Citing new Enterprise Rent-A-Car data, I-CAR announced that customers of the country’s top 100 Gold Class shops only had to rent vehicles for an average of 6.5 days while their own cars were being fixed — nearly half the time of the national average.

Enterprise reported Friday that national average rental time related to vehicle repair was 11.5 days in January-March, about a tenth of a day less than the first quarter of 2014. I-CAR’s top 100 shops saw customers returning their keys to one of Enterprise’s more than 5,500 locations in 6.5 days.

The top 500 Gold Class shops cut the loan duration down to 7.9 days in the first quarter, and I-CAR Gold Class shops on average knocked more than a day off the rental time to 10.2 days.

If you needed a “What’s in it for me?” reason to train your staff, there it is, according to I-CAR CEO John Van Alstyne, who in April lamented the lack of continuing education industrywide.

“This new data further supports the significant advantages of Gold Class® shops,” Van Alstyne said in a statement. “Not only are shops better qualified to perform proper repairs and do so more cost effectively, consumers and insurance companies also save money. Plus, consumers gain peace of mind knowing technicians with updated industry-standard training are repairing their vehicles, which contributes to complete, safe and quality repairs. This data complements other related I-CAR data that shows the positive impact training has on shop KPIs [key performance indicators], and the further performance benefits that accrue to shops that possess a culture of learning or as I-CAR refers to it, a ‘Learning Culture.'”

Enterprise attributed the overall 2.4-hour reduction in average rental time to factors including better weather in the Midwest and the vehicles and procedures involved in the repair.

“A variety of factors likely drove the slight decrease in LOR, including more mild Midwest weather conditions despite record snowfalls in the Northeast,” Enterprise collision industry relations Assistant Vice President Frank LaViola said in a statement. “The type and complexity of vehicles paired with existing vehicle repair methods also play a continued role in repair time fluctuations.”

We’ve reached out to Enterprise for elaboration on the impact repair methodology and vehicle changes have on cycle times. Check Repairer Driven News for updates.

The Midwest itself saw a more than half-day improvement in rental times to 10.5 days, according to Enterprise, supporting LaViola’s weather analysis. (The actual decrease is unclear; Mitchell puts it at 0.6 days, but a LaViola article for Mitchell reports the Midwest had an 11.2-day average in the first quarter of 2014.)

European cars took the longest to repair on average, Enterprise data indicated, with customers renting from the Enterprise fleet for 12.45 days compared to 10.89 for everything else manufactured abroad and 11.03 days for American cars. Data for cars in January-March 2014 were not immediately available.

More information:

“Enterprise Rent-A-Car Releases First Quarter 2015 Rental Data”

Enterprise Rent-A-Car, May 22, 2015

“How to Become the Best in Collision Repair”

I-CAR, 2015

“Length Of Rental Continues Upward Trend in Q1 2014”

Enterprise via Mitchell Q2 Auto Damage Repair Industry Trends Report, 2014

Featured image: Customer service representatives Oneal West, left, and Marmontel Michel wait on customers at Enterprise Rent-A-Car at the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International airport July 10, 2007, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. ( Joe Raedle/Getty Images News file)