The national supply chain shortage has affected all industries but for auto body shops in Linn County, the derecho and the pandemic have added to the strain on these businesses.
MARION, Iowa (KWWL) — The national supply chain shortage has affected all industries but for auto body shops in Linn County, the derecho and the pandemic have added to the strain on these businesses.
Auto body shops are experiencing a backlog of up to three months to get their customers’ vehicles repaired.
The national shortages in labor and the supply chain are slowing the workflow of these businesses, which are trying to repair vehicles that were damaged by the derecho — nearly 15 months ago.
Cheri Schmidt is the general manager of Quality Auto Rebuilders in Marion.
She says many of her customers worked on repairing their damaged homes before their vehicles.
She says when she used to order parts, she received them in a day or two.
“You could have them next day,” Schmidt said.
Now, she says, she has never seen these wait times.
“We have never had indefinite back order on a part and now, it’s common place to say, ‘We can’t get this part for a month to 2 months.’ They have no idea,” Schmidt said.
That causes scheduling how many vehicles the shop can take — difficult.
And the labor shortage is affecting the supply chain shortage.
Dixon Neighbor is the general manager of Abra in Hiawatha.
He says the supply shortage is the worst he has seen in the 27 years he has worked in the business.
“Getting labor on that end to make the parts so we can get the parts to us,” Neighbor said, “I’ve heard anywhere from, ‘There [are] containers out on the sea with our parts in it.”
“I actually had 2 people call in sick today. People are not wanting to work like they used to. I definitely think it had to do with the unemployment benefits they received. It was very difficult to find anybody that wanted to work during that time,” Schmidt said.
She says her technicians work on 50 cars a week, prioritizing the vehicles that can’t be driven first.
But, that means longer wait times for other customers.
Many of those customers have had accidents and their insurance only covers a 30-day rental, which means one more trickle-down effect of the supply chain shortage.
