There is a guy on Youtube that does Auto repair.

Unlike the guys that spend 15 minutes talking about themselves, then 5 minutes repairing the car while skipping everything important and then another 20 minutes talking about themselves.

This guy spends very little time talking and it's just videos of him working. He does skip stuff that isn't body repair like pulling the drive train and such but he makes it look easy.

He repairs cars that shops around here wouldn't even think about fixing.

Seeing what this guy repairs has me thinking is the labor that cheap over there or what.?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR2f-q4WPfs

There was some russians where I lived in middle tennessee who would buy two identicle wrecked cars, typically one hit in the front and one hit in the butt and cut them in half with a sawzawl, right through fuel lines and harness brake lines... and splice everything back together, weld up the sheet metal, throw on some paint and run them through the auctions, some of the worst cars ever "made in america" !

That vid shows me whats wrong with alot of practices in our country.

Outwardly it doesnt look like hack work, mabye they know something about value and economics then we do. Maybe not.

That bmw took him 27 work days to fix. How much is the car worth?

$60k. The truth of the matter is is there is no inspection, no safety checks, no emissions, no warranty, no guarantee of work done where he is at. The odds of that car being 100% factory operational is not even 1%. I have European friends that tell me stories on these 'gypsy' car builders and there was never a happy point to it. These cars are scrapped because the safety crumple zones have been damaged, so it there is another accident, there could be serious injuries caused as of a result of the repairs done. Seen alot of cobbled cars over the years, scary of what hides under a layer of filler and paint.

Dude is a total hack from a collision repair standpoint. Doesn't follow OEM repair procedures, doesn't repair vehicles properly, fixes things that the factory requires to be replaced if damaged. He's very talented, but should work on old cars and such, not doing collision repair on modern vehicles.

The vehicle in question was not repaired properly, not even close. He didn't even mount it on a dedicated fixture, as required by BMW. He just clamped the pinch welds and yanked away. I'm not sure BMW approves adhesive bonding for the roof. I'd have to look that up.

i agree 100%.
i didn't watch this video, just the first 30 seconds to see who he was. i have see a couple of his repairs on facebook when they popped up.
i remember one i watched. he was repairing a late model VW Tiguan. these cars have a ultra high strength steel center pillar. i think they are made out of boron steel. guy took out a torch and heated up the center pillar to rough straighten it. he then cut it down the middle and butt welded a used replacement part in it's place. when you do this it heats out the additional alloys that make it high strength steel. it turns ultra high strength steel into regular mild steel.
i commented he just made a 5 star side impact car a 0 star safety rated one. if the car was ever hit again in the repaired area someone might be seriously hurt or even die from the crash.. he or someone that does his videos got really testy and blocked me from his feed.


i didn't watch the video, but as far as the roof bad fix. i bet he bonded it and didn't even weld it where the pinch weld meets the inner structure. i really don't know of any auto maker allows this any more .not only is it welded it has to be weld bonded where you use a squeeze welder that duplicates the factory spot welds just like the factory does. you do the spot weld thru the glue.

Thanks to all of you who commented. That is one of the reasons I like this site.

It's all about perspective.

I was amazed at the work put in for the probable return, but I didn't think about the heat treated pillars being welded and other stuff not up to spec.


He does have a slide puller I like. It spot welds the tip to the car, he yanks it, and then twists it to break the puller loose. Not great for hard dents but he uses it pop low spots up quickly.

those "nail guns" [i forget what the correct name for those are] work really slick !
they can be had pretty cheap, maybe around $99.00 [?].
i used a cheapy one a couple of times, and it worked pretty good ! if a guy was going to be doing a bunch of work, it would be wise to get a quality tool, but for occasional use the cheapy's work surprisingly well.

The nail guns are usually called stud welders. With any HHS structural repair you are required to resistance spot weld and only section in I Car or factory recommend locations, most of the time it is a complete panel replacement as sectioning is a not approved, but that holds true in North America only apparently. Our local insurance company is selling through Impact aka Adessa and seems most of the newer vehicles are going to foreign countries and at astronomical prices, prices at times are at what the vehicle would be worth after the repair. Possible money laundering? No hard working tradesperson is going to pay those kind of prices, at least I'm not.7

I have a Stud Welder that looks like an Oversize gun that leaves studs (they look like nails) welded to the body. I then use a dent puller to pull on the studs. Finally I grind off the studs.

The one he uses that intrigues me is like a stud welder that has a slide hammer built in and the stud is part of the gun. He welds the end of the apparatus to the body, slide hammers it and then twists it off.

Here is a picture. I am not even sure what to call it, but I want one.

"Spitznagel" was the name many years back for the spot-weld-then-slide-hammer style.
Literally, "spits nails" in German.

There are some of those Russian guys in Spokane. The cars are a horror show in person, not to mention the non-ICAR levels of repair.
Sometimes the folks that bought the cars would come in for subsequent repairs or related post-repairs, and I'd turn them away.
You open those cans, and they blow up in your face.

