment even on new vehicles. This leaves our CRA membership with an investment that is both clearly unnecessary and also a purchase that just remains a waste of money and occupying space as “white elephants” which all adds up to financial nonsense!
After taking in membership complaints of these programmes and unveiled threats from their auditors without an adequate explanation of just why only specific named equipment would gain approval, we moved on to the overseas principles to ask the question. If other global certified equipment has proven to be effective for repair to published repair methods from OEMs and safety through standards why do local manufacturers nominate no other alternate suppliers to achieve the same objective at unreasonable cost?
Some, but not all, provided the reply that the directive from the company would subsequently withdraw temporarily until further notice. In regards as to who decided that only certain equipment would be recommended for ongoing repairs and on there was financial benefit derived in the way of remuneration for their decision to exclude existing alternative expensive equipment which in our opinion far exceeds the base minimum standards remains to be seen.
The time has come for the collision repair trade to take concerted action on various approval programme demands with the Consumer Protection Commissioner and other various stakeholders into capability of existing equipment invested into by top level structural repair workshops whom have all the necessary experience in repair technologies to get the job repaired back to its original state.
The plain truth of the matter is that companies like Mazda, who some years ago abandoned their approval repair body shop programmes and outsourced its management to industry Associations in grading and resolving correct repair methods have not had adverse consumer complaints in restoration to the position before the incident occurred. In summary these decisions seem to fly in the face of real every day work ethics where these selected programme approval repair management teams are seeking ever more investment levels and incurred costs for approvals which are clearly not acceptable, and continuous investment demands which are out of touch with return on capital outlay in tough economic times. The end result where the focus remains on equipment levels and never seems to allow qualified opinion on skills, which we have for quality of repairs using proven methods is yet another unanswered question.
Story by: Steve Kessel
