Body Construction And Material Repair Guidelines: General Motors

Posted on 19 July 2017 Print

What is the MPa of the front lower rail? What is the outer uniside made of: steel, aluminum, or composite? Can heat be used to straighten or is it cold straightening only? What are the repair limitations? These are just some of the questions that the RTS team fields on a daily basis.

As we know, today’s vehicles can be constructed from a wide variety of materials. Knowing if the OEM provides information on body construction materials and repair guidelines is a crucial step in providing a complete, safe, and quality repair. Let’s see what General Motors (GM) has to say.

GM provides a construction material breakdown on various vehicle components. The information is located in vehicle-specific body repair manuals under: Body Repair ➤ Visual Identification ➤ Structure Identification. This area will typically have a numbered vehicle illustration with a corresponding table. The table shows if there is a procedure available and what the construction material is. A detailed description of the various steels, including the MPa range, used by GM is located in the body repair manual under: Body Repair ➤ Collision Repair ➤ Description and Operation.

Additional repair guidelines are also available on the Recommended GM Steel Repairability Matrix

For additional GM information, check out the following pages:
Chevrolet OEM Information
GMC OEM Information
Buick OEM Information
Cadillac OEM Information

Additional I-CAR Collision Repair News you may find helpful:

Related I-CAR Courses

Course General Motors (GM) Company Collision Repair Overview

Course Vehicle Construction Material Types

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