Body and collision repair for heavy-duty trucks isn’t as widely accessible as auto body repairs for cars and smaller vehicles. Heavy-duty body repair comes with challenges that many repair shops simply can’t meet. Understanding some of the challenges can help you understand why you need a service that can provide expert body care for your heavy-duty truck.
1. Some Shops Focus on Mechanic Services, Not Collision Repair
You can find repair shops all over the place that offer mechanic and repair service for larger trucks. These places will have the right tools and personnel to handle mechanical repair procedures to get your truck serviced and back on the road. However, when it comes to collision repair, these services can’t handle the task.
Collision repair procedures are a night-and-day difference from mechanical repairs. A typical truck repair service can get the guts of your heavy duty truck in working order, but it can rarely do anything about the body of your truck.
Show care when seeking bodywork from a service that doesn’t expressly show they have the skill, tools, access to materials, and proper space to work on your heavy-duty truck. If a repair service does have these things, then feel free to do business with them.
2. Some Fleet and Truck Services Skip Body Repair
Fleet managers and other truck owners keep other sectors of the truck industry busy. Many truck mechanic shops and other services dedicated to the trucking sector can rely on these larger groups to keep the industry running.
Yet, many of these truck services balk at taking a vehicle out of service to address what they feel amounts to nothing more than a cosmetic issue. That dearth of business from larger groups doesn’t help make heavy-duty collision repair a highly visible and accessible service for many others.
Keeping truck bodies in good repair is definitely good for business. Working trucks will pick up nicks, dings, and damage just by doing what they do. That damage can add up and threaten the integrity of the truck as a whole.
Whether you have one truck or a whole fleet, it makes sense to keep the body of the truck strong and capable. Also, aesthetics play a large part in branding. Heavy-duty body shops aren’t just for collisions. Maintaining your truck’s integrity is important for safety as well as a means to
protect the investment you made in your heavy-duty truck.
3. Some Owner-Operators Don’t Understand the Complications of Heavy-Duty Repair
Heavy-duty body and collision repair requires an absurdly high level of skill, training, and understanding of how large truck parts fit together. Truck designs vary by make, and the skills used to repair one type of truck won’t work on another.
Truck manufacturers often employ materials that aren’t easy to procure. Repair procedures constantly change with every new heavy-duty truck upgrade that arrives on the scene. Even the adhesives used on heavy-duty truck parts must meet particular criteria, and technicians must apply them in specific ways.
A heavy-duty body and collision service will have access to the tools and materials required to repair your truck with a quick turnaround. Some repair services may not even know where to start with getting the job done if they’re not experienced with truck bodies and truck OEMs.
Even finding the proper paint type can prove a challenge for a service without a history of heavy-duty collision repair. Downtown Garage & Auto Body has the tools, skills, experience, and space to accommodate every aspect of heavy-duty body and collision repair. If you need collision repair or general body service for your heavy-duty truck, contact us for an estimate today.
