Associated Collision Center wants you to be safe, here is some important information about Advance Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) that we want you to be aware as you drive cars equipped with these systems.

Keeping that in mind, another important area of advancement for consideration is advanced driver assistance systems. Along with all of the conversation surrounding EVs, ADAS is also undoubtedly a hot topic right now.

Some shops are leaning into it, and some are leaning away. But what aspects should shops really be focusing on? Seyfer says it depends on your shop’s discipline.

“If you’re in the collision industry, you need to be aware. You need to be capable of providing service for those by whatever means you do it,” Seyfer says. “But for general repair shops … those vehicles can’t be aligned without some kind of calibration, and that will change as more and more dynamic cars come online. But you still have to calibrate them.”

Understanding ADAS calibration and repair procedures is crucial if you don’t want to be turning away repairs. In order to avoid miscommunication with a customer, Seyfer says it’s important to be well-versed on the processes and procedures ahead of time. Put in the work to understand ADAS, and it will pay off.

“If you’re still thinking that this is a trend that is not going to go on or these cars will be completely self calibrating, that’s not actually going to be the case,” Seyfer says.

Seyfer goes on to say that another step worth taking involves customer education. Currently, ADAS has the potential to interfere with how a driver performs on the road. That is to say that these systems are not perfect, even if they are well intended. Seyfer is hopeful that in the future ADAS will only help and not cause distractions for drivers.

“They know it’s there, but I don’t think they have any idea in most cases what’s involved in making those systems work properly after what they would consider a simple operation like an alignment,” Seyfer says of general customer knowledge on ADAS. “As a repair shop, you have to be aware of this.”

This also ties into who is hired on as technicians. Who are the people in your shop educating the customers and doing these complex repairs?

The labor shortage throughout the industry right now certainly does not make this question any easier to consider, but Seyfer has an idea of the right approach, which unsurprisingly has to do with shedding perspective on the situation.

“Where I would be focusing is that technician/IT mindset,” Seyfer says. “Because everything on the cars anymore is on the network in some way, shape or form. So, someone’s got to be able to service the network.”

Donny Seyfer, executive officer for NASTF,

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