By Mike Pickford
Toronto, Ontario — August 4, 2016 — For decades vehicle scanning has just been a part of the job for shops on the mechanical side of the industry, but in recent years the need for the collision repair business to buy into the technology has been increasing at a rapid rate.
That according to Toyota Canada’s national collision repairs manager Paul Stella who, alongside representatives from two North American aftermarket organizations, was on hand to present at a recent automotive scanning clinic, hosted by Prochilo Collision Group.
The session, held August 3 at one of Prochilo’s facilities in Toronto, was designed to gather aftermarket and OEM representatives together to perform various troubleshooting demonstrations on vehicles using different forms of scanning technology. Joining Stella in presenting was Doug Manson of Launch Canada and Collision Diagnostic Services’ Jake Rodenroth, who showed off the Florida-based company’s asTech device.
The demonstrations were observed by a group of analysts, who will present their findings on the data gathered at CCIF Vancouver in September.
Speaking to Collision Repair magazine today (August 4), Stella noted that he felt it was time for the industry as a whole to finally embrace scanning technology.
“The use of scanning technology is relatively new to the collision repair industry, but it’s something I think we need to look to press forward with,” Stella said. “I can only speak for Toyota dealers here, but they’ve been using scanning tools for years and years to help diagnose problems with vehicles, but because of the advanced electronic systems in cars these days, I want to see collision centres starting to use them too.”
Stella said he’d like to see a two-step scanning system implemented in-shop. First off, as soon as a vehicle is admitted for repair, it would receive an initial “health check” scan test from a technician. From there the repairs would be carried out before a second diagnostics test is conducted. The purpose of the second test, according to Stella, would be to ensure nothing went wrong during the repair.
“Essentially, we’re drawing a line in the sand. We’re saying ‘ok, from a visual standpoint, here is what we know is wrong with the vehicle.’ What I’d like to see is for us to take that one step further and really find out what’s going on,” Stella added.
With roughly 60 stakeholders in attendance alongside the OEM and aftermarket speakers, Director of marketing and sales with Prochilo Collision Group Domenic Ieroci said he was pleased with how the session unfolded.
“I think, for the most part, everybody was really, really amazed. There was excellent dialogue going on throughout the session and we’ve had some incredible feedback already,” Ieroci said. “This was a great opportunity for everyone to come together, create awareness and gather information for our industry.”
Having listened to what Stella, Rodenroth and Manson had to say about phasing in diagnostic devices as an everyday tool at collision repair facilities, Ieroci agreed that the need for a greater technological presence in the shop had become too much to simply continue ignoring.
“One thing I think we all need to appreciate is that we’re no longer where we were five or ten years ago. Back then you could just look at a car, see the physical damage and pretty much know what you need to fix, but we’ve moved far, far beyond that,” Ieroci said. “We’ve moved into this whole new era where looking at it from a physical standpoint just isn’t enough anymore. We need to look at things from a technological, software-oriented, more internal standpoint so as to really diagnose exactly what is wrong.”
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