Risky business
A survey of 2,000 American vehicle owners for Jiffy Lube offers these conclusions about their maintenance and repair behavior:
- 1 of 7 owners is driving around with a potentially serious problem in his or her vehicle.
- 2 of 5 owners say it’s just a matter of time before their car or truck breaks down.
- The typical owner cites 3 problems with the vehicle, such as a rattle, a leak, squeaky brakes or a cracked windshield.
- When the check-engine light comes on, nearly one-third of owners say they ignore it for a month or more before taking their vehicle to the shop.
- About 1 of 5 owners say they don’t know how to fix a flat tire or jump-start their vehicle.
- One-third of owners hadn’t had their brakes checked by a service technician in more than 6 months.
Service snapshot
| Service and parts sales at franchised new-vehicle dealerships exceeded $116 billion last year, the National Automobile Dealers Association reports. Over the last decade, those sales have risen 5.5 percent a year on an average annualized basis in the average dealership. In 2018, dealership service departments wrote more than 310 million repair orders. They employed nearly 265,000 technicians. Parts departments’ total inventory exceeded $6.67 billion. NADA offers this snapshot of the average dealership’s fixed operations: | |||
| 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Service, parts and body shop sales | $7,325,823 | $7,194,457 | $6,972,698 |
| Service, parts and body shop sales as a percentage of total sales | 12% | 12.1% | 11.7% |
| Service, parts and body shop gross as a percentage of total gross | 49.6% | 49% | 47.3% |
| Warranty work as a percentage of total service, parts and body shop sales | 18% | 18.7% | 18.2% |
| Source: NADA Data 2018 | |||
Pimp that pickup
| Pickups attracted more than one-fourth of all retail dollars spent by consumers on vehicle improvements last year, the Specialty Equipment Market Association estimates, followed by midrange cars. Off-road and plus-size tires and trailer and towing products account for a large share of truck improvements, while sports cars offer the largest market for forced induction systems. | ||||
| Consumer specialty equipment purchases by vehicle segment (% of 2018 sales) | ||||
| Pickup | 27% | Sports car | 9% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midrange car | 16% | Small car | 6% | |
| SUV | 13% | Van | 3% | |
| Upscale car | 11% | Classic car | 2% | |
| Crossover | 11% | Alternative vehicle | 2% | |
| Source: 2019 SEMA Market Report | ||||
