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Polyvance
Sustaining Partner

Since its founding in 1981, Polyvance has been focused exclusively on plastic repair products and training for the automotive collision repair industry. Over the years, Polyvance has brought several blockbuster innovations to the market that have improved the quality and speed with which technicians can repair and refinish plastics. These are just a few of the innovations that Polyvance has brought to the market over the years:

  • The industry’s first airless plastic welder was introduced in 1981 for the repair of the thermoset polyurethane bumpers that were popular on domestic vehicles in the 1970’s and 80’s. Improved and adapted to plastic material changes over the years, the Mini Weld Model 7 is the current iteration of this product, and it still remains one of Polyvance’s most popular items. 
  • Since 2003 Polyvance’s Bumper & Cladding Coat Adhesion Primer has helped thousands of body shops and painters around North America to get paint to stick to the raw PP and TPO OEM replacement bumpers from Toyota, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, and Subaru. Bumper & Cladding Coat’s adhesion to PP is so good that it eliminates the need for sanding and scuffing of the substrate and is compatible with almost all topcoat systems, saving labor and the worry about comebacks.
  • Polyvance was the first to commercialize the nitrogen plastic welder in the collision repair industry in 2006. The strength and speed offered by nitrogen plastic welding on today’s popular polypropylene bumpers has enabled technicians to confidently repair the many tabs and detail areas that are difficult to repair using two-part adhesives. Polyvance’s line of Nitro Fuzer nitrogen plastic welders is the standard of the industry worldwide.

Since Polyvance’s foundation has been in plastic welding and because proper plastic identification and welding rod selection is so critical to plastic welding, training and education has always been a priority for the company. Polyvance’s founder, Jim Sparks, helped I-CAR ® write the first plastic repair course, PLA-01, back in the 1980’s. Polyvance has published a free guide called The Book of Plastic Repair for over three decades to help technicians identify the plastic and the proper repair method. With the advent of the internet and streaming video, Polyvance has published more plastic repair and refinishing instructional videos than any other company in the world on its YouTube channel.

Polyvance intends to stay on the forefront of plastic repair and refinishing technology with its investment in Encore Plastic Repair, an operating division of the company that recycles plastic bumpers for body shops in the northeast Alabama area. With a core yard of over 3,000 bumpers and a dedicated recycling facility, Polyvance puts itself in the shoes of its customers by repairing bumpers every day on a production basis. This knowledge is fed back into our R&D department to help us develop products that will benefit collision repair technicians. Likewise, new products can be tested in the recycling shop before they are released to customers to make sure that our innovations deliver their intended benefit.

Polyvance is the only company in the industry with hands-on courses on nitrogen plastic welding which are approved under the I-CAR® Industry Training Alliance® program. Five courses are currently approved in both live, instructor-led and self-paced, online programs. Because Polyvance is an I-CAR Sustaining Partner™, students will be able to receive I-CAR credits at no additional cost. Polyvance is proud to support the Sustaining Partner™ program and its mission to insure complete, safe, and quality repairs in the collision repair industry.