# Glossary Repair vocabulary defined in the sense the trade actually uses, with each entry linking to the page where the term does real work. A term you cannot name is a line item you cannot argue about, which is why this page exists on a site mostly concerned with insurance claims. ## Why a glossary earns its place on a body shop site A repair estimate is a document written in a private language, and an owner reading one is at a disadvantage that has nothing to do with intelligence. When a line says blend adjacent panel and you do not know what a blend is, you cannot tell whether it is a padded line or the line that decides whether the repair is visible in daylight. Every negotiation with an adjuster runs on that asymmetry. Closing it is cheap. Twenty terms is roughly the whole working vocabulary of a collision claim, and an owner who knows them can ask a specific question about a specific line. Specific questions get answered. General suspicion about whether an estimate is fair gets a reassurance, and a reassurance is not information. ## Each definition is the trade sense, not the dictionary sense Several terms here mean something narrower or stranger than ordinary English suggests. Tolerance is not carefulness, it is a published dimensional range. A supplement is not an addition to a bill, it is a second estimate written against what teardown found. Betterment is not improvement, it is a deduction. Where the trade sense and the everyday sense diverge, the entry says so, because that divergence is exactly where an owner gets caught. Definitions are kept short and each carries at least two links out to pages where the term is load bearing. That is the more useful half of an entry. Reading that a supplement is a second estimate is a start. Reading the pages where a supplement decided the outcome of a claim is what makes the definition stick. ## Knowing a word does not win the argument A definition is not a position. Knowing precisely what betterment means does not establish that a particular betterment deduction on your claim is wrong, and knowing what tolerance means does not establish that your structure is out of it. What the vocabulary buys is the ability to ask whether a measurement was taken and to understand the answer, which is a different and more modest thing than being right. This is worth saying because the opposite habit is common. An owner arriving having read a glossary and treating a term as an argument tends to lose ground, because an adjuster hears vocabulary without evidence and discounts it. Vocabulary plus a photograph set plus a measurement is a strong position. Vocabulary alone is a vulnerable one. ## A reading order for a page that is alphabetical Alphabetical order is right for looking a term up and wrong for learning the set, so ignore the ordering on a first pass. Start with the four or five terms that describe money moving: deductible, betterment, supplement, actual cash value. Those are the ones an owner meets fastest and misunderstands most expensively. Then take the structural vocabulary, which is where the trade language is least intuitive: tolerance, delamination, laminate, substrate, cap flange. Those are the words that appear on the part of an estimate an owner is least equipped to question, and they are also the part where the difference between a real repair and a cosmetic one lives. Everything else on the page can be looked up when it appears. ## The terms worth learning before a phone call Most of this page is reference, read once and forgotten. A short list of it is worth carrying into a conversation, because using the wrong word for a thing changes what gets written down. Delamination and a soft spot are not the same finding and do not carry the same scope. A supplement is not a revised estimate. Betterment is not depreciation. An owner who uses the precise term gets a precise answer, and an owner who does not usually gets the more expensive interpretation by default. That is not a criticism of owners. Nobody should have to learn a trade vocabulary to buy a repair honestly, and a shop that relies on the customer not knowing the words is telling you something about itself. The reason this page exists is to remove that asymmetry, which is also why every definition here links to the page where the work is actually described rather than stopping at the sentence. --- Source: https://ocrv.guru/the-center/glossary/ OCRV Center, 23281 La Palma Ave, Yorba Linda, CA 92887. (949) 799-3387. Serving Laguna Niguel, California. All work performed in shop. No mobile or roadside service. Licences: California Bureau of Automotive Repair ARD00288521; EPA CAL000367879. Published ranges are ranges, not quotes. Every figure traces to https://ocrv.guru/prices/.