Costs for Fleet Maintenance and Repair Rise in First Half of 2021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 12, 2021

Sean McNally
(703) 838-1995

Costs for Fleet Maintenance and Repair Rise in First Half of 2021
Benchmarking Report from TMC and Decisiv Found Higher Parts and Labor Expenses

Cleveland, Ohio – Today, American Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council and Decisiv Inc., reported during TMC’s Fall Meeting & Transportation Technology Exhibition that costs for parts and labor for repairs rose over the first six months of the year.

According to the Decisiv/TMC North American Service Event Benchmark Report, labor costs for repair and maintenance increased 2.6 percent between the 1st and 2nd quarters in 2021 and overall parts costs increased by 2.8 percent. In that same period, parts costs for Tires increased by 10.7 percent and Transmissions part costs rose nine percent. 

“The increases in costs for parts and labor reflect the changes taking place in the North American economy,” said Decisiv President and CEO Dick Hyatt. “Ongoing economic growth has led to a rise in freight volume and demand for carrying capacity. That is also being driven higher by the need to replenish supply chains that have been depleted due to manufacturing and distribution shutdowns during the pandemic.

“For fleets, that activity has increased vehicle mileage as well as meant the addition of more trucks, both of which drive up service activity,” he said. “Higher parts prices may have contributed as well, but in all cases we do not see a drop in efficiency and productivity taking place among the nation’s fleet maintenance or service provider operations. They are continually striving to maintain the highest possible levels of asset performance and uptime.”

Focusing on parts and labor pricing year over year revealed that the three most significant changes between Q2 2020 and Q2 2021 were in Lighting systems, which were up 17.4 percent while Transmissions costs rose 16.4% and Brakes costs increased 11.1 percent.

The report covers power unit parts and labor costs in the nine top Vehicle Maintenance Reporting System (VMRS) System Level Code categories, including Brakes, Steering, Tires, Transmissions, Electrical, Charging, Lighting, Exhaust and Engines.

“The going partnership between TMC and Decisiv offers Council fleet members a great benefit to help them benchmark their overall parts and labor costs against a large sample size of their peers,” said TMC Executive Director Robert Braswell. “We’re very excited to join with Decisiv to make this important information available to our fleet members.”

The Decisiv/TMC North American Service Event Benchmark reports are made possible because of the rapidly growing amount of data being collected on service and repair events for the more than 7 million commercial assets operating across the U.S. and Canada that are being serviced on Decisiv’s SRM platform. The summaries are compiled from more than 600,000 monthly service maintenance and repair operations conducted across nearly 5,000 service locations.

The monthly benchmark reports provide a detailed profile of service costs monthly, quarterly and annually, and on a regional basis. The partnership between Decisiv and TMC to produce the North American Service Event Benchmark reports was announced earlier this year.

TMC fleet members will receive the report electronically via email.  For more information on joining TMC, call (703) 838-1763 or visit http://tmc.trucking.org.

By providing leadership support and opportunities to collaborate, TMC helps members develop the industry’s best practices that address the critical truck technology and maintenance issues that have the greatest impact on truck fleets. For more than 60 years, TMC’s member-driven Recommended Maintenance and Engineering Practices have been setting the standards that help trucking companies specify and maintain their fleets more effectively. Follow TMC on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
  
American Trucking Associations is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. Through a federation of 50 affiliated state trucking associations and industry-related conferences and councils, ATA is the voice of the industry America depends on most to move our nation’s freight. Follow ATA on Twitter, Facebook, or at Trucking Moves America Forward.

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