Auto Repair: Some auto dealerships shutting down auto body shops
Stung by equipment, staffing and environmental issues, car dealerships are closing their body shops.
Only 40 percent of the more than 21,000 new car dealers have a collision repair shop, down from 70 percent in 1974.
“It’s a business that you either have to be in it seriously or be out of it,” says Paul Taylor, economist for the National Automobile Dealers Association.
For consumers, the pullback in dealer collision repair shops could mean problems in getting wrecked specialty cars repaired, especially the new gas-electric hybrid vehicles.
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