May 2023 Collision Report- by Micah Strom
Crash Champions announced that it has expanded in the Pacific Northwest by recently opening the doors to its 30th location in the state of Washington. The newest Crash Champions collision repair center officially opened on March 6. The repair center features 10,000 square feet of production space and is located in Kent, Wash. Today, Crash Champions operates more than 600 collision repair centers in 36 states and the District of Columbia.
Two CARSTAR Collision Clinics located in Edmonds and Bellevue, Washington have been sold to Puget Collision, according to a press release. Bruce Lingle was the owner who put the two stores up for sale. He started as a technician before putting 44 years into growing his MSO, beginning with the Edmonds location. Puget Collision’s acquisition of the two shops marks 23 locations owned by the company “throughout Washington and Oregon.”
I-CAR (The Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repair) has announced that American Honda Motor Company enhanced its partnership with I-CAR. They are excited to support Honda/Acura with future delivery of 10 required online courses for collision repair facilities in their network. I-CAR’s learning management system will support technicians with streamlined training easily accessible in one platform alongside all other I-CAR courses. It also enables those repair facilities that currently have a Gold Class training subscription to complete their Honda network training requirements with no additional fees. The online courses will be available at I- CAR.com soon for both the Honda/Acura Certified Collision Network, including 1,800 repair centers, and all collision repair professionals, in alignment with I-CAR’s vision “that every person in the collision repair industry has the information, knowledge and skills required to perform complete, safe and quality repairs for the ultimate benefit of the consumer.”