In a column earlier this year, I shared one shop’s story about sunlight getting magnified through a small pool of rainwater that collected in the crash wrap covering a broken sunroof -- causing burn damage to the interior of the vehicle. I recently heard yet another amazing and unexpected collision repair situation, this one from Ryan Clark of Eustis Body Shop, a company with eight shops in Nebraska.
Ryan Clark of Eustis Body Shop was surprised to have the police show up at one of his Nebraska shops, saying they’d been notified of a crash at the location.
Ryan told me they recently had a 2023 Nissan Altima SV in one of his shops for a routine quarter panel hit. When writing the repair plan, the shop determined it would be necessary to replace the left quarter panel on the vehicle. Part of the procedures for replacing the quarter panel is to remove the back glass from the vehicle.
“We had a sublet provider remove the back glass,” Ryan told me. “Another required operation is to disconnect the battery, something we performed multiple times during the repair. The first time the battery was reconnected in order to move the vehicle to a different department, the local police department showed up. The police officer asked if there had been a collision near our shop. We had not heard anything relative to a nearby crash, nor did the office divulge what type of vehicle had triggered the ‘crash event notification,’ so we moved on.”
My first thought as I was hearing about this from Ryan was that this was probably related to some sort of telematic accident alert system, so I would have thought putting the vehicle in service mode until repairs were completed would have solved the issue. But it probably would not have, as Ryan’s story continues.
“The second time we reconnected the battery, after the back glass was removed, the police showed up again,” Ryan told me. “It was at this time that the police told us that it was SiriusXM radio that notified the police of a crash event. We told them they were welcome to take a look around the shop, and it was at this time we determined it was the Nissan Altima leading to the crash notification. We hadn’t disconnected the rear antenna, so at first we were confused about what could be causing these calls.
“However, we did notice during disassembly that the amplifier in the rear glass was damaged upon removing the back glass,” Ryan said. “This amplifier is embedded in the urethane itself, and there was no tangible way on this vehicle to remove the back glass without damaging the amplifier. There was urethane surrounding the disconnect, so we were unable to remove the amplifier prior to removing the back glass.”
Nissan TechConnect information related to the NissanConnect Services and SiriusXM radio.
Ryan said he told the officer the crash notification would likely happen again when the shop next moved the vehicle from the paint department back to the body department.
“He told us he has to act when he gets these types of calls, so he would have to show up again,” Ryan said. “We looked through Nissan TechInfo again, and still couldn’t find a way to disable the SiriusXM radio.”
The police eventually showed up a third time, and that’s when Ryan reached out to me and my team. We also looked through Nissan TechInfo just to see if there was anything Ryan’s shop had missed. When we didn’t find anything, we got Ryan in touch with a Nissan representative.
“Nissan disconnected the SiriusXM for us, and the next time we reconnected the battery, the police did not show up,” Ryan said. “It was the proper fix. We contacted Nissan once repairs were complete, and they turned back on the SiriusXM, we went through our normal post repair routine, and everything was functioning correctly. Eventually Collision Advice, and Danny Gredinberg with the Database Enhancement Gateway, found a work-around in the service section of TechInfo for the future.”
Ryan said this was a first for his company. The police officer told him he’d had similar calls to other body shops related to General Motors vehicles when OnStar hadn’t been disconnected, but that this was the first such incident related to a Nissan.
“We pull procedures on every vehicle, but it just goes to show that there are still things in these newer cars we must be prepared for so we can educate the customer on the potential issues that may arise,” Ryan said.
I want to thank Ryan for allowing me to share his experience. If other readers have similar unusual or unexpected repair experiences that might be helpful for other shops to know about, you can send them to my assistant, Tiffany Driggers, at tiffany@collisionadvice.com, and she will get them to me.
Mike Anderson