15 Jan 2016

Dirt Nibs

by | posted in: Selling Autos | 0

2-collision-repair-advertisementI work in an auto body repair shop in Salt Lake City. There are two auto painters who work under me whom I supervise. One is named David and the other is named Bobby. Yesterday the two of them were working on a Crown Victoria that required a repaired metal frame to be repainted. I thought everything was going fine between them but around 3:00 PM in the afternoon (I remember because the Rush Limbaugh program had just ended) I heard them arguing about something. It sounded pretty heated.

First I heard David yell, “Damn it Bobby, we sanded the dirt nibs from a metallic base coat before applying the clear coat!”

“Yeah,” replied Bobby. “So what?”

“So the clear coat can now be applied directly over the sanded basecoat,” said David.

“You got that all wrong,” said Bobby.

“How so?” asked David.

“We have to apply another basecoat,” said Bobby. “It will help prevent the sand scratches from showing up.”

I heard all this from the other room. Of course I agreed with Bobby on this one. Those sand scratches would show up clear as day without the second basecoat. But I wanted to see if they could work it out on there own. That way I did not have to intervene.

Luckily the next thing I heard was David say, “Okay we’ll do it your way.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I do not like to intervene if I have to. It just causes unneeded friction that I do not want to deal with. This is one of the many things I have learned not to do while working in this collision repair shop in Salt Lake City all these years. It is not merely about fixing cars in this shop. It is also about keeping relationships from needing fixing.

 

5 Jan 2016

Tales From a Collision Repair Shop in Salt Lake City

by | posted in: Selling Auto Services | 0

2-collision-repair-advertisementI work in an auto body repair shop in Salt Lake City. Two days ago I had to settle a dispute between two of the technicians (named Frankie and Johnny respectively) who work for me. On that day they were repairing a 1998 Lincoln Town Car with a heavily dented steel fender. Frankie had already roughed out the fender and prepared it for the plastic filler. Frankie wanted to apply the metal conditioner to the base metal areas arguing that this would improve the filler adhesion. But Johnny argued that all the paint should first be removed from the damaged area to improve filler adhesion.  

 

Of course I knew that Johnny had the right idea but I did not want to come out and say that because I knew that Frankie would get upset. Frankie and Johnny are both great technicians but there is a bit of ego between them. For this reason I do not often have them working on the same project together. It only leads to problems. On that day I was a little short handed and I needed to get that Lincoln Town Car out of auto body shop to make room for another car. So I made the executive decision to have them work together on the Town Car.

 

Luckily, Frankie got a call from his old lady. I think they are having marital issues and I do not want to get involved with that. Frankie got off the phone visibly upset so I told him to take the rest of the day off. He seemed to brighten up a little after hearing that. Once he left I told Johnny to remove the paint from the damaged areas of the town car before applying the plastic filler. Problem solved. These are the types of issues I have to deal with working in my collision repair shop in Salt Lake City.