History of Car Manufacturing & Auto Body Construction

Series Summary

Most people have been in a car wreck at one time or another, and have had to get their car fixed by an auto body specialist. The car gets towed to the shop, but what happens after that? How do the pros fix a wrecked car or truck? How do you straighten a car frame and how to pull dents out of a car? You can learn all about how professional auto body specialists fix car wrecks from our expert.

In this free auto body repair tutorial, learn from insurance adjuster Lyndon Graves how professional mechanics fix wrecked cars. Lyndon will show you how the pros evaluate the cost of auto body repair, how bent car frames are straightened, how to replace the inner panel of a wrecked car, how to pull dents out of a wrecked car, how car paint is matched to repaint a car, how a car is prepped for painting, and how the pros repair a car paint job.

Video Transcript

"Vehicles today are costing some of them upwards of a $100,000 plus dollars. That means that repairs could easily get into the $50,000 to $60,000 range before the vehicle might even be considered a total loss. Some of the vehicles today, such as the BMW and the Ferrari can be very, very costly. Repairs can run well over $100,000. Back in the mid 1980's, the Federal Government mandated to the car manufacturer's that they somehow increased the mileage per gallon on the vehicle that they are making. That was because we were too dependent on foreign oil. As a result, the car manufacturer's had to completely redesign the automobile. Prior to that time, the vehicles were mounted on to that steel chassis frame. Much like a steel ID, steel ID. It was very heavy, very costly to drive it around. So they re-engineered and redesigned the automobile using very light weight metal and used three different types of material for the frames. They used steel, they used fiberglass and now they are using aluminum. Each one has its own characteristics. We are going to focus on the steel unitized body today because that is probably about 85 percent of the vehicles that are out there. What is very important in order to get an analysis of damage, is to understand that you have an inertia, you have an energy that has come into this vehicle and you want to determine how that energy comes in. Much of this vehicle is designed to collapse. Just like this paper does. It collapses in on itself. Our job is to bring those structure back, bring those panels back to their original position and replace them if they are fatigued."