URG Finds New Partner in Keystone

United Recyclers Group today announced a new partnership with Keystone Automotive Industries. This creates a strategic affiliation between Keystone Automotive, which offers the widest selection of replacement collision parts and supplies in the industry, and URG, representing over 330 independent and industry leading automotive recycling firms.
“Our new partnership with Keystone Automotive Industries will make it possible for URG members to create a ‘one stop shop’ for their customers when it comes to providing a full range of automotive repair and replacement parts,” says Michelle Alexander, director of the URG Board. “This creates another benefit of URG membership, and we are excited about the potential this alliance brings to the automotive recycling industry. We think it is going to help ‘level the playing field’ for our independent automotive recyclers as they compete with the consolidators in this industry. “
According to Tom Denton, “The bottom line is that this partnership brings together used parts suppliers (URG members) with a new and recycled parts supplier (Keystone Automotive) in a way that will allow a full product line of automotive parts to be sold to our customers. The people who buy from us are the collision repair/body shop industry, including those direct repair facilities acting on behalf of the auto insurance industry.” Denton, owner of Knox Auto Parts (Knoxville, Tennessee) serves as a URG manager.
Launch plans are underway, and in the future it is anticipated that the applicable automotive part elements of the Keystone Automotive Industries parts inventory will eventually become integrated with URGNet. This will make it available to the URG members serving their collision repair industry customers.
“URG consolidates our buying power tremendously, and the prices we are able to get through them will be much better than we could do on our own as independent operators. We are in direct competition with a large organization, so utilizing the economies of scale that this new partnership will make possible is very important. Another benefit that URG members are going to gain from is the marketing power that we will now have, which is national in scope, instead of being limited to whatever it is that we could do in our own local markets,” said Denton.
Keystone Automotive Industries brings a comprehensive line of new and remanufactured automotive parts into this partnership. Their principal product lines are as follows: New bumpers and reinforcement bars; remanufactured O.E.M. bumpers and bumper covers, new replacement body panels, new radiators and condensers, replacement lighting windshields, side and rear; auto glass; autobody supplies; rust repair panels for classic cars and trucks; and remanufactured OEM alloy wheels.