The Collision Industry's Ongoing 'Procedural Civil War': Why Ignoring OEM Guidelines Costs Everyone
There is a quiet but consequential battle underway in collision repair. Industry experts Larry Montanez (P&L Consultants) and Jeff Lange (Lange Technical Services) described it with pointed clarity in a Hammer & Dolly column: "This war could be called Procedure Civil War 1, or PCW1."
The combatants aren't shops fighting insurers or technicians fighting shops — it's a division within the repair industry itself, between those who follow manufacturer procedures and those who rely on instinct, habit, or willful resistance to change.
A Divide With Serious Consequences
Montanez and Lange identify four distinct types of collision repairers operating today:
- The Dinosaurs — experienced repairers who rely entirely on outdated methods and resist anything new
- The I-CAR Certified & Standard — practitioners who meet baseline training requirements and understand procedure-based work
- The New Jack Real Bodymen — a newer generation of skilled craftsmen who blend traditional skill with modern standards
- The Do It by the Book Parts Changers — technicians who follow OEM procedures precisely, every time
As the authors observe, the lines aren't always clean. Some repairers fall into more than one category. But what's consistent across all is this: ego, pride, and resistance to OEM procedures continue to drive decisions that endanger the public — and expose shops to legal and financial ruin.
A Case Study That Should Have Changed Everything
The most instructive part of the Montanez-Lange column is a real-world case study involving a 2014 Chevrolet Impala — a repair that appeared to be complete but wasn't.
A 65-year-old woman had her left rear quarter panel and bumper cover replaced after an impact. The trunk lid was removed and reinstalled during the process, but the shop chose not to blend it. Two months later, the same woman backed into a parked Audi A4 in a parking lot. Her airbags didn't deploy. Her vehicle suffered only scrapes. The Audi sustained a broken grille and bumper fascia.
The driver insisted she had been watching her backup camera the entire time.
A subsequent investigation — supported by diagnostic testing and research by the insurance company — traced the collision directly to the prior repair. The previous shop had failed to reintroduce the backup camera to the steering angle sensor. The guidance lines and distance warnings on the camera display were misaligned. The woman had trusted a system that was showing her inaccurate information.
The result? The original repair facility was held responsible for the damages to both vehicles, the wheel alignment costs, and the steering angle sensor re-aiming. No one at the shop had consulted the OEM procedures or reviewed the associated warnings.
The 'Family to Feed' Excuse Doesn't Hold Up
Montanez and Lange don't mince words about the justifications commonly used for skipping procedures. The most frequent: "I have a family to feed."
The implication is that spending additional time on research, calibration, or procedure compliance isn't economically viable. But the authors dismantle this reasoning efficiently. The Impala case alone illustrates that cutting corners doesn't save time or money — it shifts liability, damages reputations, and in some cases injures or kills people.
"The disagreements will always be about parts changers having no skill and real bodymen figuring out how to make it work," they write, "but ultimately it always comes down to the 'I have a family to feed' excuse."
The argument collapses when you consider the financial and legal consequences. A shop that paid for damages to both vehicles, plus alignment and sensor recalibration, spent far more than the cost of looking up the relevant OEM procedure in the first place.
What This Means for Your Shop
The collision repair industry has the technical knowledge and professional resources to perform correct, procedure-based repairs. The barrier isn't capability — it's mindset.
OEM procedures exist because manufacturers have engineered safety systems, structural components, and electronic integrations that interact in ways that aren't always intuitive. A backup camera's guidance calibration depends on correct alignment to the steering angle sensor. Skip that step, and a customer drives away with a sensor that provides false confidence.
For any shop reviewing its procedures and processes, the question isn't whether following OEM documentation is worth the effort. The question is whether your shop can afford the consequences of not doing so.
The "Procedural Civil War" Montanez and Lange describe isn't a metaphor — it's an ongoing reality that plays out in courtrooms, insurance disputes, and re-repair situations every day. The side that survives long-term is the side that chooses accuracy over convenience.
