View From The Trenches

As I was recently viewing posts on the AGRR forum, my eyes caught a phrase that really hit home with me and it should with my cohorts in the installation field. The writer who stated he was in the distributing arm suggested: we “get into a quality war instead of a price war.”

What a catch phrase! What a concept!

The only problem I see is: how can we start such a movement?

This is not a local problem. This has nothing to do with brick and mortar stores versus mobiles, chains against independents. What it has to do is treating every job like it should be your own vehicle or your mother’s car.

One change I’ve seen over the years is that installation has become more of a business and less of a craft. The focus seems to be on volume and not upon much else. Pay plans for many installers involve around numbers of jobs completed. To me, those who compete alone on price use shortcuts on practices and in materials. It has pointed toward a downward spiral of quality.

That needs to change.

One reason windshield repair has become more popular is that consumers are worried about having their glasses replaced. (It’s also cheaper, I concede.) That fear factor hardly resonates across other crafts. I’ve stated this before, but people never ask a plumber “will it leak?”

Instead they ask: ”why so much?” It appears that as glass installers, we share with roofers a reputation that is unfortunately negative. If we want respect, we will have to change that by stressing quality far more than we currently prostitute our industry with price.

AGRSS is trying to raise levels of quality awareness on all levels; consumer, insurance and within our trade. I am ashamed to say that there is a sad lack of concern by many of us. In a recent conversation with my West Coast Sika rep, he cited comments of those he had tested (and had failed) with the adhesive certification they offer. The installers who failed showed little or no concern of their shortcomings or lack of the grasp of the product they are using on a daily basis. That in itself is very sad. I cringe at the fact that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of installers that buy and apply adhesives that have no clue of the parameters, drive-away times or proper application techniques of their chosen brand of urethanes.

How can we as installers and business owners raise the level of our trade to the point of respect? First of all, some type of licensing would help. If properly licensed and then found deficient, an installer could be barred from working, even a company could be closed down for unsafe practices. As I write these words, I know full well that as global warming becomes more explicit, hell would have to start to freeze over before licensing would be promoted strongly from within our trade.

I believe that piecework ultimately works against the consumer and the installer but benefits ownership. Speed is not the answer to quality.

What we charge for a windshield install is another matter. I have a very hard time with those who do not have a clue on value or the cost of doing business. Working on an Audi or Lexus is not the same as working on a 1980 Chevy pick-up. We should be charging and paid on the rate of difficulty and expectation.

How can quality control truly be measured? With some of the larger chains, CSI is measured by being on time and the manner of how the vehicle is left clean by the installer. Which is puzzling because so much of the important nature of our work lies hidden under mouldings and cowl. How many of us have been called in on problem cars, only to find clips broken but mouldings glued down, windshields that have been slid under cowls and urethane scraped off as a consequence—or just the fact that some generic moulding had been installed and subsequently blown off?

The last thing I want is to have the consumer discover that his windshield has disengaged from his car during a serious accident. As a business owner, I detest parts of our current tort law system, but until there are more numbers of liability suits brought and won against the purveyors of unprofessional practices, our industry on the whole will only give safety lip service because market share and units installed are currently the currency of how we view success.

I would welcome the day when the normal question I get from callers would be: “What certifications does your installers possess?” instead of “How much?” How much more education and training would take place if our shops lost jobs based on the fact that some competitor was perceived as being smarter and more conscientious in his installation practices?

It’s a war worth starting and winning!

I was at a busy intersection yesterday in San Jose when I looked around and counted four mini pick-ups with windshield installation racks awaiting lights to turn green. No one had a name stenciled on its side, only one had a side or cross toolbox on its truck and all had lites, new or smashed on them. I also saw two cars with blue painter’s tape surrounding their windshields’ perimeters waiting for the light to go their way.

I’ve had a slow start after the Labor Day holiday. The three service calls I had that day all involved repairing or evaluating windshields that someone already had worked on. Two involved missing or loose mouldings. The last one was far more serious—the glass had detached itself at least partially, demanding, at minimum, an R&R.

These first two paragraphs illustrate to me the declining status of our industry. There are too many hack cowboy installation companies and installers out there doing at a minimum, poor quality work, at most inflicting upon the public unsafe and dangerous practices that would affect the consumers that use them.

First of all, someone has to care, like your state government, to stop allowing these kinds of butchers to be able to openly work.

Licensing would be the first step—both of the company and of the installer. Cosmetologists need a state license. While a bad haircut can ruin one’s social standing for a few weeks, people seem to want to forget how much safety and well-being are wrapped up in a proper windshield installation. Simply put, a state-administered test along with some sort of mandated time span of apprenticeship should at least, on the surface, raise the entry-level quality of installers. Citizenship might as well be required.

My second step would require all firms to have liability insurance in order to operate. One thing I have found out over my 26 years in business is that being underwritten for anything puts the onus upon the issuing company. If someone has been sued or cited, it should make it more difficult for that company to get coverage.

Without liability or proper licensing, a resale license, specific for buying auto glass, cannot be issued—therefore making it illegal for a distributor to sell glass or adhesives to just anyone. A bonus law would make the practice of selling used windshields illegal.

Last but not least, a database should be established by VIN number of any and all repairs, including glass installation made on a car. In that way, it could be possible to track most repair transactions as to who did the work. In windshield or back glass, sales distributors would be required to sell glass that is ID’ed and that sale tied to a legally licensed firm.

