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I-CAR launches collision repair calibration database on RTS portal

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Announcements | Associations | Education | Repair Operations | Technology
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I-CAR announced Tuesday a new resource for collision repairers, glass shops and insurers trying to keep up with all the sensors and cameras on vehicles.

Director of industry technical relations Jason Bartanen shared the latest Repairability Technical Support portal feature with the Collision Industry Conference on Tuesday. The new calibration matrix, available here, allows the nearly 110,000 RTS users to look up all the options that might be found on nearly all 2016 vehicles, what they’re called and how to calibrate them.

“I-CAR is committed to helping the industry respond to the ‘Technical Tsunami™’, and the emerging arena of diagnostics, or scanning, and calibration is an area where I-CAR has established an industry leadership role to ensure proper knowledge and skills are developed and applied in the repair process. We are actively working with the inter-industry to clarify and resolve points of technical confusion, and developing related information tools and curriculum enhancements that will roll out in the coming years,” I-CAR President and CEO John Van Alstyne said in a statement Tuesday. “This new search tool, which represents hundreds of hours of time to develop, is representative of the value our Repairability Technical Support, or RTS services are delivering to the inter-industry.”

This screenshot from the I-CAR Repairability Technical Support portal shows the new calibration database announced Nov. 1, 2016, by I-CAR. (Screenshot from rts.i-car.com)

Bartanen said that the Version 1 launched Tuesday includes 85-90 percent of the 2016 model year. The goal for Version 2, targeted for Dec. 31, is the full model year. In the future, I-CAR will expand the database to the 2017 model year, and it might even work backwards to the 2014-15 model year, he said.

While repairers won’t be able to look up the specific vehicle by VIN, you can look up a particular make/model combination to see all the options possible on that vehicle. This feature will use the OEM terminology — useful in referencing the calibration procedures in OEM documentation.

The calibration database includes all of the advanced driver assistance systems handled through a particular piece of technology — for example, a camera behind the windshield which handles lane keeping and automatic braking — and where that technology is located. It also lists whether a scan tool is necessary for calibration to occur and whether a diagnostic trouble code or malfunction indicator dash light is triggered by a system fault, according to Bartanen.

“I-CAR believes this will be a great resource for repair professionals to leverage during the damage analysis process,” Bartanen said in a statement Tuesday. “If, during damage analysis/blueprinting, an estimator or auto physical damage appraiser (APDA) identifies that a vehicle is equipped with ADAS, a quick visit to the RTS Portal will identify those conditions that will require post-repair calibration for that system. This will help in development of the repair plan, and doing this work in advance will improve cycle time.”

This screenshot from the I-CAR Repairability Technical Support portal shows the 2016 Ford F-150 on the new calibration database announced Nov. 1, 2016, by I-CAR. (Screenshot from rts.i-car.com)

I-CAR’s also working on a document of calibration best practices, with a follow-up summit scheduled Wednesday to discuss an initial draft, he said.

For those who weren’t aware of the Repairability Technical Support portal, check it out. Launched in 2014, it now boasts around 40,000 pages of content, including a technical news feed.

The portal is free for I-CAR Gold Class and Road to Gold shops, anybody who’s earned Platinum status and anyone enrolled in I-CAR training. Or, you can subscribe.

For those without a subscription, see a preview of the calibration site here.

More information:

I-CAR Repairability Technical Support portal

I-CAR Calibration Matrix

I-CAR Calibration Matrix preview

Images:

Jason Bartanen of I-CAR speaks Tuesday about the new I-CAR calibration database. (John Huetter/Repairer Driven News)

This screenshot from the I-CAR Repairability Technical Support portal shows the new calibration database announced Nov. 1, 2016, by I-CAR. (Screenshot from rts.i-car.com)

This screenshot from the I-CAR Repairability Technical Support portal shows the 2016 Ford F-150 on the new calibration database announced Nov. 1, 2016, by I-CAR. (Screenshot from rts.i-car.com)

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