Even restaurants have health inspectors to protect you from food poisoning but there are no such inspectors for the collision repair industry. Each auto manufacturer has specific instructions for body shops to repair their cars safely and properly. But there are no laws forcing a body shop to follow any set or approved OEM repair methods.
Barbers and hairstylists need a license to cut hair, but shops don't need one to cut up and weld a car back together and send it off to an unsuspecting customer. Here, all you need is a business license, and there are no inspections. The body shop technician decides how he is going to fix the car, and nothing is forcing him to research the correct method and stick to that plan.
It is easy to hide unsafe repair and junkyard parts under a coat of shiny paint. It is easy to cut corners and hide them from you. The insurance preferred shops are banking on the hope that you will sell the car before the problems are discovered (and it will no longer be their problem).
The John Eagle case: This Texas couple nearly died in a car that was proven to have been repaired unsafely at a dealership body shop. Improper welds to the roof caused the car to deform, TRAPPING THEM INSIDE as they nearly burned to death.
At trial, the dealership shop General Manager admitted that they skipped these steps because the insurance company would not pay them to do the repairs.
The horrific and unsafe repairs we find nearly every week at our shops are scary stuff.
What you don’t know about collision repair could cost you