A variety of factors are used to determine how to repair your vehicle. Among those are whether to repair or replace certain items such as a large or small body panel. The factors include appearance, structural integrity, safety and financial economics. For instance the decision of whether to repair a body panel may be comprised of the following:
• Can it be repaired to have the proper appearance?
• Visually will it align with the other body panels on the vehicle?
• Was the damage to the part extensive enough to cause it to lose its structural integrity?
• Will it be less expensive and more efficient to replace the part with a factory or aftermarket replacement part?
• Does the insurance or owner budget allow for the use of original, factory parts?
• Are there any delivery constraints?
• As you can see, there is a lot to think about.
The appearance of the vehicle is certainly important but there are a lot of factors involved. Whether all the panels can be physically aligned should there be any frame damage or even if the panels are all “tweaked” a bit makes a big difference.
Take a moment to visualize something. Say the front corner of the car was hit at a 60 degree angle from the front. While the impact location will certainly have damage, depending upon the speed/mass of both vehicles, it may be enough to “push over” the entire front end at an angle. This damage can be transmitted through the damage point to the connecting body panels, frame structure and beyond.
Think about it like this: pressing the corner of an open cardboard box. You can see that the pressure has to go somewhere. With all the components bolted together, they all absorb the impact to varying degrees and transmit that force to any panel, part or frame structure connected to it.
Now if it’s a simple low speed parking lot ding, it could be that there is no structural damage at all; only superficial damage to one body component. However, normally, it’s a combination of the two.
This is actually a planned intended result of an accident. Thousands of hours, tests and trials are consumed making your vehicle safe to drive. One of those safety factors is the ability of the body panels and substructure to actually absorb the impact to minimize damage to the most important component — YOU!
You might be thinking if a whole front end is pushed over can it even be fixed?
Amazingly, most frequently the answer is yes. By applying counter-active force to the vehicle, we are often able to realign a number of panels and substructures simultaneously to bring the components in line to line up with a new factory part. It’s what our amazing team does here on a daily basis.
We make regular decisions as to what the most effective route is to get your vehicle back to you in peak appearance and performance. It’s a part of the reason why you should allow us to shield your vehicle from all aspects!
Give us the opportunity to serve you today by considering one of our service packages!
