Toronto, Ontario — General Motors is working on adjusting its requirement for an “extremely labor-intensive” and invasive set of inspections following crashes, says General Motors U.S. collision manager, John Eck.
However, General Motors makes it clear that, until the OEM releases new guidance nothing is changed. For now shops should continue to follow the “Repairs and Inspections Required After a Collision”.
General Motors document No. 2322743 lists 10 component sets which must be inspected after a collision, collision being defined as “Accident With or Without AirBag Deployment”.
GM has been overviewing its inspection process since January. After GM issued a benchmark survey through the OEM Collision Repair Roundtable it was found that only GM and Subaru called for inspection after “any collision”.
According to the GM slide, five OEMs had inspection requirements for situations in which no airbag had blown. GM has discussed the issue with their engineers but support from the wholesale dealer channel also would be necessary to make any changes.
A GM slide draft proposal classified the mildest of the three tiers of intact-airbag crashes as Level 1. This would allow repairs to conduct visual inspections and part inspection with or without part removal and affirm diagnostics.
Level 2 situations would be structural damage, allowing for visual studies. It would require the shop to affirm diagnostics and conduct visual inspection.
Level 3 would involve further intervention from GM, additional requirements for this level are under review.
