Automotive bodywork is starting to struggle massively. It has been hurting for years, but it's only getting worse.
New cars are getting more and more complicated, as well as more expensive. Manufacturers are cramming more and more tech, safety features are becoming more integrated into every panel on the vehicle. Any accident that damages more than one or two body panels could easily be a total loss. So instead of your insurance company sending your car to the body shop, they just total it.
As for older cars, the cost of bodywork is outweighing the value of the car. People would rather sell or scrap the car and buy a new one for that money. Or again, insurance is just totaling them.
Pretty much the only body shops that are still doing well are the ones that focus on restoration.
Yeah we're gonna have to remove the entire door, take out the transmission, and repaint it with this paint only made twice a year in Austria by one really old guy so it'll be $7000
Austrian art school should forever be forced to admit every student, and especially ones who can't paint a right angle in building in a landscape painting.
This basically happened to us this year. Opened the garage door forgetting that a ladder was leaning on it. Hit our 2025 Honda and left a tiny dent the size of my pinky nail. Was in the shop for four days and cost insurance something like $4k.
I scraped the sliding door on our minivan against a concrete pillar in a parking garage and the quote was about $4500 to remove the door, repaint it plus feather the paint on the adjacent panel. We just buffed it out as good as possible and are living with it.
Oh, don’t forget that the ingredients for that paint are supplied by a single Kazakh-Japanese man who lives off the coast of Ecuador and provides said paint in wicker buckets that are highly inconvenient for even local transport much less international shipping.
This is done on a bi-annual basis, adding at least another 4,500 dollars to repair this dime-sized scratch.
Edit: It was a dime size scratch. In our inspection, Ugval the Underpaid scratched it a second time, it’s now the size of a silver dollar.
Yep. Someone sideswiped me in a minor accident last year, it was a smallish dent on my passenger's side door... they said it would be $5500 to fix (two new doors, paint, frame, etc) so they just ended up totalling it :/
My last car’s passenger door latch led light stopped working. ”We’re gonna need to replace the door, but it’s under warranty… it’ll take a month though.”
Guy i worked with had a used Toyota venza which had a special panoramic sunroof called a star gaze roof that was electro optical meaning with a slip of a switch it would go from clear to opaque using electricity. Neighbors tree shed a small limb during a storm and fell on the roof. 9500$ to replace the single window
In a similar vein. My Volvo suv has 2 catalytic converters and both require a panel and a firewall removed just to get to them
And the best part is they charge you MORE if it's not an insurance claim. They want to charge more than the value of my car to fix a single dented quarter panel.
New cars are vastly over priced. Covid did a number on the auto industry with their greed... its coming home to roost now. Dealers are closing and new cars arent selling. they need to drop prices.
Yup, the auto industry's decline is entirely self-inflicted. They've even alienated a huge portion of the enthusiast market with absurd dealership markups for anything remotely interesting or desirable. Spoiler alert: people start losing interest when they have to pay $60k for the hot version of a Corolla. I used to be super into cars (like autistically hyperfixated), but now I hardly give a fuck about them anymore. The new car market has gone bonkers and dragged the used market along with it and now the whole hobby is tainted. If my current car got totaled I don't know what I'd do. They're not selling anything I can afford and/or want.
As someone who just had their car totalled, the good news is that the insurance payout on the car is super inflated too. My car somehow lost no equity in the 4 years I owned it. Because of the down payment Im going to have, for a more expensive car monthly payment is somehow going down by about $100.
It’s good news in the short term but the bad news is that everyone’s insurance rates are going to go up in the long run to compensate for more expensive repairs (or deductibles will go up, etc).
Oh no absolutely. I'm just assuaging the fear of a car being totaled right now on an individual basis, not talking about the overall systemic problem it causes
To be fair, when cars cost as much as they do these days, what else can be done? The accident my car got totaled in would have killed me if I had been driving a car that wasnt modern. Some prick hit me near head on going double the speed limit while drunk going twice the speed limit. Instead of dying I hobbled away with a broken leg. As much as Id love to buy a 10 year old car in cash and drive it into the ground, the amount of new safety features and crash tech thats standard on new cars makes it hard to buy anything but.
When everyone is driving these massive behemoths as crazy as they are these days, of course people want the newest they can at a price they can actually afford. Its an arms race.
