- Hey Youtubers, Donnie Smith here,
and welcome to my video series on auto estimating.
This series, we're gonna talk about how
to write estimates on cars,
you know, cars that have been in a wreck
or has got a dent.
How do you write an estimate?
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So to kick this video off,
I'm gonna start it with a quote.
It says "organization is what you do
before you do something, so that when you do it,
it is not all mixed up."
So in this first lesson we're
just gonna talk about estimates,
what are estimates, supplements,
how they're generated, who needs estimators,
and kinda setting up your estimating environment.
As an estimator, it's important to fully understand
what all the purposes an estimate serves.
And it's also important to properly
set up your estimating environment
to become efficient at generating thorough auto estimates.
And this also includes
the ASE A1 Position the vehicle for inspection.
So what are estimates?
I mean estimates, they're called different things,
like a damage report, damage estimate,
auto estimate, but they are basically the same thing.
A damage estimate however, is more than
just a sheet of paper listing the total cost
of the repairs.
An estimate is a contract or a mutual agreement
between two people.
As with real estate, the owner and the buyer,
they must agree on a price, and they sign the document,
the contract and it's a mutual agreement,
and a auto estimate, you know, it's the same way.
There needs to be an agreement
between the repair shop and the customer
and the customer should sign that agreement
to authorize the repairs.
Now one thing that the estimator needs
to explain to the customer,
and this is something that's really misunderstood,
is the estimate, it is just an estimate.
It could change, it's not the final invoice.
A lot of things could factor into this.
Maybe there was some hidden damage.
Well, of course, they would need to contact the customer
and let 'em know, but it is gonna change the estimate total.
Maybe there was a price increase on parts,
maybe that changed.
There's a lot of things
that may make the final invoice a different price
than the estimate was, and you as an estimator
need to explain this to the customer up front
so they understand.
Any additional charges, you're gonna need
to write a supplement.
The customer needs to understand this,
and a lot of times you're dealing
with insurance companies as well,
and of course, they are familiar with the process.
And not only do you need
to have good communication skills
with the customer, you're also gonna have
to work with the insurance, in many cases.
Not every job is an insurance job,
but a big percentage of 'em are,
so you need to be able to communicate well
with the insurance company.
Now every insurance company, that's gonna be different,
the way they do it.
Do you pick up a phone, call 'em,
are you a direct repair show for 'em,
that is gonna vary a lot.
But whatever procedure you do use,
your shop, the insurance company,
whatever relationship you have,
it's gonna be your responsibility
to make sure that the insurance company
and the customer, that you communicate
with them and they all know what is going on.
Now the insurance company may be paying for everything,
everything except the deductible
in some of these jobs, but keep in mind,
the owner of the car, that is your customer.
That's the one that's gonna bring it back
to you if they have problems,
have another accident or anything like that,
so keep in mind that you're working for the customer,
the car owner.
It's your responsibility as the repair shop,
to repair that car back
to its pre-accidental condition.
So once everybody agrees to the supplements,
the additional charges, the insurance company
and the customer, now you can include
these additional charges into the final invoice.
So there's different methods for writing estimates.
For a long time, I remember whenever I started
writing estimates, it was all by hand,
using Mitchell manuals is what we used.
I'm sure there was other books as well,
estimating guides, but we'd have
to look up the car, then we'd have
to look up the part, and we'd manually
write all that in, write the price in,
the labor for it, and that took a lot of time.
Nowadays, they have computer estimates.
It's a lot faster, you put all the information
into the computer, and it's more of a point and click.
But even though they have all the computers today,
I still think it's important,
if you're interested in estimating,
I still think it's very important
to learn to write one by hand.
Now the reason I say this is,
you wanna understand the process
cause a lot of the computer systems,
they will deduct for overlap, for example.
They'll just automatically put that in.
Well you don't have to worry about it
because it puts it in,
but if you never understand the process and why,
you don't wanna look dumb to the customer.
Maybe the customer says
"Well, what's this deduct for overlap?"
You don't wanna just tell 'em.
"Ah, don't worry about it,
the computer puts that in there.
I don't know what it is."
You can honestly sit there and explain to 'em,
because you know the procedure
and why it deducted for overlap.
And I think the better understanding
of the procedures you have,
the better estimator you're gonna be,
the less un-included items you're gonna miss,
and I think it's gonna make you
a much better estimator,
to understand the full process.
Now there is a sequence to estimating.
