Originally published by Autobody News, Jun 3, 2026
The dealer-affiliated collision operation brought ADAS calibrations in-house and cut turnaround from a week to same day.
Zimbrick Body Shop operates three locations in Madison, WI, inside a dealership group that spans 16 franchises — a setup that used to route ADAS calibrations to internal service departments before in-house demand outgrew that arrangement.
Running a collision operation inside a dealership group has advantages most independents don’t get. Zimbrick Body Shop, a three-location operation in Madison, WI, had access to something a lot of shops would love: built-in service departments at 16 franchises that could handle ADAS calibrations without ever leaving the family.
For a while, it worked. But as the number of vehicles requiring calibrations climbed, the cracks in that arrangement started to show.
“Even though our service departments are great partners of ours, they have their own customers too,” said Jesse Ewoldt, Collision Director at Zimbrick Body Shop. “We started to see longer turnaround times to get the calibrations performed.”
Forty Percent of Vehicles and Climbing
The timing made it worse. Calibrations come at the finish line of a repair, when the customer is already counting the days until pickup. A vehicle that’s been repaired, reassembled, and painted, then sits waiting for a service department slot across town, creates exactly the kind of delay that erodes customer confidence.
And the volume kept growing. With certifications in Audi, Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, and several other brands, Zimbrick’s shops tend to see newer, more heavily equipped vehicles. Ewoldt estimates that roughly 40 percent of vehicles coming through his shops now require at least one calibration, well above the national average of around 28 percent.
There was also the other 20 percent or so of vehicles that Zimbrick repairs which don’t fall under any of their franchise brands. “We needed options for those vehicles,” Ewoldt said, and the internal service departments couldn’t provide them.
From Research to a Flight to North Carolina
Rather than piloting in-house calibration at one store, Zimbrick connected all three body shop locations to a centralized calibration center from day one.
By early 2023, Ewoldt had started researching in-house options. He read trade articles, reached out to shops already running their own equipment, and sent a communication request through Autel. That led to a connection with National Calibration and Diagnostic Solutions (NCDS), an Autel distributor.
But Ewoldt wasn’t going to make this decision over the phone. He flew to North Carolina to see the equipment in person and talk with the technicians using it every day. “From all accounts, that was a yes,” he said.
All In Across Three Locations
Zimbrick didn’t pilot the equipment at a single location. Ewoldt and his team went all in, setting up a centralized calibration center and connecting all three body shop locations to it from day one.
“We really felt like if we’re going to get involved with this, we didn’t want to just dip our toes in the water,” Ewoldt said.
The team from NCDS flew to Madison for a couple weeks of hands-on training covering both calibration procedures and scanning for all shop staff. Follow-up visits continued roughly every six months, supplemented by ongoing phone and email support.
The shop chose the Autel IA900 as its primary system, keeping it fixed at the calibration center.
They later added an Autel IA700, a portable unit that moves between locations when volume spikes.
“If we have multiple calibrations in a day at one of our locations across town, we can utilize that,” Ewoldt said.
The IA700 also handles alignment checks, letting the team verify that a vehicle is ready for calibration before transporting it across town.
“The time that the stands save us in setup is much better than having to manually perform these calibrations,” Ewoldt added.
A Week’s Wait Became Same-Day Turnaround
The Autel IA700 moves between Zimbrick’s three body shop locations when volume spikes, letting the team absorb busy days without bottlenecking at the calibration center.
The results showed up quickly in cycle time. Calibrations that previously could take up to a week waiting for a service department slot are now usually completed the same or next day.
The workflow is simpler, too. A shop requests calibration, a technician picks the vehicle up, performs the work, and drops it back at the originating location.
The less obvious payoff came in how the team thinks about ADAS. Bringing calibrations in-house pushed everyone to develop a sharper understanding of which systems need calibration and when. Estimators started identifying calibration needs earlier in the repair process, which improved customer communication and reduced surprises at the end.
“Going through the process really helped us as a whole,” Ewoldt said. “From identifying it at the early stages of a repair so we can have a good conversation with that customer, to making sure that we’re performing all the proper calibrations at the end.”
“It’s a No-Brainer”
Ewoldt’s advice to other collision directors weighing the same decision is blunt. “It’s a no-brainer,” he said. “It’s not going away, and it’s only going to become more prevalent as the years go on.”
He credits the distributor relationship with making the transition smoother than expected. And he sees the investment as one that scales. “Autel puts us in a good spot to get ready to scale up into the future,” he said. “We just constantly look at what else they offer and what else we might add to take things to that next level.
