High Strength Steel is becoming a standard in new vehicle frame and structural components and as an autobody technician you need to know how to identify and correctly repair these parts correctly or you can introduce problems which may lead to risk of injury in the case of an accident.

High Strength Steel comes in a variety of levels of hardness. The harder the steel the more difficult it is to repair and weld. The benefit of high strength steel is that it can replace standard steel of greater thickness.

The common tensile strength …

Paintless Dent Removal is one of the fastest growing areas of auto body repair. The main benefit is not that paint is not involved but that you can get the car back to the customer often within a half a day. Now that is dependent on your shop and schedule but for the most part you will spend fewer hours repairing the dent and there are very few materials required.

Some shops have a dedicated technician that only handles paintless dent work. Other shops will contract this work out and schedule an independent contractor to perform …

Rust on cars is nothing new and it happens to every vehicle eventually but sometimes when you are refinishing a vehicle you can introduce problems that cause immediate or early corrosion problems.

A relatively new problem that many technicians are dealing with is corrosion on aluminum parts. Many hybrids and high MPG vehicles are using aluminum for exterior skins and structural parts. Additionally most drive trains have been using aluminum for decades so if you are repairing parts of this type you need to understand how to prepare them and what paints are appropriate for refinishing.
Common …

Polyester Body Filler is one of the most important products used in our shops but sometimes improper use can result in failures and callbacks.

When adhesion problems occur soon after a repair is performed is normally means two things have gone wrong.

Either there was too much or too little hardener used during the mixing of the filler.

Or there was improper preparation of the substrate.

Although polyester fillers can be used on a variety of surfaces with good results you should never use them on galvanized parts. Galvanized parts should either be coated with primer or for best …