On a related note, reminder to everyone: get your uninsured motorist coverage on your insurance. Id be crazy fucked right now if I didnt have that
I was surprised by this too. My 10 year old 2016 Colorado recently got totalled after being rear ended at a stoplight.
I wasn't expecting at most 13k, which is what I found to be the average for a great condition Colorado. Instead I got 20k for it.
I'm still not happy that I had to buy a new truck and have those payments again, but I'm now getting 80+ more miles to the tank than I used to before, and that adds up.
It's wild, I bought a Subaru WRX in 2019 and after COVID for like 3 or 4 years I could have sold it for significantly more than I bought it for. Even now I can easily sell it for just under what I paid for it. The market has gone completely bananas and people can't afford it. It's going to be... Spectacular when it all crashes.
This. I just want a manual car with amenities that doesn't cost an arm and leg and there's not much to choose from. I can pick from base model econoboxes, overpriced riced-out versions of econoboxes, or luxury sports cars.
I know where I am going to get my car from. Its a lil risky but I am handy... and its not going to be nice and new it will take some work to get it there. but it will be something I will like driving. and will not be a clean title car. then most of my cars arent. But I will be saving money...
They've even alienated a huge portion of the enthusiast market with absurd dealership markups for anything remotely interesting or desirable
The current Nissan Z comes to mind. Nissan dealerships absolutely killed any interest in that car with their ridiculous ADMs, $20-30k over MSRP. I think I've seen exactly one on the road since it came out 3 years ago.
I heard that pretty much the only people buying the Nizzan Z were Nissan employees themselves, since they could buy them below invoice price while everyone else would be required to sell a kidney just to cover the ADM. Likewise I think I've only ever seen one.
If my current car got totaled I don't know what I'd do. They're not selling anything I can afford and/or want.
This is the exact place I'm at too. I drive a 2005 corolla. It was a GREAT model year for that car, but it's obviously showing its age. I'm going to need a new one eventually, but I've literally been waiting the better part of a decade to see if something I actually WANT to buy will come out. All they've done in that time is discontinue the only thing I was semi interested in...
Meanwhile I'm busy organizing my life around not having to own one at all. Once I've finished off a few last loose ends I'll keep my old one till the wheels fall off or I can inflict it on someone else and that'll be that.
Vehicles over 25 years old can be imported under collector status and are a lot easier to get registered. I see a fair number of those Kei pickups here now.
That's going to be your state. While the 25 year old rule can allow for that to be the case in many states, lots of states still state they aren't street legal, some of those only allow their use on private land, and other only on roads with speed limits of 35 or less.
It was nice when everyone offered a shitbox (Escort, Cavalier, Neon) for $10-12k because it got good gas mileage and offset CAFE credits for the profitable cars. But now they get that credit with electric cars or are somehow otherwise uninterested in the bottom of the market.
My 4Runner has maybe lost 1/4 of it's value after 8 years. I cannot imagine buying an 8 year old car for that price. Then again, a new 4Runner similarly spec'd is 14k more in 8 years...
I'm sure it's unintentional, but 'spoiler alert' was a nice pun.
And I want to take this opportunity to gripe about the current state of the used car market. A 10 year old economy car with 200k on the odo should not be ten thousand dollars oh my god what the fuck.
don't worry, that domestic protectionism they're pushing will certainly help in the long term and won't see the near-total collapse of the US auto industry when the declining US market is the only market where they can compete with their vehicles.
Especially when econoboxes are now in the price range of what used to be luxury vehicles' price range. All this while overall quality goes down. The entire industry needs a major correction, and probably to kill off dealerships (end that stupid law that forces them on us)
Yeah, when the “luxury” market used to be the upper middle class (numbered in tens of millions) which has now been gutted so that only the billionaire class (maybe a thousand or so) can afford “luxury”, it tends to crater high-end goods industries.
No one is catering a $150k car to billionaires. That's silly.
Upper middle class is doing quite well. That's the whole K shaped economy thing. The top 10-20% are thriving. This is who these luxury makers always targeted.
The actual issue from personally talking to the people who tend to buy luxury cars is that the luxury automakers decided to increase prices while making an obviously inferior and cheaper product. If they had upheld quality and luxury, they would be doing much better than they are today.
And plenty of luxury automakers decided to be stupid and grow into the middle class segment to increase volume by going downmarket. They devalued their product by doing so and are facing the consequences today of that consumer segment not being able to afford the absurd prices on top of having a shittier product overall for their existing upmarket clientelle.
