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Letter to the Editor

Grilles and Door Skins Eligible for CAPA Certification

CAPA’s Quality Standards are applicable to a wide range of part types, including fenders, hoods, tailgates, bumper covers, and exterior lighting. While these are the most commonly recognized CAPA certified part types, additional parts eligible for certification include grilles and door skins. Manufacturers submit increasing numbers of fenders, hoods and bumper covers each year for certification, but the number of grilles and door skins has not kept pace.

“This may be the result of the collision repair industry not realizing that these part types could be available to them,” said Jack Gillis, Executive Director of CAPA. “If insurers don’t know that high quality CAPA grilles and doors skins could be available to collision repairers, they don’t include them on their estimates. As a result, collision repairers don’t order them from their distributors. Distributors have no demand for these parts, so they don’t ask manufacturers to supply them. Ultimately, manufacturers don’t go through the process of having the parts certified to CAPA’s quality standards.”

Gillis continued, “If you want a high quality alternative to the car company part, demand it from your insurer, your distributor, your manufacturer. CAPA standards cover a wide range of part types – I urge the industry to take advantage of the full range of part types that could be certified to CAPA’s thorough and effective quality standards.”

Currently, there are only three applications for certified grilles and door skins, as compared to nearly 3800 applications for other part types in the program.

Concluded Gillis, “We suspect that because CAPA has a standard for these parts, insurers and repairers assume they are getting them when that is simply not the case.”

Grilles and door skins that do not meet CAPA’s standards can be subject to poor fit, premature corrosion, and in the case of grilles, premature flaking of the surface. CAPA provides the market with an independent means of identifying high quality parts. Every part number that CAPA has certified has been tested and proven to meet CAPA’s standards. While a manufacturer may be a participant in the CAPA program, it is important to know that not all of their parts achieve CAPA’s high standards. Only parts that bear the yellow CAPA seal have been certified to meet CAPA’s quality standards.

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