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Letter to the Editor

Collision Revision Opens Location in Normal Illinois

Terry D'Orazio, facilities manager, expects the facility to be ready by late spring. State of the art extra-large spray booths have arrived. He says these new booths will allow Collision Revision to accommodate a growing need in the industry. RV sales have become very popular lately. We now have a situation were we have a growing number of RVs that range from the typical RV size to the million dollar tour bus conversion. The typical collision repair facility just does not have the space or the equipment to be able to adequately repair and especially paint vehicles of that size. Right now, most RV's are painted in the aisles instead of in a dust free environment of a spray booth. Besides the dust, the spray booths have a down draft system to prevent over spray and a temperature regulation system to raise the paint to the proper temperature for drying. Another challenge can be the heights of the overhead doors, some are just not sufficient to allow large RV's into the shop. Some RV's are being painted outside.

Collision Revision designed the Normal location with RVs in mind. Larger, taller overhead doors were installed with extra large bays to accommodate the larger vehicles, along with extra-large spray booths.

D'Orazio says the company picked the location in Normal because it is in the middle of the state, right off a major highway. The company tried to make it accessible to as many customers as possible. Collision Revision will make whatever arrangements are necessary to ensure the customers' experience is as convenient as possible.

"Utilizing our valet service, rental car service, and with the many drop off locations we currently have, I am confident the customer will be well taken care of," commented D'Orazio. "Normal will be able to handle all types of large vehicles as well. We are expecting to keep those spray booths busy because of the lack of collision repair facilities capable of handling this type of work."

Jim Colbert, the company president, said, "Having a repair facility that specializes in certain types of repairs is something we already do at our other locations, and in fact this will be the future for the collision repair industry. With the addition of highly specialized and complex safety equipment that are being installed into vehicles and the addition of aluminum and carbon composites in vehicle construction, collision repair facilities can no longer handle all these types of repairs well. Add the special handling requirements that hybrid cars bring with their electric motors, and the typical single collision repair facility can not keep their staff fully training in everything. We have already begun a program where we valet a car to one of our other locations that specialize in that type of vehicle. It only makes sense to move a vehicle where a repair technician had been trained on that type of vehicle and works on them all day long. Collision Revision invested over a half a million dollars in manufacture certifications last year alone and expects that trend to continue. There are certain manufactures that will not ship you parts unless you have been certified to work on that particular type of vehicle. That is a trend that is expected to grow."

With the addition of this location in Normal, Collision Revision has twenty-three production facilities and several drive-in estimating centers around Illinois, Indiana, and Florida. Collision Revision has been operating since 1976.

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