Crashes and care

Tractor-trailers, boats, motor homes, school buses. If you can drive it and it’s wrecked, Perry/Legend Collision Repair Center will try to fix it.

“Cars and trucks are our meat and potatoes,” owner Bill Rajewski said, “but profitability comes in with diversification because there is nowhere else to go to fix many of the items that we do within a 100-mile radius. We are only opening the door larger for our company.”

Since Rajewski started with Perry/Legend more than 20 years ago, he estimates that the center has accumulated $60 million to $70 million in car-repair services.

“Our diversification continues our drive in this business,” Rajewski said. “There is a need for different styles of repair. We are also very specialized because we have different employees do different things on each car like an assembly line procedure.”

Rajewski was recruited from Massachusetts, where he worked as a body shop manager, a little more than 20 years ago to come to Columbia and create Perry/Legend. Rajewski said he was recruited because one of the previous partners of the company had worked with him for eight years and knew that Rajewski was a good body shop manager.

Since then, Rajewski has focused on customer service as an important part of the business’ success. Under what he calls a warranty of workmanship, each employee’s work on a vehicle (not the parts) is covered by warranty for as long as the customers own the cars. Perry/Legend has 31 employees.

Customers can e-mail the damage to a vehicle and Rajewski can tell them the estimate. Perry/Legend also has an informative Web site, perrylegend.com. Sometimes Rajewski does not even see the customer because he or she e-mails or faxes the papers and Perry/Legend tows the car and repairs it.

First-time customer Joyce Powell said she chose Perry/Legend because of its good reputation. She said she was pleased with Perry/Legend’s repair work and overall service, which included negotiating with her insurance company about paying car rental fees.

Another reason Perry/Legend has remained in business for two decades is that its staff strives to be accurate and direct about repair costs, Rajewski said.

“We tell you how it is,” he said. “We believe in our warranty and service, and your car comes back cleaner than when you left it.”

Rajewski said Perry/Legend has invested about $1.1 million to have the latest high-tech tools.

Other features include a large hardware inventory, paint mixing by the ounce to save money, secured parking and heavy-duty cranes for moving equipment.

Perry/Legend uses a sales representative to find the best prices on parts.

For efficiency, paperwork and vehicle keys are transported between the main office and the body shop through a tube system. Customers are given access to their vehicles if they want to see them or get something out of them.

Perry/Legend also does a six- to 12-mile road test for every vehicle it services to ensure they work properly. Rajewski’s attention to customer needs has paid off, prompting three moves since 1987 to larger facilities. He said the moves were a result of changing with the times and taking on new projects. The 40,000-square-foot center, now at 3101 Lemone Industrial Blvd., will soon expand by 21,000 square feet when tenants who occupy part of the building move, Rajewski said.

Gary Porter, owner of In Line Auto Body, a shop that’s been in business since 1982, ranks Perry/Legend among the top five car repair businesses in and around Columbia.

“They’re a big, decent shop,” Porter said. “They also do a lot of large truck work and they’re one of the few in Columbia to do that.”

Rajewski thinks competition is minimal among car repair shops, because each repair shop has a different style and different vehicles it repairs.

“Word of mouth drives the car repair industry more than advertising,” Rajewski said. “It’s like a mind-set. People go where their family and friends went and had good experiences.”