Local Experts in Body Work and Car Care

Owners Keith Bradt and Bill Burk have owned Chatfield Body Shop in Chatfield since 1995. Keith’s dad had bought the business in 1978; when he became ill in 1989, Keith joined him in the business. Keith ran the business from 1990 to 1995 when he and Bill Burk, who already did body work at the business, decided to form a partnership.

About 15 years ago, the duo expanded into service work as well. They now also do brakes, oil changes, tires and other maintenance.

Since then, their customer base has continuously grown. Bradt says they have a good following. Just that day they had gotten a new customer whose sister has been a customer for years. They now have around 1,940 customers. Some come from Rochester, but most are local, 25 to 30 miles away.

Annually, the shop does body work on about 150 to 200 cars. They do mechanical work on about 3,100 cars a year, working on 10 to 12 cars a day on average.

A new piece of equipment they purchased about five years ago was a new alignment rack. They also have an updated scan tool.

Bradt shared that the software alone is expensive. Estimating software runs around $500 a month while Identifix costs another $225 a month.

The technology of today’s cars is a challenge. The safety equipment and procedures needed to perform calibrations and fix safety equipment call for more specialized tools and result in more expense. Bradt related the story of a car they worked on recently; it needed about $1,000 of scans before work could even begin on it. Then everything needed to be recalibrated following the repairs. Some of the recalibration needed to be subbed out to a larger shop.

According to Bradt, some of the most difficult things to deal with are insurance companies and claims. The companies now generally require more photos and documentation.

Ordering parts has changed; now Keith just goes online to find available replacement parts, either OEM or remanufactured parts. After finding prices, he can share the info with car dealerships who can then try to match those prices. A simple click of a button orders the needed parts.

With the current economy and political situation, customers are fixing up their old cars more often. Lots of cars today end up totaled after accidents due to the high cost of replacement parts, scanning and recalibrating. Synthetic oil is in short supply right now due to the war in the Middle East. Synthetic oil is manufactured in Qatar; the plant was hit by a bomb and will be out of commission for years.

The new tri-color paints for body work require more steps. First a sealer coat is applied with a specific color depending on the final paint color; then the base paint is applied and finally a pearl coat is sprayed on with several coats to correctly match the car color. The tri-color paints give the car color more depth and are used to produce the ruby red and white diamond colors.

Humidity affects the body work; it slows down the drying process. The shop has no air conditioning. Waterborne paints have been used at the body shop for quite some time now. At first they were leery of the waterborne paint, but, after several demos, they decided it was definitely the way to go.

Deer hits are bringing in more work every day right now, but they aren’t the only animals creating more work. Recently a car came in that had hit a donkey; that car ended up being totaled.

Another animal caused problems for a customer. After having his car serviced, the car ran well, but a week later it was running really rough. The customer brought the car in and the shop found several sparkplug wires had been chewed off. On further inspection, they found the source — a live woodchuck! After several attempts, the police managed to capture the woodchuck and release it into the wild.

Rodents such as squirrels and mice are causing much more damage to cars than in the past for reasons unknown.

Bradt and Burk have four employees; Burk and another employee do the body work, while Bradt and the other employees take car of the service work. While they have no plans of hiring more employees, they do have a goal of remodeling the shop entrance and office area. Keith shared that he’d like to make the front office area look like an old time garage; he already has collected some conversational items for decor.

Chatfield Body Shop wants you to rest assured that you can come to Chatfield Body Shop for any of your car care needs; the experts at the shop can do body work to fix up your car after an accident or just take care of any of your routine car maintenance. You can contact them at 507-867-3063.