In the early 2000’s Autoblast founder Dave Kirkham was employed in the vehicle entry compliance industry. Regularly encountering the damage caused by rust to the underbody of well-made vehicles and knowing they could be prematurely retired, Dave recognised the need for a specialist rust treatment service.
The craft of underbody rust treatment has been a 16-year journey, and they now have the offering down to a fine art. Kirkham says, “We’ve always believed in delivering a quality service and can honestly say that that we’re pretty proud of the way an underbody can look when it leaves our workshop – even better than new – that’s what our customers tell us.” And his customers should know. Some of them are the vehicle manufacturers themselves.
The proof is in the pudding with dealers regularly seeking Autoblast out to help with warranty claims and the occasional spot on the underside at the point of delivery. “Our coastline is pretty brutal on vehicles. There’s nothing wrong with the cars when they’re made, it’s the conditions we unintentionally expose our vehicles to when 80 percent of us Kwis live, work and play in what are regarded as high corrosion zones.”
Autoblast’s offering focuses on two key solutions. “We started out as the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, dealing with underbody rust on vehicles that were failing warrants. We’ve got a technique that’s a combination of sand blasting the rust off, applying a molten zinc metal coating, then painting and waxing to give an old vehicle a completely new lease of life. The tools, products and techniques have been continually refined over a long period of time to get the best result.”
At the other end of the Autoblast service spectrum is rust prevention. “We launched our AutoLAST hybrid rust proofing system a few years ago because we were getting newer and newer vehicles coming in with massive rust issues, and thought there must be a better way to make sure the investment in a new car will survive a highly corrosive environment. It seems crazy to see near new cars sent to the wreckers before their time when the issue of rust is entirely preventable.”
Autoblast is planning for growth and will be offering a number of franchises locally from 2021. “We are seeing more and more demand for our service from around NZ and are even getting enquiries from offshore,” says Dave. Autoblast has amassed considerable expertise from its years of operations and is planning for a network of branches across the country to service many vehicles in the NZ fleet. “We’re bottling our IP and want to put it to work in more places.”
