New technologies quicken collision recovery

FAIRFIELD — Mack’s Automotive on South 17th Street in Fairfield specializes in collision repair, helping its customers restore their car and aiding them with their insurance claim.

The business’s owner is Jason Craun, who reopened the body shop in 2019 that was founded by his grandfather Daryl McDowell in 1959, and continued by Craun’s father Doug McDowell from 1979 until 1995. Craun said he worked under his dad for 13 years before making a career change that took him into the corporate world for nearly two decades.

Even while Craun was busy with his new career as an accountant, he maintained an interest in cars, and did paint jobs on the side. One of the motivating factors behind his decision to re-enter the automotive industry was that he noticed how much technology had changed since the era of his father and grandfather.

For instance, when a motorist strikes a deer and damages their car, they have to take the car in to get an insurance assessment. Decades ago, this was a laborious process.

“To write an assessment in the 1970s or 1980s would take a half to three-quarters of a day, because it was all done by hand,” Craun said. “It took forever to look things up in Mitchell Books. Now it’s all computerized, so you can write an estimate in minutes instead of hours.”

Craun said that leap in efficiency means that the business can do 14-20 estimates in a day, compared to one or two in previous decades.

Mack’s Automotive runs a diagnostic test on damaged cars to learn what parts of the car are malfunctioning.

“If you have a deer hit, and you repair everything but don’t do a scan, you won’t know that some of your sensors are not working,” Craun said. “But the scan tool will identify those. It will tell you what’s damaged and what needs to be replaced.”

Some collisions require major reconstruction of a car’s body, and sometimes a collision leaves behind nothing more than a few scratches. To know the best way to handle a scratch or a gouge, Craun recommends having a professional look it over.

“Sometimes you can cut and buff those out, and sometimes they’re going to need a little refinish work,” he said.

If a person feels the scratch is too small to warrant refinishing, Craun said they should be mindful that leaving a scratch untreated leads to quicker rusting of the steel.

“We are in the Rust Belt, so you want to keep your car clear,” he said. “The salt and chemicals on the road are pretty corrosive, so the more times you can wash, clean and wax your car, the better it will be.”

Today, Mack’s Automotive employs seven automotive techs. Craun said the business’s niche is its equipment, such as its Global Finishing Solutions paint booth.

“The paint booth alone costs more than the building and the ground it sits on,” Craun said. “We have the ability to bake on the finish, and start assembling the car in 30 minutes. In the 1980s, when you painted a car, you might be able to work on it the next day.”

Craun said the business is about to undertake an exciting expansion. He purchased the former WLD Service building on South 23rd Street, and he’s planning a 16,000-square-foot expansion to it. That will make room for two paint booths, and make it easier to serve large vehicles like buses and semis. Mack’s Automotive works on school buses for numerous districts in the area such as Fairfield, Davis County, WACO and Washington.

Craun said the building’s layout has already been sketched, so he’s hoping to start on construction either late this year or early next year.

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com

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