GOLD CLASS

Overview

Gold Class® organizations are already in a league of their own – making an unwavering commitment to ensuring their business represents the highest achievement in collision repair training excellence. In today’s era of advanced, complex vehicles, I-CAR® is raising the skills bar across the board, including the requirements for Gold Class and Platinum™-level achievements. While the requirements are greater, we're confident your organization will continue to demonstrate its time-honored dedication to performing complete, safe and quality repairs for the ultimate benefit of the consumer.

Enhanced Gold Class Training Requirements

  • The Enhanced Gold Class role requirements are scaled to shop size. This means that 50% of all estimators, refinishers and non-structural technicians in a shop and a 100% of all structural technicians must be trained to the new Gold Class requirements. This scalability ensures that both small and large shops alike can now achieve an equal percentage of trained employees.
  • One person can hold no more than two required roles at one time.
  • Two Hands-On Skills Development courses, Squeeze-Type Resistance Spot Welding and MIG Brazing, is required to maintain and achieve Gold Class recognition. A 2-for-1 bundle of the required courses is currently available to Gold Class shops for a limited time only. 
  • Increased frequency of Welding Training & Certification™ skills moved from five years to three years. New Welding recertification courses are offered!
  • Gold Class recognition is achieved at ProLevel 2®. Therefore 100% of structural technicians, and 50% of the estimators, refinish, and nonstructural technicians in the collision repair shop must complete ProLevel 2 to achieve or maintain Gold Class recognition. 
  • Six core curriculum, Vehicle & Technology Specific Training or Industry Training Alliance courses per tech are required annually for all non-role representatives and role representatives who complete ProLevel 3®.
  • Electrical/Diagnostics and Mechanical theory courses are required at the shop level. Shops determine who takes the courses.

More About Scalability Requirements

As part of the enhanced Gold Class recognition requirements, shops must achieve and maintain a high level of role-relevant training across each of the major collision repair roles. This is measured when all role representatives achieve ProLevel 2, earned through I-CAR training or approved industry training providers. Gold Class 2021 requirements now include scaling based on the shop size. Scalability to the shop size ensures every shop has an equal percentage of trained professionals.


Green technicians represent number of technicians per role that need to meet Gold Class rules through ProLevel progression. All grey technicians need annual training to meet Gold Class requirements. 

Training Subscription

A training subscription, which includes live, virtual, and online courses for any shop employee can be purchased by Gold Class shops. The goal of subscription is to address turnover cost concerns, to build bench strength by providing training for all technicians and to help shops budget for training expenses.

Learn more about training subscription. 

Transition Benefits for Gold Class Shops

Shops that achieve or maintain Gold Class by October 7, 2019 are grandfathered into Gold Class status and have additional time to reach the new requirements.

Gold Class shops will continue to train to current Gold Class rules until their renewal period in 2020. At that point the shop begin transitioning to the new Gold Class requirements for their 2021 renewal.

 

Navigating the Even Better I-CAR

Visit our Resources page to learn how to navigate the Even Better I-CAR. 

In-Shop Knowledge Assessment

In-Shop Knowledge Assessments allow technicians to demonstrate their current knowledge to achieve ProLevel 1, avoiding training in the areas in which they already meet the requirements for competency/understanding. As grandfathered Gold Class shops scale up their technicians to meet the new requirements, many may benefit from using an In-Shop Knowledge Assessment for speed and overcoming barriers to training.