Business is booming at Osband Body Shop in Lansing. The owner, Gary Malcangi, works 12 hours a day, seven days a week, just to respond to service requests.

Malcangi isn’t afraid of being busy. He has owned the auto repair shop since 1992 and has over 40 years of experience helping him manage his workload.

The real challenge is getting the car parts he needs for repairs.

“Parts are becoming a problem,” said Malcangi. “They have national locators, so they can check around the country if there’s a part, and it’s not there, so we just have to wait.”

Disruptions in the international supply chain are causing a backlog of services and longer wait times in the automotive industry. In body shops, this delay means customers are waiting weeks for a repair that would normally take days.

Many parts out of stock don’t have an estimated time of arrival, Malcangi said, and it’s frustrating for everyone involved.

“The customer is screwed,” he said. “If they have a rental (coverage), they’ll hit their rental limit because insurance companies only pay for a short time, like 30 days, and once that limit is exceeded, they walk. So they yell at us, then we go on to the rooms guys. Everyone is yelling at everyone. “

To complicate matters, the global semiconductor shortage, which means fewer new vehicles are coming out of assembly. When a newer model needs a part, it takes longer to get because there is no surplus.

“The newer they are, the harder they are,” said Malcangi.

The problem seems to be getting worse. Right now, Osband is booked until the end of January, but customers have told Malcangi other stores don’t have appointments available until March.

“I try to give these people’s cars back to them because it’s important for me to get them back as quickly as possible when I don’t run into any snags with parts,” he said.

Malcangi also believes there has been a slight increase in car accidents.

“I can only assume it has to do with texting and not driving very well,” he said.

Tripp’s collision in Lansing has also been busier than usual in recent months. And while it’s typical for this time of year, the number of accidents and the level of damage to vehicles have been higher, said office manager Josh Tripp.

“It usually goes when the time changes, because we drive more at dusk and dawn, so the deer run a lot more,” Tripp said. “But this year in particular, everyone I’ve spoken to in the industry says they’re the busiest they’ve ever been. Where the average repair would normally be $ 2,500, right now, we see $ 3,500, $ 4,000 is the average. ”

The store is always able to get most of the parts it needs, but when a part is not available it slows down the whole process considerably.

“For the most part we’ve been fine,” Tripp said. “It seems like when there’s a part that we can’t get, it’s not a week or two, it’s three or four months.”

Recently, it took Tripp over four months to get a new grille for a Ford Escape. The store was able to help the customer with a temporary solution until the new part arrived, but the lead time was unusually long.

“Normally a grill like that, you would see it in two days,” said Tripp.

Tripp’s location in Lansing typically handles around 30 cars per week. To meet the high demand, staff will be moving customers to the Jackson store, which has 40 employees and can handle up to 80 cars per week.

Even with the number of employees at the store, Tripp said he had to leave until the end of the year.

“It’s really abnormal for us,” he said.

The number of car accidents generally increases during the holidays, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the US Department of Transportation.

In 2020, nearly 20% of car crashes in Ingham County occurred in the last two months of the year, according to data from Michigan Traffic Crash Facts, a website that provides information. Michigan annual official accident data.

Body shops recommend that people take extra care to reduce the headache of repairing their car, ideally avoiding repair work.

Tripp recommended that people make sure they have rental car coverage on their insurance policy.

“Usually it’s $ 50 per pay period or something like that, but a rental car can cost you $ 35, $ ​​40 a day, so it covers up really quickly,” he said.

The best idea, said Malcangi, is to drive safely.

“Slow down,” said Malcangi. “Now is not a good time to wreck your car.”

Contact reporter Elena Durnbaugh at (517) 231-9501 or [email protected] Follow her on Twitter at @ElenaDurnbaugh.