Doors keep things moving for Audi dealership
According to locals in the Portland, Ore., area, Ron Tonkin was born with gas in his veins. That passion for automobiles goes back at least 50 years and led him to open his first dealership in 1960. Now having grown to 17 locations throughout the area, the dedicated Tonkin family and their employees are why customers keep coming back through the generations. The stores reflect this mission, all the way to their service center doors.
Among the many brands offered by the Tonkin dealerships, the luxury Audi make is sold out of its Wilsonville, Ore., location, just south of Portland. The speed of the Jackson, Wis.-based Rytec Corp.‘s Spiral FV (Full Vision) doors on the dealership’s service doorways sends a message to customers and prospects that Wilsonville Audi is an innovative and efficient place to buy or lease a vehicle. As service director Chris Aldworth puts it, “The customers, when they see the doors in action, are dazzled by their design and the efficiency they represent. They are amazed how rapidly the doors open and close.”
The doors open and close at a rapid speed of 100 inches per second. This speed means the 8-foot-high doorway is fully accessible in less than one second, and customers are on their way into the shop. Because service center customers are very busy, they appreciate anything that speeds up their day. And, of course, the faster the car gets into the shop, the faster the maintenance crew can get down to business, saving them time as well. That efficiency pays off on the other side of the doorway. The rapid door operation means Aldworth’s technicians don’t have to stop and wait for the door to rise far enough for the customer to drive into the workshop. “The door will go up in a matter of seconds as they roll towards the door at 4 mph,” notes Aldworth. “They can clear the door and be gone with the door closing behind them in about a quarter of the time a standard door closes.”
The high-speed Rytec Spiral FV door also enables the shop to maintain a comfortable room temperature in the reception area and throughout the shop as the door is not open long enough for the indoor temperature to change in response to outside weather. The sophisticated systems in today’s vehicles and the highly technical service equipment used to work on them also are protected from outside debris, which the high-speed doors stop at the doorway.
This ability to maintain temperature in the service area pays off in energy bills, enabling the heating and cooling system to work less. “There is a significant improvement in energy reduction because the door opens and closes so rapidly,” Aldworth notes. “We’re not constantly having to fight against a drop in temperature where the heating system has to kick in and bring the workshop back to operating temperature.”
When the doors are closed, the perimeter around the doorway is totally sealed. The highspeed roll-up doors have gaskets on all four perimeters to effectively bottle up conditioned air in the building.
The door design ensures the only maintenance that takes place in the Wilsonville Audi service center is devoted to the customers’ vehicles. Slow operating doors can make drivers anxious and they may rush the doorway. And, if the door is opening slowly, drivers may hit it. That is a major problem because both the door and any damage to the vehicle needs to be addressed and the transaction starts off on the wrong foot.
In addition, from Wilsonville Audi’s perspective, a totally disabled door will impede efficient service center operations and cause significant heating/cooling energy loss. In contrast, the doors are so fast the rolled-up slats are tightly tucked in the header by the time a vehicle is through the doorway.
These service center doors open and close dozens of times a day, and how well a high-speed door is engineered contributes to maximum life and minimal maintenance. The Spiral door has no metal-tometal contact as it operates, which also eliminates the screeching noise associated with other service center doors.
The door has easily accessible control boxes that enable technicians to fine-tune door performance for smooth starts and stops. The electronics inside these boxes enable easy diagnosis and have cycle counters to track maintenance intervals.
Style is a prime concern for any dealership and the doors add to the building’s high-tech design. The look of these high-speed doors is one of the main reasons architects specify these kinds of doors for this kind of dealership. Visible from the street, the doors’ rapid operation and sleek design build an impression in potential customers’ minds every time they pass by the dealership.
Any paint color can be applied to the surface of the panels to match the overall building and high-speed rigid door panels do not roll up on each other, preventing ugly scratches from marring the doors’ appearance. These doors have shatter-proof and scratch-resistant LEXAN slats, which provide excellent visibility and natural light while maintaining the security of a rigid door. These top-to-bottom, full-width window slats provide extra safety and enable the service desk to see when customers are ready to pull into the building.
The doors are designed to protect the customers as well. Some customers may enter the service center through the vehicle doorway rather than using the pedestrian door. To prevent the door from coming down on someone, the Spiral door has redundant safety features that include thru-beam photo eyes and a control-reliable electronic reversing edge.
The experience of buying or leasing a new vehicle goes beyond the simple transaction. All these benefits contribute to enhancing Wilsonville Honda’s brand.
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Michael Watkins is the vice president of marketing at Jackson, Wis.-based Rytec Corp.’s High-Performance Doors. For more information, go to www.rytecdoors.com.