Though it didn’t go as far as FCA to demand pre-repair scans for every vehicle, Nissan on Monday declared that every vehicle must be scanned after a collision repair.

“It is the stance of Nissan North America, that all of our vehicles be scanned following a collision repair to help ensure the vehicles’ systems are communicating properly with no trouble codes outstanding,” Nissan wrote in one of 13 position statements packaged together Monday. “It is also recommended that, where appropriate, a pre-repair scan also be completed for reasons mentioned above. The safety of our customers is our number one priority, and we believe these pre- and post-repair scans are more and more integral to a safe, quality repair. We ask the general repair industry to adhere to these strict guidelines going forward.” (Emphasis Nissan’s.)

While not taking an absolute position on pre-repair scans as the OEM did with post-repair scans, Nissan called pre-repair scans “necessary in most repair situations.”

Besides being a frequent necessity to preserve passenger safety and comfort, pre-repair scans might just be good business anyway for repairers and insurers. If both parties have an additional level of detail on how extensive the repair will be, it might produce a more accurate delivery date estimate, fewer supplements, and a better sense of whether a car should just be declared totaled.

“A pre-repair system scan can identify items up front that are malfunctioning on a vehicle,” Nissan wrote. “This helps the repair facility to fully understand the scope of the collision repair, even before starting.”

A Nissan representative said the position statement anthology would be provided online within the next few days. (We had received the PDF copy above from a source.)

We’ll close with a little trivia from Collision Diagnostic Services, which as of November 2015 did about 80 remote scans a month for auto body shops: What generates the most trouble codes?

The Top 3, according to CDS:

1. Hard structural hits.
2. Bumper covers.
3. Paintless dent repair.

More information:

“POSITION STATEMENT: Pre- and Post-Repair System Scanning”

Nissan, June 20, 2016

Images:

Nissan Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn poses with the mid-cyle-refreshed  2016 Nissan Altima. (Provided by Nissan)

Though it didn’t go as far as FCA to demand pre-repair scans for every vehicle, Nissan on Monday declared that every vehicle must be scanned after a collision repair.