How Do Auto Body Shops Find Damage? Our Long Beach Body Shop Lets You Know
After a car accident the damage you see can be alarming. There's a reason why we call them 'fender benders'. From dents in the panels that are easily seen to hidden damage such as frame or electronic repair we find it all!
Damage after an accident is usually visible from the outside but, as your vehicle’s outer panels are removed and the physical structure of the vehicle is revealed, often additional ‘hidden damage’ is discovered. We do this through our collision repair processes. When your car arrives at our shop, we do a pre-wash to make sure the car is clean and we can see all the damage. Then we map the car...this is where we mark the vehicle so that the body technicians know what they are disassembling on the vehicle. Finally we disassemble the vehicle for inspection. We make sure that every relevant part is removed from the car so we can see all of the damage underneath the point of impact. We call this DFR - disassembly for repairs.
During inspection, our estimator looks beyond the superficial damages to see how severe the damages are. During this time we also scan the vehicle electrically looking for fault codes. Depending on the type of impact we may put the vehicle up on a lift to perform a wheel alignment, often a sign of frame damage, and to inspect the vehicle from underneath.
Our estimators look for everything: cracked paint on structural components can be an indicator of unibody damage, inspecting individual parts determine what must be replaced, photos are take to be provided to insurance and outside investigators, results from the scan tool, the wheel alignment and our frame measuring system are considered.
Once this process is complete, we write a repair plan that includes timelines, repair procedures and parts orders. Fully dissembling the vehicle is the only way to write a complete repair plans. It's no longer an estimate!
Whether it's a preliminary estimate or a full repair, you can book online or call us 562-426-2639 to get started. Talk to our friendly service writers and we'll take it from there!
