D & D Autoworks and Collision

D & D Autoworks and Collision takes on structural and cosmetic accident repair from Commerce Drive: dent work, frame and structural correction, and paint. The structural half is the part that has changed most in the last twenty years, and it is where the difference between shops now lies — not in whether a panel can be made to look right, but in whether what is underneath it has been returned to specification.

Context

Vehicles stopped having frames in the sense the word implies. A modern unibody is a structure of stamped and formed sections designed to collapse in a planned sequence, and the material varies deliberately from one section to the next. Crash structures and safety cages increasingly use boron and other ultra-high-strength steels that get their strength from heat treatment during manufacture. Heating one to pull it straight destroys exactly the property it was chosen for, which is why manufacturers specify that such parts be sectioned at defined points or replaced outright rather than repaired. Aluminum structures add their own requirements — isolated tooling to avoid cross-contamination, and rivet-bonding instead of welding. Getting it right is a measuring exercise: three-dimensional systems compare the damaged shell against factory datum points, and the target is the specification, not the eye.

Worth reading alongside this: the mechanical repair shops in the directory and Thinking About Moving to St. George?. The directory lists all Auto Body & Collision.

Nearby: Hirschi Roofing & Insulation, American Grinders, Paradise Landscape.