Most guides, like the Mitchell,
the guides they have.
We use use CCC now, the computer system, CCC 1.
There is a sequence that most of these follow.
Now I don't know every system out there,
but all the ones that I use have a sequence,
and it starts with the front bumper cover
and ends with the rear bumper cover,
so it starts from front to back.
So when you're writing an estimate,
of course, you wanna start with the front panels
and move backwards, so you can have the same sequence,
so when you go to the computer,
or if you're using an estimating guide,
you can just follow that sequence,
make it much easier for ya, not flipping' around.
So follow that sequence from front to rear.
Now there's also another sequence that it follows,
and that's from outside to inside.
So for example, the front bumper cover,
of course the bumper cover's on the outside,
that's gonna be first.
Well, what's underneath that bumper cover?
Well there's a impact absorber.
There's a reinforcement bar.
And it just kinda goes from outside to in
for each part group.
So who needs estimators?
Well, basically every repair shop.
Every body shop, dealership that repairs cars,
they're gonna need an estimator
and they need someone that can write the estimates,
they can go talk to the customers,
they can look at the car,
and be able to write the estimates for them,
and also insurance companies,
they also need a, they may call 'em appraisers
or estimators, they need people
that will go and look at these cars
and write the damage report for 'em.
Now smaller shops, you know, body shops,
it may be the owner, it might be the manager,
the foreman that writes these estimates,
but a lot of your larger shops,
they have people just for estimating
and some shops have multiple estimators.
And again, the title for this, it varies.
There is tons of them, customer advisor,
a lot of dealerships and body shops
call 'em different things,
but it's basically someone that visits
with the customer, you're usually the first contact,
that sees the customer, and you go
and look at the car, and you basically communicate
with them for the entire process,
from the time you write the estimate
to take the keys and give the keys back to 'em.
So it is very, very important for this position
if you're considering this as a career,
it's very important to have very good communication skills.
Now let's talk about setting up the work environment.
As with any work environment, it's important
to be set up properly.
If you wanna be able to write estimates,
generate estimates, thoroughly and efficiently,
you need to be set up properly.
Now I remember when I used to write a lot of estimates,
I just wrote 'em out in the parking lot,
and I'm sure there's still a lot of shops
that do that, but if you have a stall
set up for estimating,
it's really gonna simplify the process
and it's really gonna minimize
the amount of supplements that you have.
And I think whenever inspecting a car,
good lighting is very important
and even if you have good lighting,
or you're out in the parking lot,
you know sunlight, that's good lighting,
but there always are gonna be areas
in these cars, maybe you gotta look
up under the dash, or maybe you need
to crawl up under the car and look at something,
you really need a flashlight, a good flashlight
to look at these things.
Because if you can't see in those dark areas too good,
it's really gonna be hard to determine what's wrong,
and probably this is gonna lead to a supplement,
once you tear it down,
and that's something you wanna eliminate
The less supplements, the better,
which we'll talk about that more later.
And many times, the estimator's gonna need
to inspect underneath the car.
Now if you have a stall set up,
and you have a lift and everything,
that works really good.
But not all shop estimating stalls have that,
but you do need to have a,
nearby, in your stall, you need
to have to have a jack and some jack stands,
that if you do need to lift it up,
that you can crawl under there
to look at some suspension parts
or something that may be damaged.
And it's also important
to be well organized in your work area.
Be organized, clean, and provide a easy workflow,
to move cars in and out.
It'd take up a lot of time if you have
to shuffle cars around, you pull a car in,
you're in the middle of estimating it,
you have to back it out to let another car out.
If possible, you don't wanna be in that situation,
so have your stall set up to where you can pull
a car in there and leave it,
and it does not disturb the rest
of the workflow with the rest of the shop.
And also stay organized.
You need to have the tools that you need.
You don't wanna have to go through the shop,
borrowing tools from different body techs in there.
Have the tools that you need.
You're gonna just need some basic tools,
if you might have to do a little bit of tear-down,
but have your own tools set up in there,
have your jack stands, your jack,
for the things that you're gonna need to do.
Cause it's not gonna look very professional
if you're trying to write an estimate
and you're running through the shop
or going to grab a technician
to come and jack the car up and all that.
So just be sure that you have the things that you need,
and make sure in your estimating area
that everything has a place, and that's it's
in place when you're not using it.
So what tools do you need in your work area?
