Testimonials
Newsletter - February 2006
WHAT YOUR WARRANTY BOOK SAYS ABOUT MAINTENANCE AND REPAIRS DURING THE WARRANTY PERIOD
These statements are from your warranty book.
“Maintenance and repairs can be performed by any qualified service outlet; however, warranty repairs must be performed by an authorized dealer except in an emergency situation when a warranted part or a warranty station is not reasonably available to the vehicle owner.”
The manufacturer CANNOT void your warranty when an independent shop services your vehicle or when aftermarket parts are used. This prevents the manufacturer of a product (whether it is your car or a vacuum) from requiring that you use their parts.
The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act is the federal law that governs consumer product warranties. In a nutshell this law provides consumers with choices on who may maintain their vehicle. The law even provides a way for the owner to perform the maintenance themselves. To read more about the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act click here.
A car manufacturer is more of an assembler. The parts are bought from vendors and put together at the factory. Many of the aftermarket parts on the market are made by the same vendors that make parts for Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, etc. In many cases, the only difference is the label on the box. The manufacturer may recommend that you use their part, but they are can not require it. In fact there is intense pressure on the parts suppliers from the car manufacturers to keep prices down which doesn’t always result in the highest quality part. Aftermarket parts come in two or three different levels of quality and for some applications are a better choice.
The dealer is still the only choice for warranty or recall repairs, if warranty or recall work is needed we will take your vehicle to the dealer for you when your vehicle is in for servicing.
Whether you’re looking for a dentist or auto shop, developing trusted relationships takes time and experience with a business to see if it’s right for you. When looking for an auto shop find one that’s been in business a number of years, is affiliated with the Better Business Bureau, AAA of Colorado, employs ASE certified technicians and has a strong warranty. When you find a shop that meets your needs have them perform all maintenance and repairs for continuity.
It’s a law; you do not have to take your car back to the dealer to keep your warranty intact!
COLOR MATCHING AFTER AN ACCIDENT
What’s your number one repair concern after your accident?
* Price
* Color Match
* Time in Shop
* Convenience
A large percentage of you check.... color match.
How a color match is achieved.
Your paint color has a formula or recipe that is fed into the computer which weights out the tints on a measuring scale to within one tenth of a gram. For instance, a Toyota silver will use 442 grams of silver along with smaller amounts of yellow, white, brilliant red blue and .6 grams of red oxide (that’s about 3 drops). If the painter adds an extra drop of red oxide he’ll need to go back and increase all the other colors by a third. There are variables to color matching; each car manufacturing factory has its own method of mixing and spraying paint. Some colors have 8-10 variations. A color for a certain car will have different variations depending on where it was assembled.
Checking the color of both the paint in the spray gun and the paint on the vehicle before spraying is the most important factor in getting the color right the first time. Once the color has been checked, you can develop a game plan; remixing, blending, tinting, etc., for dealing with a color that doesn’t match. There is no perfect match especially on lighter colors. A match is achieved by blending the color within the panel if it’s a small repair or blending the color into the adjacent panels. Painters call it losing the blend. The color is stretched out coming together half way through the next panel giving the eye the illusion that the color is consistent throughout the area. Blending is an art form requiring training, experience, preparation and good technique.
Coming into play is always cost; a dent on a front door that costs $135 to straighten and fill could easily become an eight to nine hundred dollar job because of blending paint into the rear door and front fender and the necessity of removing and reinstalling all parts from these panels like door handles, trim, nameplates, bumper and lights.
We’ve come a long way since Henry Ford said of his customers, “They can have any color they want as long as it’s black.” Color is one of the most appealing things about a car and it takes advanced technology and skill to keep it that way after an accident.
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Addison Auto Repair & Body Shop
2005 South Holly Street • Denver, CO 80222 • 303-691-9484