J&M Collision Center
📍 Mauston, WI

With a 40-year-old paint booth, J&M Collision Center was long overdue for an upgrade. Jim Bilz needed a new spray booth that would prevent bottlenecks and alleviate his body shop’s big backlog. His problems were solved in 2021 with the addition of an Ultra XD Paint Booth from Global Finishing Solutions (GFS) and Platinum Equipment that includes a BT1200 air heater and AdvanceCure Accelerated Airflow Systems.

Please introduce your business and tell us your story.

“Our primary work is collision repair, but we also do suspension work and alignment. Our body shop has been here for about 50 years. When the original owner retired in 1992, I started working for the second owner. Then in 2003, my wife, Michelle, and I bought the shop from him. I fell into the car business by accident, and it is just something that stuck.”

How did you decide on GFS equipment?

“Our lead painter was a BASF rep, and he spent a lot of time spraying at the Center for Excellence in Osseo, Wisconsin. That was a big reason why we went with GFS. We like everything about the paint booth — the control functions and how custom you can make the settings, the ease of using it, the cleanliness and the improved lighting inside the booth.”

How has GFS equipment changed your processes and impacted your business?

“Our old paint booth was the first downdraft booth installed in Wisconsin, in the early 1980s. We went as long as anyone could have gone without upgrading. I can’t even put into words how much better our Ultra XD Paint Booth is. It is amazing compared to what we had.

“We were bottlenecked because of our old paint booth, especially in the wintertime. Cycle times were taking forever, and we had to babysit paint jobs afterward and make sure they were not soft. Now, they go through so fast. We get more cars in, and paint jobs are done right the first time, without having to wait. We can now process three or four more cars a week without even trying. Our shop was down for three weeks during installation, and in the three months since, we have already made up the work we lost because of the increased productivity of our GFS paint booth.”

What is the plan for the future of your business?

“I’m good with our shop being as small as it is. We want to keep it simple and continue doing what we do and doing it well, rather than trying to do a lot of stuff just all right.”