2025
compiled by CRASH Network
Here’s our annual look back at some of the most interesting, important or entertaining quotes heard within the collision industry over the past 12 months.
“Customers are afraid to turn in claims due to rising premiums.”
–Nikki Anderson, owner of D&B Auto Body in Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, saying back in January she expected to see more customer-pay work in 2025
“Recently we added what we call ‘Fleet’ [certification], which is essentially a medium-duty delivery van that we call BrightDrop, so that’s making a big splash. It’s now badged as a Chevrolet, and we’re working to grow that network as well.”
–Kelli Doherty, speaking at an industry event back in January when she managed the certified collision repair network for General Motors; by late this past fall, GM had halted production of the vans after slower-than-expected demand, and announced it would instead co-develop a commercial van with Hyundai that will launch in 2028
“So basically whatever work you do on the vehicle, you have to put it back into the same compliance that the OEM had intended during its original manufacturing. This is going to be really hard for the industry to achieve. We don’t have all the information and data we need to do that.”
–Mike Muller of the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association (SEMA), speaking of federal regulations that could by 2030 obligate anyone altering or repairing a vehicle to ensure its ADAS and other safety systems are operating as intended; SEMA is supporting proposed federal legislation introduced at the end of 2025 that would require the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to ensure that the aftermarket has access to tolerances of ADAS and other information needed to properly validate functionality
“If insurers are acting in good faith now, there should be no reason for them to have any fear of this bill passing because it’s not going to affect them.”
–Justin Lewis, a shop owner from Redmond, Washington, testifying back in February on behalf of the Washington Independent Collision Repairer’s Association in favor of legislation that would require auto insurance policies sold in the state to include a “right to appraisal” clause; the bill was passed and signed into law by this past spring
“The bill will give consumers confidence their vehicles are safely repaired, in well-equipped shops, by well-trained technicians using the repair information made available by automakers.”
–from a written statement by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the Automotive Service Association (ASA) and the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS), jointly announcing their support for federal legislation that would enshrine into law their existing voluntary agreement that independent repair facilities will have the same ability to perform diagnostic and repair services as franchised auto dealers
“Unfortunately, there are instances where disreputable autobody shops have overbilled the insurance company to make up the discounted deductible. In other cases, autobody shops have cut corners when making the repairs to make up the deductible discount, putting customer safety at risk.”
–Justin Smith, a lobbyist for the South Dakota Auto Body Association, testifying in favor of legislation – eventually enacted and signed into law this year – that prohibits shops in that state from advertising or promising to pay or rebate all or some of an insurance deductible, or from actually providing such a payment or rebate
“[A]bout 56 percent of those calibrations are showing up in supplements. So those are happening later in the process, and this is driving a lot of that supplement activity that we’re seeing.”
–Kyle Krumlauf of CCC Intelligent Solutions, explaining back in February that calibrations on repairable DRP claims were up by almost 30 percent year over year, but fewer than half of those were included on initial estimates, contributing to the rise in the average number and dollar amount of supplements
“We’re in a list price environment, so if list prices [on parts] go up, the inflationary environment actually serves to create same-store sales for us. We work on discounts off of list [prices] to drive our gross margin and our business from a parts perspective. The other side of the inflationary or the tariff environment [is that] it could push new car prices higher, which increases demand for used cars, and in turn pushes used car prices up as well, which then pushes total losses down. So I think, generally speaking, the tariff environment is neutral or positive for us, from an average ticket and a work perspective.”
–Brian Kaner, just months before he became CEO of The Body Group (parent company of Gerber Collision & Glass), speaking on the company’s quarterly earnings call back in March about what impact new U.S. tariffs may have
“We’ve already started making repair tabs for headlights. Headlights that have two or three broken tabs off of them, as long as the rest of the housing is intact, can be repaired. These [3D printed] materials have equivalent properties that are as good, we’re finding, as the original properties. We are going through testing and validation on that to prove that to everyone right now.
–
Harold Sears, a former technical manager for Ford who now heads the Auto Additive advisory council, explaining that tabs for headlights are likely among the first 3D-printed aftermarket replacement parts that will be available to collision repairers
“We have guys who have been in the business a long time, who are great instructors, but we needed that curriculum. The curriculum was the game-changer. We even have a couple guys that we decided to put through the Academy who already had three, four years in collision, and they walked away learning things.”
–Trish Ostrander, the training manager for Gustafson Brothers, a mechanical and collision repair shop in Huntington Beach, California, speaking early in the year of shops’ opportunity to use the I-CAR Academy apprentice training program and curriculum
“I think if you hear anybody saying out in the industry that if a calibration is not [listed] on one of these software provider tools, you don’t have to do it, you need to stop them dead in their tracks and correct them. Just because it’s not on there, that doesn’t mean that vehicle doesn’t have any calibrations that are required.”
–I-CAR’s Scott VanHulle, co-chairman of the Collision Industry Conference (CIC) “Emerging Technologies Committee,” speaking of third-party tools being used to identify the ADAS calibrations that may be necessary on a given damaged vehicle
“To me, that tells you that there’s enough wear-and-tear on a vehicle after 13,000 miles that there is drift in the brackets or something. That opens the door to talk about calibrations as a maintenance item. Because as these systems are on the road, there are things that are happening – that are not collisions – that are knocking these systems out of whack.”
–Brunno Moretti of Ascential Technologies, on his company’s finding that some of a vehicle’s ADAS systems were not functioning properly even though the vehicle had not been in a collision