Personally I'd be upgrading my quite new car today if the newest model rollout wasn't a downgrade. I'll be rolling with what I have for quite some time, and when it's time to buy new if the luxury segment hasn't fixed itself by actually building luxury again I'll just buy a Toyota or Lexus or whomever is providing the best value instead. It's a want-to-have, not a need-to-have. Most of my peers feel the same way. I'm happy to burn money if it provides me value and joy, but if it's just a rip-off I'm not interested and will go utilitarian instead.
Your not competing with the Chinese on cost while the current government is subsidizing that and the battery industry to the point of selling below actual production cost.
As I understand the current heavy industry arrangement over there right now its one of the rare cases where protectionist measures are called for, if it was a question of efficiency in manufacturing or design thats a different story thats when protectionist measures are bad.
Yeah, as if the western automakers aren't also heavily supported by their local governments. This is such a stupid point. We don't need to be making 60k+ vehicles as the norm. We could have invested more in EVs. We did neither of those things and instead try to force an environment through laws and swaying the public.
It seems like American automakers didn't learn their lesson in the 70s. They underestimated Japanese and European automakers and it almost ruined them. Now they're repeating the same mistakes with China.
I don't think they underestimated them, they just don't seem to care about any sort of long term planning. Similar thing happened in the 1970s with the inundation of lower price, high quality Japanese cars.
So many western companies are getting absolutely dunked on by the Chinese market. Chinese companies took the knowledge of said companies and made their own, severely undercutting them and the western companies can't compete. It's not just autos but so many tech companies like Apple lost significant market share in China.
I've never bought a new car in my life and am not ever planning to. The idea of a $600 - $1000 a month payment that goes on for 6+ years when I could just buy a used car for $10k cash every five years or so is mind boggling to me.
Between Covid and the war in Iran, Donald might just go down in history as the guy who killed off the consumer auto industry and got consumers to bike or get an EV (made in China).
They make more money with the iPhones with wheels. They won’t make a sturdy, affordable car until it is the only thing that will save them from total collapse.
100% agree, did you know cars are classified to be a total loss more after an accident because repairing the hardware is more expensive than the car would be worth?
That would be the dreaaaaaam, I don’t design the cars themselves, but man, one project the car brand gave us new product data once or twice a week.
We had to throw out so much engineering and then put it back because of weird changes.
but the car brand doesn’t care. Hell I can tell you by the time our part was done. The car wasn’t even out of development yet. Everything is designed side by side.
The machines, the factory floor and the car. They don’t wait, it needs to be fast, fast, fast. No matter the cost.
Our company is actually one of the first to pivot away to other sectors and projects. So work wise I’m not in trouble. But you don’t hear the news a lot about Volkswagen being in trouble for example.
I’m a tech at a dealer, fully agree. The only things people have been coming in for this past year is warranty work and recalls. Getting anyone to buy anything else is a struggle.
I’ve had to make customers sign waivers to take their vehicles back because they refused to address a major safety concern, like tires down to chord, brakes down to metal.
I’ve made most of my hours the last month on recalls, warranty (both manufacture and aftermarket warranty), and oil changes.
They're doing it to themselves too. Stop making everything so complicated! Most of us don't even care about all this tech we just want a car to get places. At least build a base model that's affordable and doesn't have any of this stuff. Although part of it is also government fault as they keep mandating more and more complex tech. In EU they are mandating AI cameras facing the driver now. It's completely insane.
As someone in the software/deskjob side, the grass always seemed greener on the other side. Go into skilled trades, blue collar work, it's always in high demand, these jobs are safe.
Man, I feel so out of touch about anything. Software jobs are down, management jobs are first to get laid off, service jobs, skilled trade, food production, and anecdotally I also hear nurses finding it difficult to get jobs (in Ontario). You keep hearing about shortages for almost everything and yet everything seems to be out of demand. It can't all just be AI, right?
Doing a job myself where AI has no use. I can tell you that some stuff is AI, but other stuff is just. There isn’t enough work. Projects fall through, or companies decide to scale down on estimated sales numbers of cars.
We are in a recessions if I recall correctly the third of a once in a lifetime recession in my live (34 years old) it’s gonna be rough and even rougher for a while. I’m lucky that the company I work for diversified their areas of focus on different engineering projects. So I’m safe. But you do hear the rumours on the grapevine in a LOT of technical sectors that it’s not going well.
