Time was, you fixed cars with a hammer and a torch. No longer. Collision repair technology is complex with new ideas being incorporated all the time. Here are just a few.
If you’d like to speak to an Auto Collision Specialists representative for a free estimate call them at (410) 833-5697 or click here to contact them online.
Aluminum Welding
For a long time, there was one material every single body shop had to know how to weld, and that was steel. And, in fact, steel is still one of the most popular metals in new vehicle construction. But, increasingly, we’re seeing more and more aluminum parts on vehicles, and in fact the new Ford F-150, the single most popular consumer vehicle on the planet, uses aluminum parts extensively, and that’s changing collision repair.
Aluminum is lighter than steel and has different temperature sensitivity, so we need to use special welding devices and techniques. And this will just be more important as aluminum becomes more common in cars, due to government regulations demanding better gas mileage byy 2025. Aluminum is lightweight, and the lighter the vehicle, the better the gas mileage.
Auto Collision Specialists is the first collision repair facility in the Baltimore area to earn the Elite/Tier 2 certification for aluminum repairs (click here to read more)
Laser Measuring And Universal Jigs On Benches
Modern cars are built to a degree of precision that takes most people by surprise. Standards for cars and car parts have become more precise over time, and in turn, that’s made collision repair a more complex endeavor.
That’s why modern auto shop benches include universal jigs that can be used with any car, and laser measuring. A modern shop needs precise measurements to get the job done, and a tape measure just isn’t going to do it.
Cold Straightening
Back in the old days of collision repair, fixing a piece of steel was pretty simple: Get it hot, reshape it, and you had a nice straight piece of steel for your frame. But as new alloys have been introducing, and metallurgy and materials science has advanced further, it’s created high-strength steels that can take a beating. But they aren’t designed to take the kind of superheating a blowtorch can dish out, and the “old” method can actually damage the steel, making it more brittle.
Hence, cold straightening has become the rule of the land. Despite the name, heat is involved, but the steel isn’t heated to white-hot temperatures like in the past, and it’s often created through induction heating, using a magnetic field. This both keeps the strength of the steel and ensures a solid, safe repair.
MIG Brazing
It sounds like a military term, but really, MIG brazing is just a slightly more complicated form of welding becoming more popular in collision repair shops across the country. A wire is fed through the welding torch, and electricity melts the wire, filling in the gap. It’s a bit more complicated than that scientifically, but that’s essentially how it works. We use MIG brazing because the steels in modern cars are, as we noted above, heat sensitive, and MIG brazing is a great way to get the job done with much less heat.
We repair your car the right way.
If you’d like to speak to an Auto Collision Specialists representative for a free estimate call them at (410) 833-5697 or click here to contact them online.
Assist System Repairs
Assist systems are all the rage, and honestly, it’s made respectable auto body shops into electronics shops. It was one thing when a collision took out your bumper. Now, it can take out delicate sensors, cameras, and their wiring, too! We’ve learned both how to properly reinstall these systems so they work right out of the gate, and how to use paint and other treatments with them to avoid hampering the system.
If all this sounds like a lot of work, well, it certainly is. But at ACS, we use only the latest technology on your car, because that gives us the best results. And at ACS, we only give you the best results, period.
