Kurt Lammon, President of Polyvance, requests collision repair shops to have their technicians trained in plastic repair.

Polyvance offers hands-on courses on plastic repair, equipping technicians with the knowledge on welding plastics with nitrogen, welding thermoset polyurethane, and repairing common types of plastic damage, among other things.

“Polyvance’s training organization is accredited by ASE-ATMC as an adult education provider and Polyvance is an approved I-CAR Industry Training Alliance program training provider,” states Lammon, in a release. “In I-CAR’s October 2019 edition of Collision Reporter magazine, they summarize the many changes to their Gold Class and Platinum programs. From now on, in order to maintain Gold Class status, a shop is going to need two Hands-On Skills Development courses each year. Thankfully, all of our hands-on courses—the PR-01, PR-02, and PR-04 — are acceptable alternatives to I-CAR’s hands-on plastic repair course,” he explained.

The company also offers two online video-based training courses that allow technicians to learn at their own pace—PR-03 and EPR-01. The PR-03 Headlight Repair course aims at training technicians on how to evaluate if a damaged headlight can be repaired, how to use a nitrogen plastic welder to fusion weld broken headlight tabs and the method of refinished a headlight tab to its original look after it has been repaired.

The EPR-01 Estimating Plastic Repair course is designed for technicians, as well as collision damage estimators. Taking this course will help them understand whether the damaged plastic parts are reparable.

“The student will learn the various aspects of plastic bumper damage that affect its repairability, including plastic deformation, crack length, and damage location. The final EPR-01 module will introduce the student to a plastic bumper repairability scale which ranks plastic bumper damage on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being ‘very easy’ to 5 being ‘impossible’ or ‘extremely difficult’,” according to Lammon.

Polyvance’s training department can be contacted at 800-633-3047 to register for a course. Alternatively, interested students can also go to polyvance.com/Training-2/.