What Is Automotive Collision Repair And Refinishing?

Automotive collision repair becomes necessary when there is a crashed car in your garage. The reason for its requirements can be because of many factors and causes. Be it fixing an old car to fixing a new car that was involved in an accident.

Therefore, read this guide to know what goes on during a car repair process to fix your damages as quickly as possible. In addition, you would get to know in detail about the several steps that get carried out to ensure that your car looks brand new even if it was mangled beyond recognition before.

When Do You Need Automotive Collision Repair?

Automotive collision repair becomes essential to be done when your car is involved in an accident. These accidents can be major or minor, depending on their cause and severity.

These repairs are best done early since keeping them in that state will worsen the condition of your car. It will rust the car more and even cause perfectly alright parts of the car to get damaged in the process as well.

Automotive Collision Repair – Steps Before Refinishing

When the person who is about to conduct automotive collision repair activities – the repairer – sees the damaged car, they will have many questions about what they need to do next. So the first thing that happens in this process – is that the person in need of repairs looks for an automotive repair school near me.

Therefore. the main functions of an automotive collision repairer are:

1. Review Damage Reports

The very first thing during an automotive collision repair service that the repairer will do is to check the damage reports.

When a damaged car is sent to the garage to get it fixed, a group of junior technicians and mechanics are responsible for inspecting every part of the car. This includes both the exteriors and interiors of the car and even its engines in the chassis.

After all the parts of the car get carefully inspected, the technicians make a report where they state every important mechanical detail of the vehicle. This includes details about damages the car has faced, the parts that need to be fixed or replaced, and all the extra modifications that need to be added to make the car function smoothly.

2. Prepare Cost Estimates

Based on the damage reports prepared by the other junior mechanics, the maintenance specialists will analyze the report. Based on their analysis, the report either remains unchanged, or changes are made to it if other repairs are needed or the stated repairs are unnecessary.

Based on the report’s final draft, the costs of the repairs are calculated. The final prices will reflect various expenses, like labor charges, repair costs, costs of new parts, and other miscellaneous costs.

The final cost chart for the repairs gets sent to the person whose car needs to be sent to the customer. Then, the owner of the automotive car repair shop owner and the customer settles the payment over there in full. Or, the customer can agree to pay half the money as an advance or a downpayment and pay the rest when the repairs are complete.

In addition, the customer can deny the repair services if they believe that the costs are too high. Here, the repair shop owner and the customer can bargain to strike a deal or deny the service at all if the repair shop owner believes the costs are perfect and not extortive based on the automotive collision repair salary.

3. Plan The Repairing Process

After payments get cleared, and the repairs get greenlit, the auto collision repairer starts planning and charting the entire process. This step is essential because they need to do all the repairs in a particular order. Not following the order can lead to further complications down the line.

When the repairs get planned out, the lead automotive collision repair technicians near me then chart the entire process and communicate it with their team. This helps the junior technicians in the automotive collision repair schools to come up to speed and understand what order they must do the repairs.

This represents the reasonable allocation of tasks since it prevents overlapping repairs done by different repair persons.

4. Remove And Fix Damaged Car Parts

After the automotive collision repair process is planned, the vehicle’s repairs can finally get underway. Typically, the first task is to dismantle the car, part by part. However, this step may not be required since the car parts get disassembled during the checkup to analyze the damage.

After dismantling, the damaged parts of the car – its exteriors or its engines – get removed from the car and kept aside. Then, depending on the extent of the collision damage, the removed car parts will either get disposed of or repaired if the damages are fixable without replacing parts.

If they can fix the damaged car parts, another team of technicians or the primary repairers will start working on the repairs. Then, every removed car part is repaired and carefully cleaned out to look like car parts of a brand new car.

Otherwise, if they are highly damaged, the removed car parts will get scrapped and disposed of. Sometimes, the repair shop might keep them in case they can salvage some smaller parts of the car that are still in shape and can be used to make future repairs easier.

5. Realign Out Of Place Car Parts

After a motor vehicle or car collision, the repairers of the car body shop near me will analyze the positioning of the car parts and its other structures. If any of the car parts seem to be misaligned because of the collision, then those parts are either aligned as it is or are removed and rejoined to make them aligned.