No way this guy has a squeeze welder. No way. Again, total butcher. I wouldn't put anyone I cared about...hell, anyone I was indifferent about...in a car he fixed.

The Throw Away Economy meets The Frugal Economy.

..essentially yes - labor is cheap, at least in the cash economy, as opposed to going through "official" channels..

We're not comparing apples to apples when we compare this to "Western" standards...
Hundreds of years of engrained cultural and consumer differences make our economic attitudes completely different.

For hundreds of years, the world around us lived with a relative Scarcity of goods.
Just look how a WW2 Generation person treats their possessions.
They are frugal.
Goods were bought, used, maintained, repaired, handed down and used again, until their useful life was up.
After that the goods were repurposed (clothes turn into garage rags, tractor drivetrains used to power skilifts, a new engine transplanted into car chassis, etc.).

These repurposing and underground economies are a "natural" phenomenon, and active in places like Russia, China, Peru, Bangladesh, India, Cuba of course, etc..
The Rich in those countries have or are moving to the culture of Abundance, but not the population in general.

Few people can afford official labor prices or going to a dealership, so handymen like this and demand from those who can't afford better, motivate the underground economy.
Only The Rich in those countries scrap or abandon their cars. Repair shops bring them back to life - whatever that life means for the car and the next buyer.
For instance, there is (or was) an active trade in used-up Japanese sedans being shipped from US to South America because the demand for re-juvenated old Japanse cars and pickups is so high there.

We here in the US and Europe live in a culture of Abundance - cars, food, clothing, goods of all kinds - we have everything in abundance.
We use it and throw it away the moment it isn't good enough.

Over there it is completely natural to rebuild stuff.

This Is The Way.
- Art

Russia has a high tax for vehicles imported from other countries. At one time it was 100% of the cost of the vehicle. It has been reduced but still is about 45%. Something like 25% import tax and 20% VAT.

Very true. The issue with guys like this are that the technology they are working on has changed dramatically, but the technology they are using to fix it has not.

EXACTLY....there is no way on the planet that car could have been repaired according to FACTORY PROCEDURES and not cost more than buying a new car.
the labor part is probably less than 1/3 of the cost of the replacement parts.
and NO you can't install "SALVAGE" ultra high strength parts and not destroy the high strength part of the steel.

before you start claiming "GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS created this problem. this comment can't be more wrong. this problem is determined by LIABILITY LAWS.
in the USA, if a legitimate shop does this type of repairs they are required to stand behind their repair for the life of the car.
basically in the US the hack used car re builder does the repair than sells the car wholesale his liability ends the day he sold the car wholesale in AS IS condition. the poor dealer who bought the car is responsible for it if it's sold to the customer or he sells it wholesale to some other dealer.
there are auction rules requiring the sellers to buy back cars if there are problems with title branding and things like that. but the hack repairer really doesn't have to stand behind his repairs. if this were actually the case there wouldn't be any hack car re builders.

That's what people outside of the industry are likely unaware of. Just because you can make something look nice, or make something fit, or make something straight, doesn't mean you've fixed it properly. There are too many alloys used in vehicle construction now to just assume everything can be repaired.

I think he'd be a very good restorer. He clearly has skills. What he doesn't have is the proper equipment and proper techniques to repair modern vehicles. He fixed that car like it was a 1985 Caprice.

Also, to further Mr. T's point, anyone who thinks his comments about guaranteeing the work and the liability held by the repair shop should google John Eagle Collision Center.

Hack repairs would be amusing except that you're playing with people's lives. In the 1970's there was a shop in my area that specialized in rebuilding (drum roll, please...) Ford Granadas and Mercury Monarchs. The cars looked OK but the workmanship was terrible. I saw one that broke in half shortly after it was repaired. They soon figured out that it was MUCH easier to steal a good car and switch dash pads that had the VIN. That didn't last too long....one day they were visited by a bunch of blue-and-white Plymouths with red lights on their roofs.

i will add this is why we have ultra high strength steel in modern cars.
this 2019 VW tiguan got towed into out shop around august of last year.
i don't know the exact details of the crash. all i have heard is someone didn't stop at a light in a 35mph zone. it could have been a left turn in front of someone. or possibly someone ran a changing light and the person turned thinking someone would have stopped.


there was a 16yo boy sitting in the passenger seat. the only thing that happened to hims is he got 2 cracked ribs, he crawled thru to the drivers side door and was walking around when the ambulance showed up.


to highlight the importance of high strength steel. see the last pic. see how the center pillar is still pretty straight. also see how above the head is still pretty straight. this is because there is a ultra high strength steel frame under the exterior sheetmetal. the high strength steel still stays straight protecting the passengers in the car. and the crash forces are transferred to the outer areas. see how the roof is crushed? this happened because the impact forces were transferred thru the ultra high strength steel to the roof where the forces are absorbed my collapsing. the cowl of the car also collapsed absorbing crash forces also. i am also sure the forces were transferred by making the car go airborne across a couple of lanes of traffic.
just to show the extent of the damage the center post was pushed in about 8"