he collision repair industry has changed in the past several decade!

Customers have relinquish their involvement of getting their vehicle repaired after a collision. As a result the industry has give the insurance companies more say on how an automobile should be repaired. When the insurance company decides, their interest in their bottom-line. They want to repair the vehicle for the lease amount of cost. They are not concerned it your vehicle is going to be valued any more or less because of the quality of the repair which was performed. In a majority of cases, the insurance company you are with currently, is not going to be the one you are going to be with ten years from today. Customers are told that the insurance company is going to warranty the repair for as long as you own the vehicle. You have to keep in mind that they paying to have the vehicle repaired on your behalf, the shop which performed the repair is the one who is going to warranty the repair. As a shop owner, I prefer to do the repairs correctly and only once. I prefer to deal with the customer, because s/he is who I have to keep satisfied. The customer is the person who will make or break your business. I have found, if a customer has to return to get something redone for free, they are no t usually happy, because they had to give up their time to return. Cost of the job is not the only cost to perform a redo, there is opportunity cost, customer loyalty, and the fixed day to day operation cost. So having someone tell me how they want to get a repair done does not may sense to me. They don’t own the car, and they are not performing the repair.  Example:  On a newer Toyota Rav-4, most insurance companies would attempt to force a shop to use a “LKQ” or aftermarket unit as a replacement for a damage OEM.  Once the product is installed and is functioning, but fails to function as an OEM.  In a year or two, you have an A/C compressor failure because A/C compressor had to cycle too many times because of an inefficient condenser unit.  A new OEM condenser unit cost about $900 while and LKQ or aftermarket cost about $200.  Replacing the compressor at a later date with a new compressor cost around $1600 and a used or aftermarket unit will cost around $900.  The question is do you think an insurance would pay to replace a compressor failure, because they replace the condenser unit with one which did not function as it should.  They will argue that the unit failed because of age not because of what they instructed the shop to replaced the damaged unit with.