Well this is really gonna vary,
depending on your shop and the shop's procedures
and how they do write their estimates,
it's gonna vary, but I'm gonna give you
some common tools that most of you
will have to use.
The estimator's gonna have to take photos of the damage,
photos to help others see what the estimate sees.
They need to tell a story.
Photos are documents to prove the extent
of the damage to the customers
and to the insurance company.
You need to take photos of the overall damage,
just a big picture of what happened,
but you also need to take photos
of the individual parts that are damaged.
Now I've used iPhones, cell phones,
they work good, but you know Larry Montanez,
he's a consultant, and he says
you really need a better camera,
a high-quality camera, one that can zoom in,
especially like on some of your individual parts
where you need a really good picture,
he thinks probably you need a higher-end camera.
And especially a lot of the repair shops
working directly with the insurance company,
just from the photos, so it probably is a good idea
to have a high-quality camera to take these photos.
And I remember whenever I was an insurance adjuster,
we used to use a 35-millimeter cameras,
and we'd take these pictures,
and we would have to go get 'em developed,
and that was pretty expensive.
I mean today, it is so simple.
You just take a picture, plug it into the computer,
and there it is, and you can send it
to the insurance company, the customer,
or whoever.
And another good thing about having a camera.
Most cameras, most cell phones, sometimes
you may need to take a video.
I mean a video may tell the story better
than just a still picture.
So most cell phones and cameras have the capability
to take a quick video clip of what you're talking about,
maybe you can point at something
or talk about what you're trying to point out,
and sometimes that might be the easiest thing to do.
And of course, like I mentioned earlier,
you need good lighting, and part of that,
you're gonna need a flashlight
because some of those places, I don't care
how good the lighting is,
you're gonna need a flashlight to see some
of those dark areas.
Now you're gonna need some hand tools.
You're probably not gonna need a full,
roll-around box like a lot of your techs have,
but just some basic tools,
screwdrivers, wrenches, sockets, trim tools,
just some of those basic things.
Maybe you need to take a bumper cover off
or a door panel, just enough tools
to get that off, just some basic hand tools.
And you're just gonna need a paint mil gauge,
and this just basically measures the paint
to let you know are you gonna have to strip,
partial strip, or you can you just final sand and paint,
because that's gonna determine the cost of the estimate.
And it's also a good idea to have a body filler gauge
or magnet to determine the area
that you're gonna be working on,
has it got prior damage or body filler,
that may eliminates some problems
that you could run into.
And you're gonna need some measuring equipment,
a tape measure and tram gauge, for sure,
and there might be cases where you really need
to put it on the frame machine,
and get a computerized reading
of the extent of the damage.
And you're gonna need a scan tool.
A lot of times with your electrical components,
you don't know until you scan it,
so you'll need a scan tool
so that you can read the codes.
And you're gonna need estimating guides
or a computerized system,
so that you can get the parts prices,
the labor times and all that,
probably just about everybody has moved
to computerized systems.
I know CCC 1, Mitchell, and there's others too,
but you're gonna need something like that
or there might still be a few shops out there
that do use the estimating guide,
smaller shops that don't do a lot of volume,
they may use the estimating guides,
but you're gonna need something
that you can look up the car,
get the price of the parts,
and the labor time for those parts.
And you're gonna need some office supplies
to write customers' names down,
and notes that you're gonna take during the day,
there's gonna be a lot of them.
You need pencils and pens and notepads,
things like that.
You're also gonna need a place
for your computer, of course,
and you're gonna need a phone.
You are gonna be on the phone a lot.
You're gonna be calling the insurance companies, customers,
updating them on the progress of their car,
so you need to have an area
that you can concentrate in
and have a phone available when you need it.
And you're gonna need an area
to consult with customers.
Now this may be the area where you write the estimates
and all that or maybe a separate area.
It's just going to depend on your shop
and how they're set up and how they do that,
but you're gonna need an area
to consult with the customers,
talk to them, and explain the process to 'em,
and explain the estimate to 'em,
and hopefully sell the job to 'em.
And I know there are some shops that even have an area
for the insurance adjusters,
they have their own area to generate estimates
and to consult with customers.
As always, I appreciate you for watching these videos.
I hope you enjoyed the lesson
about auto estimating.
I hope that you learned some from that.
And if you did, if you liked the video,
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And remember, if something's worth doing,
do your best and have a blast doing it.
Thanks for watching.
Take care, and we'll see you
in the next video.
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