These alignment issues may arise in the case of rearview mirrors that the drivers use. These mirrors are the most common car part that gets damaged upon a collision. Therefore, there is a high chance they have been broken during the collision or have received a bump and have been misaligned.

If the latter is the case, then a few soft strokes of the hammer will make things alright. Or, they need to be taken out and refitted again to make them appear in the way they should.

6. Hammer And Smoothen Out Surface Damages

When a car enters the auto body shops near me, during an automotive collision repair process, the most common damage you will see first is the various scratches and dents on the car’s surface.

When damaged car parts get taken out in the auto body shop, the repairer might also have to remove the doors and the car’s bonnet. Then, the repairer starts hammering out the car’s dents in a gentle and organized manner so that instead of extra dents getting created, the existing ones get flattened out.

Dents on the bonnet can also often be seen during an automotive collision repair act. The entire bonnet gets removed and hammered to remove the dents.

However, the chassis is the most challenging part of the car to repair. Since the chassis is a big part of the car, it takes time to dismantle and remove it, then hammer and fix the edges.

This is a time-consuming and challenging process since the repairs must be more cautious with the chassis because it is an important and finer aspect of the car than other exterior parts.

7. Attach Replacement Parts

When the car damage report is finalized, it is shown to the car owner to get their green signal to start repairs. During that step, the car parts that need to be replaced and new parts that are required to be added get added to the bill of the car owner.

After initial repairs are all done, the replacement parts are brought in. Then, the repairer starts installing these new parts on the car. These parts are mostly some car engines and other external parts like rearview mirrors, bonnets, and even car doors.

These new parts get attached to the car, followed by aligning them all to mantle the car back again. Again, some extra modifications that the customer can request also get added to the car, like installing new front lights and side indicators (two other parts commonly damaged during a car collision).

Read More: Buying a Classic Car? Be Prepared to Overhaul the Car’s Carburetor

8. Install New Windows And Windshields

When the solid and structural parts get repaired or replaced during automobile body repairing, it is time for the windows and windshields to receive the same treatment. Depending on the extent of the damages, the windows and windshield need to be replaced.

Here, car mirror replacements and headlight replacements are more common because it is challenging to fix cracked and shattered laminated glass. In addition, glass windows and windshields can crack easily during an automotive collision.

9. Install New Airbags

ed, the car gets checked inside out twice to ensure that all parts of the vehicle are in shape. The driver also checks whether all the car parts are working fine or not by driving the car around for some time.

Smaller problems like the addition of car water and oils in gears and brake systems are done to fine-tune the car’s performance.

10. Apply A Fresh Coat Of Paint

The final repair and refinishing process are to clean out all the parts and apply a fresh coat of paint over the damaged vehicle. Here, the customer can add modifications if they want, like changing the car’s color entirely and adding new layers to it.

This can range from spotty designs, patterns, logos, text, and any design stemming out from the creative side of their brain. The auto body and paint shop will then confirm whether they can provide the changes or not.

After the paint has been applied Automotive collision repair becomes necessary when there is a crashed car in your garage. The reason for its requirements can be because of many factors and causes. Be it fixing an old car to fixing a new car that was involved in an accident.

Therefore, read this guide to know what goes on during a car repair process to fix your damages as quickly as possible. In addition, you would get to know in detail about the several steps that get carried out to ensure that your car looks brand new even if it was mangled beyond recognition before.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

Conclusion

Carrying out automotive collision repair on a damaged car is not easy. It can take quite a few days to even weeks to refinish the car and make it look brand new. This is evident because cars have several parts to them, out of which some can get damaged during a collision.

Therefore, changes like replacing the windshield and headlights, hammering out the dents in the bonnet and the car doors, replacing the airbags, and a lot more repairs and changes are required to get the car running in no time.

Read Also:

• How To Select A Professional Car Mechanic?
• Need To Know How to Become An Auto Electrician
• Keep You Prized Car in Peak Condition Always – Get the Best Audi Service Options Now