Working With A Body Shop To Make Frame Repairs After A Collision

Vehicle collisions can be very minor and only cause light damage to your car, or they can be bad enough to bend the frame supporting the vehicle and cause it to drive and handle poorly. If you have significant damage after an accident, an auto collision repair shop with a frame machine, and other specialty equipment, may be necessary to make the repairs your car or truck needs.

Frame Damage

If you are involved in an accident or collision with your vehicle, one of the first things you need to check is how much damage the car has sustained. A car with frame damage is harder to repair, and if the frame is badly deformed, it can be challenging to align any of the body panels on the vehicle. 

An auto collision repair shop with a frame rack may be able to straighten the vehicle's frame, but they will need to inspect the damage and measure how far out of spec it is. A frame with too much damage may not straighten completely, so all the measurements must be checked before any work starts. 

Pulling The Frame

Once the car is on the frame machine at the auto collision repair shop, the frame is secured to the rack in several places, and a computer is used to calculate the amount of pressure needed to pull the frame back into its original shape. The process is tedious, and often adjustments are made in very small increments to ensure the frame is not pulled so far that it deforms in the opposite direction. 

As the adjustments to the frame are underway, the technician running the frame machine will continue to measure the progress and verify things until they achieve desired results. The final measurement comes from the computer, and once everything is aligned, the vehicle can come off the frame rack, and the remaining damage repair can begin.

Additional Inspections

When the vehicle is hit hard enough to damage the frame in a collision, many additional parts can also sustain damage. Suspension and steering parts need checking because they are attached directly to the frame and can bend or twist during the crash. 

The auto collision repair technician working on your car will go over all the systems under it, checking the mounting points on the frame, and ensuring that anything is fixed correctly before the reassembly begins. Once the frame is straight, damage to the remaining parts may become obvious but everything under the car should be inspected several times throughout the repair process to ensure everything is coming together and working the way it is designed. 

For more information, contact an auto collision repair service near you.

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