We spoke to a repair shop this morning that was only calibrating 25% of their vehicles. In truth, that number should be closer to 50%. This is the case for most shops we speak with. They’re not calibrating enough vehicles — and it’s not because they don’t want to. 

It’s because they don’t know they need to. 

“My scan tool said I didn’t need to calibrate this car”

The majority of repair shops we meet identify which ADAS calibrations they need to do with a scan tool. These scanners work… 

But only on the surface. You run the scan tool and it tells you the sensors on a car are working – which is fair. Those sensors aren’t electronically broken, so in the most technical sense of the word, they are working. But what these scanners don’t tell you is if these sensors are working the right way. 

Let’s put this into an example. A car gets into an accident and comes into my repair shop. That car was hit on the side and, apart from a few nasty scratches and dents in the body, the blindspot sensor that should’ve been pointing one way was scraped and is now pointing in completely the wrong direction. When I hook the car up to the scan tool and run it, no lights blink at me to suggest anything is wrong because the blind spot sensor is still ~ technically ~ working. So I finish up the repair without calibrating it and unknowingly send a dangerous car back on the road. Now, if the driver gets into another accident because his sensor wasn’t working, who’s at fault?

Is it me for not calibrating the blind spot detection sensor? Is it the driver? Is it the scan tool? 

The truth is, we don’t know. But we sure as hell don’t want to find out. 

Every single reapir shop we’ve spoken with is aware they put improperly and/or incompletely repaired vehicles on the road out of blissful ignorance around what needs to be calibrated – and it’s a really scary thought. A lot of ADAS components have to be calibrated to the exact OEM specifications in order to work correctly; they’re so sensitive that even one degree off proper alignment can result in sensors missing a target. With the prevalence of ADAS in new vehicles increasing rapidly, it’s critical that repair shops have all the tools they need to diagnose with pinpoint precision issues that, when resolved, will protect drivers and their passengers.  

This is why we built Revv: to help shops put safer cars back on the road. It’s our north star and the only thing we care about, which is why we’re proud to be able to say we provide the most accurate and comprehensive calibration reports on the market. We aggregate up-to-date documentation from all the latest major car databases and manufacturer guidelines, identify which ADAS calibrations need to be done from your repair estimates, and share all the relevant calibration instructions – all while integrating with estimating softwares like CCC ONE. 

Basically, we make it really hard for you to miss an ADAS calibration because, as much as we care about making sure cars are properly repaired (we care a lot) – we know that all the shops we work with care even more. They don’t like being left in the dark because of scan tools that don’t pick everything up, and we want to give them the visibility they’re missing.