Supplements: A Tale of Additional Damage, Time, and Cost

Your car needs to be repaired, and you're wondering, how long will it take to fix? How much will it cost? Is there a chance that these factors change? These are all good questions to ask when it comes to auto repair. As you know, cars aren't just four wheels and a seat, they're a lot more than that, especially modern cars (say, anything built after 1990), which are more like rolling super computers rather than simple A-to-B transportation.

The answers to these questions are unfortunately not always initially clear, which is understandably a source of confusion and frustration. Why is it going to cost more? Why is it going to take another 3 days? Who's paying for this? The truth is, nobody knows until the repairs get started and the damage is further investigated. 

Regarding the additional damage/increased cost question, we ask, what happens that causes these figures to change? Let's go through the process one step at a time:

1. First, your car is involved in some sort of collision that inflicts damage to it; the damage could be anywhere from extremely minor and purely cosmetic, to severe and requiring extensive repair that could involve frame, mechanical, and/or electrical damage. 
2. The next step would be to get the damage evaluated. An estimate will be written for the damage as seen from the outside of the car, without much disassembly of any of the car's components, and will be a close approximation of how much it will cost and how long it will take. Notice we said it's a close approximation; this comes back to cars being rolling super computers made of a thousands and thousands of individual pieces. After the car is disassembled, any number of things could arise that were impossible to detect without a deeper look. Additional items could be: more broken parts that spill out from the inside of the car (example: front end hit was discovered to have a damaged radiator, only clearly visible after the front bumper and grille are removed), additional damage/denting/twisting/warping of metal parts that require more labor hours to fix, as well as any of the car's ECU's (electronic control modules) requiring diagnostic scans/resets/reprogramming/calibration after a collision. Increased part prices are also common as auto manufacturers routinely raise their prices. 
3. After the initial evaluation, the car is dropped off at the repair shop to get fixed, and the vehicle is disassembled for a thorough analysis of what happened during the collision, and what steps need to be taken to return the vehicle to as close to factory-new condition as possible. This is when the estimate will likely be revised to include the additional items discussed in the previous step. In the industry, this is known as a supplement. Essentially, you supplement (or add on) the original estimate with the additional items that need to be addressed. Important: The total cost of the repair almost always will rise to reflect the difference. Note: On some occasions, the final price may actually be lower than the initial estimate, if some items ended up not being needed or if part prices have since been lowered; we call these negative supplements, which are rare, but do occur. Once all the damage is thoroughly evaluated, a final price figure can then be put together. 

Next we address the repair timeline. If additional damage is discovered, it's clear that it will take longer to fix than initially anticipated. How much longer? Well, that comes down to how much additional damage there is. Specifically, timeline changes/delays are caused by:

1. More physical damage simply needs more time to fix. Also consider that these damages also need to be treated for corrosion, and exterior panels need full blown refinishing (repainting) to make it look perfect again. The time required to address the additional damage could be anywhere from 1 or 2 extra days, to another week. Every case is different and requires a tailored approach, but typically, things like straightening bent metal, correcting frame damage, and other such items don't take much time at all and should only change the timeline by a day or two. 
2. Parts! Parts are usually the #1 bottleneck causing issue, not just for auto repair, but anything in any industry. If you take a bumper off and find that the bumper reinforcement is completely bent out of a shape (an item that must be replaced and should not ever be repaired), but the reinforcement will take 3-4 days to get, then the repair timeline just got stretched by 3-4 days. Unfortunately, this isn't an item that you know is damaged from the onset of the repair, it's hidden beneath layers of body work. Unless you're Superman and you have X-ray vision, you have to accept the changing circumstances and do your best to expedite the repair to make up for the lost time. 
3. Paperwork processing delays. If an insurance company is paying for the repairs, chances are your claim adjuster is inundated with hundreds of claims that they need to process, so waiting for their approval for the additional damages could understandably take some time; there's only so much one person can do, therefor we try to present them with a neat, organized package to make their lives a little easier and move the repair along in a timely fashion.  

The practice of evaluating damage is increasingly difficult as cars become more and more complex. The introduction of Advanced Driver Assist Systems such as speed-sensing radar, lane departure warning systems, collision preventing auto braking systems, and much much more, cause repair complexity and overall severity to increase, which makes having a perfect initial estimate that much more difficult. The goal is to minimize supplements as much as possible, but sometime they're unavoidable. Either way, it's best to have trained and experienced technicians and damage evaluation teams to take care of your car (like us). 

Thanks for reading!