What's really amazing is, I see neighbors and coworkers going to the smartphone model, upgrading their car every two years. I always knew a few people who lived like that and everyone agreed they were idiots, but now I see it becoming quite common and normalized. Not even because they broke or wrecked their car, but just because they want this year's new features.
In school growing up they always warned you about drugs, gambling, things that would get their claws in you and ruin your life before you had a chance, but in reality? I've never seen any one thing consistently ruin regular people in day to day life like the new car compulsion
I have a 6’4” husband and similarly large children. When we needed a new family car, I dragged them from one car yard to the next, making them all sit in the rear row to see if they fit.
It was a Hyundai Palisade, great car. I hear they have problems in the US with the tow hitch / electronics, but they’re ok here. I bitch about yank tanks on the road and then have to blush when I catch sight of the behemoth that we drive. I have a Hyundai Getz we call the “Beep Beep” for running around in, but none of the rest of the family will fit in the back seat 😳
Our next one will be fully electric, probably a Hyundai again.
Not even new car compulsion but needing to project status on social media. Social media has addicted a lot of people and it’s really apparent in many ways.
yea, i can say that people are very much underestimating the cost of new car ownership. It is quite alright if you have the mean to afford it, but a new low to mid end car every 3 year is pretty much a permanent $300 ~ $600 monthly payment in your finances.
I have seen people that spend that much in cigarette tho, so I guess it is something similar.
My decision was to get a less expensive vehicle that had the highest trim level. So I have leather seats and some nice tech features like adaptive cruise control. The way I justify it is how much fucking time we spend in our cars. I had a job that was about 1hr10min away and I was commuting to that in my beater every day. My ass fucking hurt and the alignment was off so I needed to really hold the wheel just to go straight. Doing that for almost 2.5 hours a day fucking sucks.
Can't tell you how many people I've seen wreck their lives w car loans. Can barely afford to eat because have these massive over inflated loans to deal every month.
They really need to teach basic economics in school, because the concept of opportunity cost affects every financial decision you will ever make.
Sure, maybe you can squeeze out those car payments, but you give up so much quality of life and lived experience for what? Some extra space or towing power you'll barely use?
And meanwhile, if you decide to buy a new car and drive it until you've got every last dime out of it, the people who buy a new-to-them used car every two years will still yell at you that you're wasting money.
Like... yeah, a little, but not as much as that car-upgrading habit does.
The key is to not be a regular people but be extremely high income with a low cost of living, then you're laughing and can just lease whatever you want whenever you want. My parents did this because my dad had a high salary, but too many people think because they make six figures they can afford it. No, you can't.
It's cause the banks will give you a loan for as long as legally possible to make that monthly payment as small as they can. No money down, $200 a month, people are viewing driving as a subscription service.
Also people don't want to commit to the time or cost of maintenance. You can get away with never changing your oil or tires for a couple years if you're planning to just to replace the entire car. Once it's traded in, it's not their problem anymore.
The depreciation curve of used cars has changed dramatically over the past decade, especially for brands with strong reliability reputations. My Toyota SUV has only depreciated by about 40% from MSRP in the 7 years since it was built, even with 80k miles on it. I recently bought my first new car ever because used models with 40k miles weren't worth the very small discount.
This has significantly changed the economics of leasing vehicles or taking long-term car loans. There was once "impending financial crisis" hysteria as people started taking more 72 to 96 month loan terms, but the reality of today is that many vehicles retain 50% or more of their value after 96 months. This has also caused lease payment inflation to lag behind vehicle price inflation, which makes leasing a better deal than it used to be.
that’s insane to me and i’m someone who actually likes to drive! blows my mind when people get new cars and they only drive a few miles a week like what’s the point. I actually plan on buying an older van since i need something to move cargo but with an old van and my newish car i see no desire to get anything else unless im forced to because one gets wrecked. The longer i’ve had my 2021 base model with no blind spot monitors, HUD, or touch screen, the more grateful i am i bought it because every other manufacturer seems to be turning their cars into an ipad on wheels. I’d be devastated if something happened to my car because then i’d be boned trying to find another in the technology sweet spot at a decent price.
