Toronto, Ontario — Repeat customers are typically a marker of success for a collision repair facility, but unfortunately a recent report from the IIHS has found that far too many customers are returning to body shops to have work redone on commonly overlooked safety components.
This latest report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), entitled “Consumer experiences with crash avoidance feature repairs”, sheds light on the increased prevalence of post-repair issues on components like front crash prevention tech, blind spot detection and cameras, being experienced by drivers today.
Of those who responded to the institute’s survey, more than half of those who sought repairs for one of those three components experienced post-repair issues that required a follow-up visit, with blind spot detection being the most frequent offender, requiring a second repair for 62 percent of respondents.
“Most of the more than 3,000 owners we contacted said they had never needed to have their crash avoidance features repaired, but for the minority of owners who did, the problems weren’t always resolved easily,” said IIHS senior research scientist and author of the report, Alexandra Mueller.
Perhaps most interesting to repairers is the finding that despite the majority of drivers reporting that calibrations were performed on their vehicle as part of the repair, those who did not receive calibrations reported fewer post-repair issues with their safety systems.
The report suggests this may stem from a common complaint among repairers that access to OEM repair and calibration information is updated extremely frequently, and the cost to access it is often prohibitive for smaller independent repair businesses, therefore forcing some facilities to use outdated scanning equipment.
As well, it was found that a majority of these frequently faulty calibrations are performed on vehicles in for crash damage or windshield repair, as opposed to those brought in on the advisement of a recall order or personal recommendation, meaning that many vehicles damaged in collisions are not being adequately restored to pre-accident safety levels.
Despite these concerns among both consumers and collision professionals, the report found that drivers are still content with the cost and prevalence of these safety components.
“Many had issues with the technology afterward, and some said they had to have the same feature repaired more than once,” said Mueller.
“Still, the vast majority said they would buy a vehicle equipped with the technology again and most were satisfied with the out-of-pocket cost.”
This notion is bolstered by the fact that about 40 percent of the vehicles owned by respondents are from model year 2019 or newer, leading the institute to predict that “repair rates will likely increase as more vehicles on the road have these technologies.”
