Accountable Estimating and Polyvance have teamed up to create  the industry’s first plastic repair estimating course. 

Designed to address an industrywide need for education on plastic part damage assessment, Accountable Estimating has joined forces with Polyvance, to introduce the industry’s first course on the topic.

Estimating Plastic Repair (EPR-01) is an online training course divided into four modules. Each module is designed to be less than 30 minutes in duration, allowing the learner to remain on site and in production while completing the training. The course is designed to educate estimators on assessing the repairability of the numerous plastic components found on today’s vehicles, with a primary focus on bumper covers and headlights.

The course takes the estimator through a brief history of plastics, how to identify the different types of plastics, and learning the three main types of plastic repair techniques used in the industry. The course concludes with a series of exercises designed to improve the skills of the estimator, allowing them to more accurately estimate plastic repair. The result will be increased plastic repair profits and a greater ROI on training and equipment.

Accountable Estimating has also introduced Polyvance’s Plastic Bumper Repairability Scale to the collision repair industry. This scale rates damage severity from level 1 to level 5, with level 1 being repairs that could easily be performed by a technician with average plastic repair skills and level 5 being extremely difficult or impossible for that same technician.

Upon completion of this course, the estimator will have a better level of knowledge regarding what to look for when estimating plastic repairs, a greater understanding of the steps required to complete a successful repair and a better ability to communicate with technicians, bill payers and customers regarding the tradeoffs of repair versus replace decisions.