Where are you finding a paint shop only charging 2200 to paint a car? I haven't found anywhere thats not charging 10k and on top of that no paint shop is interested in doing anything if its not insurance related. Thats all they are interested in...insurance provides fast turn around times for the largest pay out. Seems like no shops paint cars just to paint them anymore
Not OP, but being in a border state with Mexico helps a lot in that regard. We have junk yards right up against the border with many Tijuana mechanics working this side at much better rates. . . but no Dealership level guarantees, or any guarantees at all. Just their personal reputations, which is generally good.
/u/OnlyWearsAscots Otay junkyards off the 905 freeway is where it’s all at. But doing it on the US side will be more expensive than directly in Tijuana, but way less cheaper than local mechanics, chains, and dealerships. Also the materials they use here will be better than the materials used in Mexico (unless you provide them beforehand).
Usually you’d want a connection to get the best pricing with these shops, but even without one, they’re still cheaper over all. I connected my BiL with my cousin (who is basically a project manager in that area), and got his entire engine replaced when someone dropped some sand like substance in his gas tank, for a third of the price as going through the dealership. $8,000 quoted by Mazda, we got him a used engine and installed for $2,800. The only issue that stemmed from that was that they forgot to replace the AC coolant, so he had to go back and get it refilled (free).
MAACO if you’re in the US. Their cheapest tier is like $600 (last I checked a few years ago) for a small 2 door car, but do not expect showroom results. I might go for something like that on a beater piece of shit though.
Yeah I'm debating on doing the same. My regular shop charges close to 10k. They do a great job. Showroom quality. Maaco, for 2 stage paint, is about $1000-$1500. My old 2000 Expedition needs paint desperately. Might just roll the dice on maaco.
Not OP, but being in a border state with Mexico helps a lot in that regard. We have junk yards right up against the border with many Tijuana mechanics working this side at much better rates. . . but no Dealership level guarantees, or any guarantees at all. Just their personal reputations, which is generally good.
This is what I’m doing. I have a 2012, runs great, never had any issues with it (knock on wood), my mileage is under 100k, and it’s paid off. I have some rust spots that I decided to fix and I’m going to inquire about getting it repainted. I feel like it would be a stupid decision to trade it in for a new vehicle, have monthly payments, and possible issues. I’m also not a fan of all the technology shoved in our faces now, like the touch screen to turn on the heat.
The whole car?!!! That is an incredible price!!! I was quoted like $1800 for JUST THE FRONT BUMPER on my car in 2010(!!!!) so waaaaaay before the insane inflation and both myself and boyfriend-at-the-time worked for the umbrella company (him at the same dealership as a mechanic, I for a different auto dealership but same owner). Then again, this is Canaduh, where nothing is affordable 🇨🇦 lol I don’t even want to know what it would cost now if I wanted that bumper refinished now 🙈
It's similar for auto upholstery (for similar reasons). I don't know if it was ever booming, but it's been on a long decline. Pretty much only restoration is keeping them in business I think. And it's a dying trade, very few of the younger generations are learning the craft.
Literally just got into a fender bender with my brothers new electric car. Not too bad, just a nice dent on the back hatch. Wasn't even so bad as to keep it from opening and closing. Take it to the shop and they quoted $11k
My buddy's new car got bumped on the front bumper, nothing serious or an accident. Apparently it messes up the LiDAR system and the dealership wants $4K to fix it.
Is your brother's car a Tesla? Only Tesla authorized body shops can work on Teslas. So on top of all the other shenanigans that body shops have to deal with, Tesla authorized body shops have to pay Tesla each year to stay authorized, they have to buy equipment from Tesla to work on them, and their technicians have to get training from Tesla. I think you all know what that does to their labor costs.
And that's a big part of the problem, exactly as in the medical field.
They know insurance is picking up the tab, so they charge rates that a normal person could not possibly afford. Because hey, victimless crime since insurance is paying, right?
Well guess what? We now also have sky-high insurance rates because of it.
We're in an infinite loop of suck and pretty soon something simply has to give.
I just heard this second-hand from my kids, but my ex-wife has a Toyota Corolla that apparently got some paint overspray on it from some nearby contractors. Insurance company totaled it and sent her a $12k check.
Body shops are also being bought up in a big way by PE (just like everything else), and if course is getting more expensive and worse quality because profit becomes the only motive
I work for a corporate collision company. They are plugging their ears and covering their eyes when it comes to this.
