Are You a Crash Test Dummy?

Are you a Crash Test Dummy?

If you have had body work done on your car you may be!

By Shawn Collins

If you have had structural repair work done on your vehicle, you might be driving a vehicle that would fail a crash test or actually kill you in a real collision. This might sound extreme but it’s very real and not just hype that is meant to scare you. Most consumers are unaware that vehicle construction has changed dramatically in just the past few years. Unfortunately, many collision repair shops are also unaware of these changes.

That may be hard to believe, but collision shops in the U.S. aren’t required to train their technicians, it’s completely voluntary. Canada and most European Countries have very rigid laws regarding technician licensing, but in the U.S. it’s a very different story. Many technicians haven’t had any training in years and many others never have been trained. A technician can legally weld a vehicle's frame together even though he has never undergone any testing as a welder. This has always been a less than ideal situation but because of recent changes in the structure of vehicles, lack of training and knowledge is now potentially deadly. The major change has been driven by the need for the auto makers to build lighter, fuel efficient cars, while at the same time, making them safer. This created the demand for steels that are lighter but many times stronger than the traditional steels. If technicians have not been trained to properly repair these new steels they are using “old school” repair techniques, and you will be their crash test dummy if you are in another accident in the same car.

Have you ever wondered how cars today which are much smaller and lighter than cars from the past are much safer? Cars in the past were very strong, heavy and rigid which is good for a battering ram but will make a car stop suddenly in a collision which isn’t safe for the occupants. The lighter cars of today are engineered to collapse, but to do so strategically and absorb as much collision energy as possible. It’s like the old saying about falling from a tall building, “it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.” These new steels are a huge factor in the way cars are now built to withstand this sudden stop and keep the passengers safe. The difference between the new steels compared to the traditional steels is very complicated, but this is the simplified explanation. In the past, vehicles were primarily made from mild steel which can be repaired easily and with traditional repair methods. Simply put, it was nearly impossible to accidently weaken the steel during the repair process. Mild steel could be straightened even after being severely bent, right up to the point of being kinked. With the new high strength steels (HSS) and ultra high strength steels (UHSS) the manufacturers are now using; it’s a completely different story. Once any steel is bent or kinked sharply enough, it will never be able to be returned to its original strength because the molecules can never realign to their original state and shape. These new steels are up to five or six times as strong as the former steels, but are much more brittle which means they will not re-shape after being bent even slightly.

Structural steel parts, like frame rails, can be made much thinner with these new steels and still be stronger. However, the downside of these steels is that they are much more prone to cracking during the straightening process and will be severely weakened if heated. This is critical because the “old school” or traditional repair methods are to straighten bent parts, heat parts to re-shape them and weld parts together. In the recent past it was acceptable and common for collision technicians to heat a bent structural frame to the point of being red hot, so it could be hammered back into shape. If this method is used on the high strength steels it will destroy the steel and the frame will not react the same way in the next accident. Destroying the strength of a structural part can reduce the amount of collision energy the structure was designed to absorb, allow intrusion into the passenger compartment and even cause the air bag to deploy at the wrong time.

New vehicle construction is a complex engineering marvel. The stronger steels are being used by the car manufacturers in areas that are critical to safety of the vehicle occupants. For example, a frame rail may be made of varying strengths of steel which are fused together with a laser weld so it is able to collapse intentionally and absorb collision energy near the bumper while remaining rigid closer to the passenger cabin to protect the occupants. In the recent past it was common practice for technicians to “section” or splice a part of a new frame rail onto the car to avoid replacing the complete frame rail. Sectioning is when a technician cuts through a structural part creating a new seam or joint that was not designed to exist from the factory. This new section is then joined to the car with a weld. This re-engineers the car’s structure and potentially alters its crashworthiness. On today’s cars, just the heat from welding these frame parts together can destroy the steel’s capability to withstand an impact and protect the passengers. Incorrect repairs to these complex parts can have deadly consequences. Sectioning may still be done but only if the manufacturer’s procedures are being followed. There have also been drastic changes in the vehicle’s side construction which have completely changed the repair procedures that the technicians must use to perform a safe repair.

Side crash test standards and rollover protection standards enforced by the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Administration have become more stringent. Recently the administration doubled the amount of force that a vehicle’s roof structure must withstand in a rollover. This prompted many manufacturers to use much more HSS and even UHSS in the side structure of the car. One auto maker increased the amount of HSS used on one vehicle from 13% to 56%. These steels can be so strong that they are extremely difficult to drill through or cut with a steel saw blade. Many auto makers recommend against straightening, heating or even welding on these parts. Most of the “old school” repair methods that are still being used in many shops will ruin these steels. If a technician isn’t properly trained and is using these old techniques to repair these parts they can destroy their strength, exposing the occupants to injury or death. This is happening every day in collision repair shops that have not provided current training for their technicians. The technicians aren’t intentionally making an unsafe repair, they just don’t know any better.

The internationally recognized training organization for collision shops and insurance personnel is a not for profit organization named I-CAR (Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repair). I-CAR is based in Illinois and has a Tech Center in Appleton Wisconsin and offers training classes for all aspects of collision repair from welding training to structural damage analysis. If you are in need of collision repairs, check to see if the shop is I-CAR trained and that their training is current. The quality shops will be able to show that their shop has I-CAR Gold status or their technicians have Platinum status, or they are working toward those accreditations. They may be able to show proof of equivalent training from the vehicle makers like GM, Honda, Toyota, Chrysler, BMW, Ford or others but if they haven’t had any classes in the last year or two they are probably not caught up with this new technology.

Ask the body shop if they are going to perform any “sectioning” procedures on your car and ask to see the manufacturer’s repair procedure sheet for that operation. Sectioning should not be done without specific recommendations from the auto maker because they crash test their recommended repair procedures. If sectioning is done without specific recommendations, the shop is just guessing how the structure will react in the next collision. Although many collision technicians are very talented, they are not engineers and aren’t able to crash test their repair procedures. Be very careful about taking your car into a collision repair shop that does not have properly trained technicians, just to save a few dollars. An incorrect repair can turn your 5 star safety-rated vehicle into a 1 or 2 star-safety rated vehicle. This would make you the collision shop’s crash test dummy.

Shawn Collins was an ASE Certified collision technician for 26 years and an I-CAR Instructor for 15 years. He teaches more than 40 different training programs for collision shops and insurance companies across the U.S. He was named the 2009 I-CAR instructor of the year. He is a consultant for VeriFacts Automotive; a collision repair inspection and technician coaching company. He is currently a Collision Industry Specialist for AAA Auto Salvage in Rosemount MN.