If You Do What You've Always Done ...

Posted on 23 December 2014 Print

Ever hear the quote: "if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten"? When it comes to collision repairs, it's far from accurate.

Consider this situation, a 2014 car X had something hit it in the front right of the roof and push down the roof rail about an inch. This seems to be a small amount of damage but let's look a little deeper.

First, what material is the roof rail reinforcement made of? For this example, let's say it's 1,200 MPa. So it can't be heated or straightened. Next, is there a sectioning procedure? After researching the vehicle maker repair information there is no sectioning procedure available. At this point the correct way to fix this vehicle would to be replace the damaged roof rail reinforcement at a factory seam. This may seem like a rather intrusive repair but you need to look past what you would have done in the past.

If you decided to section this part, are you confident that your repair would withstand a rollover the same way it was originally designed? Was the part meant to transfer energy or start to absorb it? Did you strengthen or weaken the part, if so, how will that affect collision energy management? These types of questions need to be asked every time when considering how to repair a vehicle. If in the end the decision is made to fix the vehicle without a vehicle maker repair procedure, then the full burden falls to those who decided to repair the vehicle without any documentation.