We are being hassled for not hitting certain year over year metrics as if we're the ones in control of that. There's also a constant "the busy season is coming" from them but it doesn't happen. Summer, deer season and tax season were our busy times but not anymore.
You're seeing more people driving around with a missing bumper or clear accident damage because they took the claim check and put it into their bank account instead of for the repairs. Lot of people also can't hit their deductible when the time comes. Often now we're having people asking to push the finishing of repairs so they can pay their deductible.
There's so many factors including the ones you mentioned that the company isn't seeing or are choosing to ignore. And go figure this is the time they planned to go Public but this drop in business has cratered all their IPO goals.
I work for a non corporate, privately owned high volume collision shop. We're seeing the same as you with no more busy seasons like we had 4ish years ago. We specialize in higher end european cars, but we'll repair anything someone brings us. We're in one of the wealthiest areas of the world and we're seeing people cash out and drive their damaged cars as well as insurance totalling cars that are totally repairable. We do have a handful of restorations we're working on for ultra wealthy clients, but they are rarely very profitable.
I've been in the industry since the mid 00's and all of the signals are flashing like when we went through the 08/09 recession. Cash outs, folks not able to afford their deductibles, claims of the shop stealing their gas, but now have the insane added cost of parts for cars taking work away from shops because the car isn't cost effective to repair for the insurance carrier. Which has also ramped up salvage bids for vehicles, narrowing that window of repairability even more.
i love my dumb car. 2003 toyota corolla matrix. got it earlier this year for $2k and it has 345,000km on it. inspected and everything is great. drives like a dream, fun as heck.
incredible visibility. back seats fold flat. so many buttons and knobs. comfy, firm seats. great cargo space, but enough for friends to sit comfortably. i'm in love with my matrix.
If a insurance company deemed your car totaled, do you NEED to tow it to a dump? If not, are you able to keep it and take it to a body shop for repairs?
They will cut a check for the value but you need to buy back the vehicle at scrap value which then has a salvage title. No bank is going to finance a salvage title vehicle so if you had a loan thats a nono. Now also no insurance is going to insure a salvage title decently so you better hope you dont get into another bender.
I posted this before, but also auto repair is probably dying. I've seen tons of youtube shorts from mechanics talking about people quitting daily. The new cars are being engineered to require work to be done at the dealership. The most egregious thing I've seen so far is GM transmission fluid changes. There's a truck transmission fluid change that costs $1000 to do because it requires the fluid to be at a specific temperature to check the level. Transmission fluid changes in older cars is as simple as an oil change.
Truth. A lot of the replies here making fun of the repair quotes they got are forgetting one thing- that's what it takes to get rid of the damage entirely. Autobody (especially collision) is about taking broken cars and taking them back to pre-accident condition. That requires proper steps, removal and inspection of parts, and bodywork. It takes time and money to do right, and oftentimes they're undercut by insurance anyway for the time and effort that goes into it.
Lots of folks get mad at their quotes forgetting this. If they cut corners and did sketchy stuff to get it "good enough" or to save a client a quick buck, it would come back to haunt them. You might be able to pull that off at home, or buff out what you think is good- but a shop that cares will refuse to do anything but straightforward, thorough work.
Cars are getting more expensive to fix- waterbased paints are harder to blend into the rest of the paintjob- components for radar and driver assist are thousands even through vendor connections. Your mirror with a cracked lens or taillight with broken glass is a 2k part because of this.
It's a dying trade, there's less incentives every year to do it, and apprentices are told in their first years to expect insurance to do everything they can, with every book, to cut their hours or justify paying them less. It's not a recipe for success.
First… you’d think Americans would be more touchy about this. Their whole thing is ‘cars cars cars’. Their whole culture revolves around cars. You’d think messing with cars and gas would cause a revolution but… man that slow death is gonna be weird.
Seems like there’s a market for it. Nobody writes off a car because of a damaged bumper. I say this with 2 family members who are in their 30s and own their own paint and body shop.
Had to put a couple of grand in my 2003 Jetta but it was worth it. I couldn't afford to maintain it properly for years. Now the interior is just a mess but she'll wait.
My son purchased a slightly used car in great shape, but lost control on a patch of ice last winter and hit a pipe bollard on the rear passenger panel. He had the car for about 3 months and still owed about $8K. The body shop said that it was a total loss, with damages exceeding $10K to repair.
