OE FIX BTS

If you’ve ever watched a Dorman video, odds are excellent it was shot on a set that should look like a pretty convincing automotive repair shop. Truth be told, it’s actually not a set, it’s the Dorman Proving Grounds. Like the people who work there, it pulls double-duty.

Our Proving Grounds looks very much like an independent auto repair shop in Anytown, USA. By extension, the people coming and going into that shop (applications researchers, tech line specialists, engineers developing text fixtures and logging data, technical trainers, and a whole bunch of folks who bring our products from concept to reality) look a lot like the folks working in one of those shops. Dorman video hosts, Shop Press authors, and technical writers and editors can usually be found there, too.

The men and women telling you about parts, repair, and other things automobilia aren’t hired for good looks, acting ability, or influencer status. Instead, like our customers (you, they’re subject-matter experts. Product development is the reason for The Proving Grounds’ existence. Content like videos, our Shop Press media hub, and detailed product photos and instructions are simply byproducts produced by the team developing, modifying, and vetting Dorman products.

To land a job in the Dorman Proving Grounds, the most important hurdle is that one must have legitimate wrenching experience—and a lot of it. And the highest profile products a technician there will touch are our OE FIX items.

Real technicians and reality checks

Ideas for new Dorman OE FIX products come from a bunch of different places; some are generated internally by our team of product managers and engineers, others from our Ideation Team, while still others bubble up from our customers via informal emails, social posts, etc. Sooner or later, though, when a product idea meets the strict prerequisites of an OE FIX and transitions from concept to creation, it winds up in the wrench-calloused hands of Service Center Manager Nick D’Alessio and his team at the Proving Grounds. To steal a phrase from an old TV commercial, it doesn’t say OE FIX until they say it says OE FIX. After all, who’s more qualified to determine the value of a product to a professional technician than another professional technician?

“Our pay isn’t based on how many or what types of parts or assemblies we approve or don’t approve,” D’Alessio explains. “Our job is to determine whether a fellow technician will find a new Dorman repair solution or innovation worth their labor time and money.”

A significant portion of the team’s workweek is devoted to installing, evaluating, and digitally logging the test results of OE FIX products in the development pipeline. The techs also spend a decent chunk of their time in close collaboration with the engineers and product managers responsible for shepherding those potential products through the journey from prototype to production.

The road to roadworthy

You’ve probably seen D’Alessio before; he’s the “Hi, I’m Nick from Dorman Products” guy in many of our how-to videos, but he’s also the Proving Grounds Manager. He’s as effusive as his on-screen personality suggests, known to offer Proving Grounds visitors an espresso from the machine he houses in a toolbox (what else?) while he diagnoses what’s ailing their cars.

He and his video cohosts Luke, Keith, and Miriam have more than 75 years of combined experience in auto and heavy-duty truck repair, along with an impressive laundry list of specialized degrees and certifications in engineering and automotive technology from universities and trade schools.

The quality and qualifications of the team and the major investment Dorman has made in a genuine, fully-equipped auto repair shop is yet another unique in-house asset that distinguishes us from the rest of the aftermarket. By training and by temperament, these folks are the kind of techs you’d expect to work in your shop—smart, skilled, and articulate. But because they work for us, they can afford to be—in fact, they must be—unsparingly and (often hilariously) unfiltered in their assessments of the quality of an auto or heavy-duty truck part.

That experience and candor pays dividends throughout the OE FIX product development process. Dorman engineers and product managers will often run a product concept by a Proving Grounds tech long before investing further time and resources into it. The hands-on perspective of a working technician often leads to tweaks that improve upon the original design.

Every once in a while, it also provides a reality check that might send the design back to the drawing board. For instance, when Lemmy and Miriam installed a prototype door handle repair kit similar to the one mentioned elsewhere in this issue of The Guide, they spec’d different hardware than was originally chosen by General Motors. Why? They found variances in the plastic-welding procedure GM used, and by recommending a more robust selection of hardware, they ensured a technician would have the parts on hand to make sure a factory-like fit was possible.

When a proposed new OE FIX product does make it to the prototype stage and after it’s been subjected to metrology and other testing relevant to the part’s functionality, it’s time for try-on and drive testing on one or several of the Proving Grounds’ 52 vehicles. The test sequence invariably includes comparisons to the original equipment, and, depending on the part type, can last for thousands of miles.

Comprehensive data about the performance of the sample part is digitally logged and reviewed against required metrics. If the product proves its worth after enduring those rigors, it’s officially promoted to the rank of OE FIX—one of our more than 2,000 repair solutions you can’t get from the OEM, endorsed by technicians, for technicians.

The result of all this involvement cannot be duplicated in any other way we’ve found. When Miriam stands in front of the camera describing a repair solution, she often has performed the repair dozens of times and had no small part in influencing how the part was created.

Similarly, the instructions you examine before installing one of our parts was edited and reviewed by Luke before printing. And why not? He is the technician who installed the part right, wrong, and everything in between to figure out the best way to help you save time on the vehicle when it shows up in your bay. Many of the custom or weld-in sections are installed on real vehicles with real (serious) rust issues, and he’s usually the man behind the hood making sure they fit as well in practice as they do in a CAD program.

When you see Keith in an automotive challenge video being tested on his knowledge of dash warning lights or fastener torquing accuracy without the benefit of a torque wrench, it’s because he’s been looking at those lights and cranking down bolts since the Reagan administration. Testing him is fun—and tough.

And some of the articles you’re reading on Shop Press or right here in this guide were written by a mechanic who’s repaired that which was supposed to be replaced and coaxed a few more miles out of a faithful vehicle for a faithful customer.

So “behind the scenes at Dorman” might not feel magical to you, but we hope it is reassuring. We’re working on the same stuff you are and fighting the same problems—and we’re trying to make your daily work easier.

As Luke declares, “Everyone here at the Proving Grounds lives, sleeps, and eats cars, and constantly thinks like technicians, not salespeople. Our job is to make sure our fellow technicians are as satisfied with Dorman parts as we are.”