Page 51 - Australasian Paint & Panel Jan-Feb 2020

clusively for Car Craft members in WA, how- ever with the obvious growth of the ADAS technology, we see the potential to expand the services and make it available to the rest of the industry into the future,” he said.
PROFIT AND CYCLE
TIME OPPORTUNITIES
The windscreen replacement industry was forced to be an early adopter of recalibration equipment or it was potentially facing extinc- tion, while other markets such as Europe have been dealing with repairing ADAS equipment vehicles for much longer than the Australian market. Consequently there are a number of tried and tested aftermarket recali- bration solutions available. The actual recali- brating itself is straightforward once you’ve
trained up - for the most part the car recal- ibrates itself. However, the units them- selves are not cheap, they take up at least one bay and are fussy about their place- ment (even floor, certain lighting condi- tions). The other negative is that at the mo- ment there isn’t a unit on the market that will recalibrate every single model in the Australian market.
Hella Gutmann, Bosch and Texa are three of the most established market brands that have been utlised for years in more mature overseas markets and are al- ready ‘approved equipment’ for a number of Australian insurers.
I’ve been saying for a couple of years now that there will be huge opportunities for repairers undertaking recalibration in -house. If you are an early adopter then you
have the opportunity to offer recalibration services to other repairers in your area, al- lowing you to secure a fast return on in- vestment in your equipment. Repairers are often concentrated in a relatively small area, it could be a mutually beneficial pro- ject to co-fund a recalibration centre which you could all access and charge those who didn’t invest accordingly. You know what your dealer charges for a recalibration, of- fer this service to an insurer for less but for enough to cover the time taken, training and investment and this could give you a serious market edge. While you are consid- ering investing in equipment, some calibra- tions require a wheel alignment to take place first.
WHAT’S THE WORST
THAT CAN HAPPEN?
A bad weld or sub-standard blend are rela- tively easy to get away with. A camera or radar that’s even a measly 0.1 degree out could prove fatal for your customer and the cause of the resulting accident will point a neon arrow toward the last business that carried out work on the car. One of the rea- sons many manufacturers insist on OEM windscreens is because some aftermarket camera mounts are misaligned which means the camera isn’t pointing where it should. If this was the case, then the sys- tem wouldn’t recalibrate. However if any part of the ADAS equipment is replaced without calibration a number of systems will be compromised, such as AEB. This could cause the vehicle to automatically brake because it couldn’t tell the distance between other cars, which could lead to a rear collision. If the lane departure is frac- tionally out, the car could aim itself into the opposite lane of oncoming traffic.
If you so much as nudge a sensor mount- ing during the repair process then you have likely compromised at least one ADAS sys- tem, if not multiple systems.
Scanning and recalibration has simply become as integral to the repair process as joining and painting. I-CAR offers courses and the relevant equipment companies also provide training. Make sure you un- derstand your State’s regulations on who is qualified to carry out the work, but don’t get left behind. Insurers will not be able to afford to use repairers who haven’t em- braced the ‘electronic’ elements of the re- pair process.
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IMAGE: SCOTT RIGNEY