Elite Autobody Best Practices and Case Studies in Auto Body Repair

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Elite Auto Body Demonstrates Best Practices in Automotive Restoration
Proper Restoration Leads to Safer, Better-Looking Results

When another car or truck smashes into your vehicle, you may experience visible damage to your car, but you also may experience damage you cannot see. A professional evaluation will determine the full extent of the damage to your vehicle. At Elite Auto Body we look beyond the surface damage to make sure your underbody is okay or determine if it needs repair or replacement.

Ford Escape
As the photos reveal, this Ford Escape experienced visible damage to the rear bumper and driver side rear quarter panel. Without looking deeper, you might conclude that this was the full extent of the damage. However, upon closer inspection, we discovered damage to the inner structure of the vehicle.

This in depth look upfront allows us to work with your insurance company so they understand and pay the full extent of your damage.

In addition to replacing the rear bumper and quarter panel, we replaced the inner wheelhouse, inner rear body panel and the left rear side frame rail of the unibody.

Unibody construction involves the use of high strength steel that’s been welded together to form a single unit. Once this type of metal is crushed, you have to replace it. Otherwise, you lose the tensile strength of the metal. High strength metal is heat treated in the manufacturing process and cannot be improved or repaired through re-heating.

If you try to get away with straightening the high strength metal components, you may achieve a lower cost result that looks fine, but if you become involved in a second accident, the metal will collapse more easily causing more damage than necessary, resulting in higher repair costs and reduced passenger safety. You also may experience suspension and handling problems along with increased tire wear.

One of the challenges with unibody construction is it can be difficult to detect the damage. A professionally-trained technician is required to evaluate the full extent of damage. This is important to make sure you don’t lose anything in terms of your vehicle’s handling, performance, durability or appearance. In this case, the answer was to replace the damaged unibody components before rebuilding the surface to like-new condition.

Dodge Pickup
In the case of this Dodge Truck, we replaced the outer pieces and the header panel. This model features a full frame construction rather than the unibody construction used on the Ford. The frame received damage, but we were able to heat the metal and pull the damaged area back into shape so that it once again met the product specifications for the vehicle. Unlike the high tensile strength metal used in unibody construction, the steel in the full frame construction can be heated, making the repair possible.

The damage to the front end of the truck was extensive. With the impact on the bumper, the airbags deployed in the cabin area, necessitating the replacement of the airbags on both sides of the cabin. We also replaced damaged impact sensors and clock spring as well as the seat belts.

Computer accuracy assures a quality restoration
We use computerized laser bench measuring system to make certain we restore your vehicle to its original specification within 3mm of accuracy. The process involves hanging targets on the vehicle, setting up the rail and then checking to be sure the rail was accurate. Upon completion we print a spec sheet to show the accuracy of the repair.