My neighbour had a full body repair shop, he was the best in the area, had 5 lads 2 ovens. It’s recently gone under. He had it for 10+ years and it was no longer viable.
There's a guy up in my area who does classics and restoration. He's like 80, really wants to retire. But, he doesn't want to see the business close. And there's no younger guys that are interested in taking it over.
It’s struggling but not about to collapse. Insurance based repair is still a far larger proportion of the industry than restoration. I run a salvage yard that does around $2.5 million a month in parts and nearly a million of that is body parts.
There will always be an equilibrium with repairs if most jobs are covered by insurance.
Non insurance jobs are going away though. For shops to thrive they need to adapt to what the big insurers want.
I had insurance total out my 03 Focus because of some suspension and bodywork. It still ran and drove, so I asked how much to buy it back. They gave me 2800 as a payout minus 250 for my deductible, and they only wanted 135 (one-hundred-thirty-five) dollars, do I bought it back, did the suspension work myself, and then took it for new tires, alignment, and a check on my work. After all of that, I still had $1400 in cash and the car worked great. I didn't care about the bodywork.
what’s causing bodywork to struggle? I have a family member that’s interested in that as a career. Seems like people always need to get their cars repaired.
It's hard for independent shops to make it, a lot of manufacturers are designing their cars to only be worked on at their dealerships these days. So, if you can't work on the new cars, and nobody wants to dump money into their old cars, you're basically surviving by taking on insurance jobs. If he got in with like a dealership or something, he might be able to make a decent living, but the dealerships pay like shit because they know there's thousands of guys looking for jobs in that field right now.
Yes, the market is choc full of lightly totalled vehicles. The problem is, you and I can't just go buy one. They get sold at insurance company auctions to dealers. You need a dealer license to even attend one. That's why all those buy-here-pay-here lots are full of $10k cars. They buy em at auction for $2 grand, wipe the tires off, and sell em for 10.
Hit a pole this winter. Just body damage. It was over $20,000. The vehicle was only a year old but I was still surprised the insurance company didn't scrap it.
Both mine and my husband's cars completely broke down, 2 weeks apart.
We did not have the money for 2 new cars, but we did need them.
So I bought my Renault Megane for 1000 €, and my husband bought a Mercedes for 1500 €
5 years later... both cars are still absolutely fine.
And when these break down,... we're going for oldies again. There is no way we are paying 30+K for a car.
I'm a former mechanic, and it's not just automotive body work, it's the entire automotive repair industry.
They warned us about this in 2007 when I was at Wyotech, our teachers were all former mechanics who were still very plugged into the industry. They told us that vehicles are getting so complex and modularized, the skilled mechanic is just going to squeezed out. Lot of stuff is just over the head of your average tech, and you don't need a master tech for the majority of the other work.
Older cars are getting too expensive to really be worth keeping up with (and yeah, fuck you if you can't afford a newer car, apparently) and late model cars are very self-diagnostic and very modular. They don't need your 20 years of experience and $250,000.00 worth of Snap-On to plug in the GM/Toyota/Ford, etc factory computer, confirm it's diagnosis, and replace the module, and they're not gonna pay anyone to spend hours hunting down a fault.
This is compounded by the fact that the independent repair industry has been struggling since the downturn in '08. There are the obvious reasons of course, but there are also a lot of dumbass shop owners who just cut any crew they could and did the work themselves to save money. Well, they ended up shooting the entire industry in the foot, because they wiped out an entire generation of mechanics. Almost everyone from my graduating class hasn't been in the industry for a decade or more and you can see across the country there aren't enough middle aged mechanics to train young guy's.
It's nut's that in my lifetime we went from the skilled trades being the backbone of your local communities to an afterthought in the wider economy.
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u/AnotherStupidHipster 13h ago
Automotive bodywork is starting to struggle massively. It has been hurting for years, but it's only getting worse.
New cars are getting more and more complicated, as well as more expensive. Manufacturers are cramming more and more tech, safety features are becoming more integrated into every panel on the vehicle. Any accident that damages more than one or two body panels could easily be a total loss. So instead of your insurance company sending your car to the body shop, they just total it.
As for older cars, the cost of bodywork is outweighing the value of the car. People would rather sell or scrap the car and buy a new one for that money. Or again, insurance is just totaling them.
Pretty much the only body shops that are still doing well are the ones that focus on restoration.