Since most Californians are suspected of smoking rope, am I being realistic? Is this practical? I hate regulations as much as the next guy. Perhaps even more as a business owner.

However, I love these ideas … but I must be smoking something if I think at this point in time these simple requirements will be enacted in my lifetime.

First of all, most of this can’t be solved nationally by Federal law since windshield replacement is not interstate commerce. It is up to the individual states—50 states with countless entrenched interests. The one exception is the database construction, which could be mandated by Congress.

Let me give the reader some of the hills one has to climb just in my native state.

Being the largest state, California has the most cars and there is no doubt that us Golden Staters love the automobile. We have a serious air quality problem and we have been pioneers for this nation on the higher standards of emission controls on our cars. We have rather stringent pollution inspection and testing that is mandated on all cars in various years of ownership. However, that’s where the inspection process stops. You could bring a car with doors falling off, fuel line leaking, brake pads melted and a smashed windshield in for emission inspection and if it “smogged,” away it went passed.

California has a Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR) that works under the Consumer Affairs Department. If a company works on a car in the state, it is supposed have a license from that state agency. For glass installers with one shop, the fee is $250 per year. Its main purpose is to administer the smog laws and check for fraudulent activity by those holding licenses.

I remember reading a survey that the BAR published a few years ago that cited poor auto glass installation as its second leading source of complaints from consumers. Yet from that same quarterly bulletin, I have never ever once seen a glass shop cited, charged or penalized in any published manner. It is simply not the bureau’s mandate or focus.

In writing this blog, I went to the Consumer Affairs Department website and inquired about the license status of four glass companies with which I am in direct competition and have been for years. None had licenses. This is a classic example of having laws or agencies that have no teeth or the manpower or money to enforce them with. Without public pressure or demand, that situation won’t change.

The next hurdle is the consumer. Many people just want cheap. They are unaware and ignorant of the safety and structural purposes of proper glass installation. As cars age and decline in value along with the rising trend of higher deductibles, more and more situations arise when customers are looking for the cheapest solution available and a segment of our industry is all too willing to meet that demand with little or no concern of proper installation practices.

Check out Craigslist.com or your local Pennysaver and I know you will find “Side-Job Syd ” alive and well and willing to install windshields at low, low prices. Stopping that underground market is almost impossible without money for enforcement. I doubt you would ever be able to truly stop it, only slow it down.

I would bet that if Princess Di met her death by an improperly installed windshield, there would have been such a public outcry that would have spurred reform. To me, that is one of the very sure-fire ways that anything gets done in this country; someone famous dies abruptly or unjustly and the public demands change.

Groups like AGRSS are needed and should be applauded, but their message usually only goes to those who want to be informed. My state does do crackdowns on unlicensed contractors that perform home repair with a value of more than $300. However, how many unsafely installed windshields are being driven behind due to unregulated and slipshod installers and firms?

Whatever change may take place, it may be too late for me. Since 1980, I have established my niche in the auto market and it has shrunk considerably over the past five years, mostly due to the influx of these hacks willing to install glass for next to nothing pricing with no concern for quality.

This not just a local problem that affects just me. It’s national in scope. This situation is as great a threat as what the independent shops have with dealing with large chains, claims administrators and insurers. We are indeed between a rock and a hard spot and will stay that way unless we are able to regain some control of both standards and rates of return that have been greatly diminished lately.

Well, one of the most anticipated events within the AGR industry took place last week and the best word to describe it is this: anticlimactic.

PPG, the largest vertically integrated and perhaps the oldest auto glass corporation, was sold for $500 million to a Beverly Hills-based private equity group. The mystery of what comes next and what effect the sale will have through out the production, wholesale, retail and service ends of our industry will continue to be played out perhaps for years to come.

On the surface, this purchase may be a textbook case of addition by subtraction. The sum of its parts may be far greater than the whole. PPG had its fingers in all segments of AGR and those parts can easily be picked off and sold to parties willing to extend more within their own sphere of influence. That alone will merit much debate within the industry while the sale is scheduled to be consummated in the fourth quarter.

The history of Platinum seems to be of acquisition and not much of sale. In the past they have targeted core industries. They have bought distribution companies and IT companies that service various sectors. The purchase of PPG auto glass gives them an instant presence and influence within the AGR industry. While Platinum may shed a particular function of PPG, it appears to on the surface be able to swallow the company whole and try to shape its purchase into some kind of vision that the principals have. Obviously that vision and the effect of those possible changes need time to play out and to become obvious. To those worried about a sale of LYNX Services to Belron (I admit pecking a few words on this subject), if the history of Platinum is to be considered, it appears that Platinum likes to keep support companies like LYNX Services around making the subject moot, for now.

Who may buy what will kill more than a few trees of newsprint or electrons in cyberspace for a while. I don’t need to submit my degree in prognostication to do so. It’s no leap of faith that this sale will alter the landscape within our industry for years to come. This purchase and whatever will take place later will have everything to do about money and nothing about altruism.

I envision two scenarios. I figure there could be a mad dash to the smorgasbord where the victuals of a PPG sale will be there for consumption. One would assume payment for such a feast would be by Platinum card only. The other mini-play is for Platinum to retire to a corner table at a quiet bistro and begin the romance (or seduction) of its newest conquest. I’m sure a diet plan and perhaps a visit or two to an in-house corporate plastic surgeon may in the works for our frumpy grand old lady of auto glass.

What is certain is that a transformation is ahead and what will emerge will not resemble what we see today. It my hope that that result will be positive for our industry.