Get it straight at Wimberley Collision

The white-tailed deer that roam the Texas Hill County are beautiful and fun to watch — except when they come in contact with your vehicle.

That’s where Robert Welch comes in.

Robert owns Wimberley Collision Center. Drivers colliding with deer and backing into trees provide a lot of his business.

Says Robert with a laugh: “Here we get cedars and deer. People accuse me of scattering deer corn along the side of the road.”

It’s not uncommon for a deer to cause $3,000- $5,000 in damage to a vehicle.

“I have seen some strange stuff over the years,” says Robert. “Some of the animal hits are incredible. We had a guy who hit a hog and the whole front end was crushed in. I have seen people back into the same tree two or three times.”

In a busy month, 40 or more cars will get straightened out at the Wimberley Collision Center which is located at 100 Texan Blvd. The shop typically serves customers from Dripping Springs to Canyon Lake.

The busiest months are November and December when the deer are, shall we say, preoccupied. The slowest months are August and September when vacations are wrapping up and school is starting.

Hit by the virus

Like many businesses, the collision center has been hit hard by the virus. Business is down 40 percent. “The last seven or eight months have been horrendous,” says Robert.

Simply, people aren’t driving as much. Some work from home and have given up a second car, others have skipped the annual road-trip vacation and with many students studying from home that means fewer parents driving their kids to school and, as a result, fewer fender benders.

“People are just not getting out,” he says.

Robert, who lives in Wimberley with his wife Susan, has owned the collision center for 10 years. Before that, he sold parts to body shops.

He’s seen a lot of changes over the years. Cars have become a lot more complicated.

He points to the rear end of a Ford truck sitting in the lot. “That tail light could be a $2,000 repair because of the LEDs and the sensors. Then it has to be calibrated.”

There’s a mechanic on duty at the 9,000-square-foot collision center who handles some of the repairs and makes sure the complicated sensor systems are in sync.

Putting an airbag in the steering wheel might run $1,000, says Robert, while the large “curtain” style airbags above the doors could cost several thousand dollars to repair.

Even the air conditioning systems have become more intricate. Gone are the days when you could buy a can of Freon at the local auto-parts store and recharge your AC. Now a recharge can cost $400.

In the future, the collision-repair business will get even more complicated as hybrid and electric vehicles become more common. “We’ll have to have some geeky kid in here to deal with all the electronics,” Robert says.

According to Edmunds. com, the company that follows car sales, the biggest selling vehicles in Texas are the Ford F-series, Dodge Ram, Chevy Silverado and the Toyota RAV4. Nationally, Ford sold just short of a million F-series and Ranger trucks in 2019.

Land Rover? Forget it

It figures Ford trucks would be the most common visitors to the collision center.

With so many makes and models out there, it’s impossible to stock all the parts, says Robert. It’s sometimes hard to get parts for German cars — BMWs, Mercedes and Audis. American and Japanese manufacturers have the supply chain down pretty good. “When someone brings in a Land Rover I tell them it’s going to be a good long wait for parts,” he explains.

A typical repair might take two or three days. For the “big” hits it could take four or five weeks. “Waiting for parts is a big issue these days,” says Robert. “If someone brings in a 2020 (model) they could wait weeks just to get something like a new mirror.”

One of the biggest expenses is paint. Robert points to a white 2019 Nissan Frontier in the lot that needed the front end painted and explained there were 11 different variations of white available for that model alone. Due to environmental concerns, the center has switched from oil-based paint to water-based.

Within the last year, the center has installed an $85,000, state-of-the-art paint booth that heats up to 140 degrees — hot enough to dry the paint, but not so hot that it will damage the electronics. A newly painted vehicle bakes for about 45 minutes.

Robert spends a good share of his time negotiating with insurance companies. Many insurance companies will try to steer customers to body shops affiliated with that insurance company. “People have the right to go anywhere they want to go,” he says.

Wimberley Collision Center tries to make it easy on customers. They’ll give someone a lift home if they need it and they have a deal with a car-rental company in San Marcos to drop off and pick up rental cars here in Wimberley.

For more information call 512-847-2415.