Report: Record Vehicles Per Bay Means Tech Crisis Ahead

According to a new report from Lang Marketing Resources, the rising number of vehicles on U.S. roads, combined with a decline in service bay capacity, will lead to a “crisis” in automotive maintenance and repair.

“The number of cars and light trucks per service bay in the U.S. soared to a record high of 208 at mid-year 2009, up more than 50 percent from 1990,” noted Jim Lang, president of Lang Marketing Resources. “With millions of high-tech vehicles on U.S. roads, and more complex power plants on the way, fewer bays to service a rising vehicle population add-up to a growing repair and maintenance crisis, especially with the loss of so many high-tech dealer bays.”

According to Lang, the trend has been growing for several decades: the number of vehicles on U.S. roads continues to increase, as the bay population declines. Although the vehicle count dipped slightly last year, and will drop several million more this year, the service bay population is declining at an even faster percentage rate.

As a result, there are more vehicles per service bay in the United States, and this trend is expected to continue. Vehicle sales will rebound in coming years, but service bays will decline, or, at best, remain flat.

While the vehicle repair industry in the U.S. has been able to keep up with the increasing number of cars and light trucks per bay so far, the growing number of high-tech vehicles and increasingly exotic power plants in new cars and light trucks are combining to make the situation more critical.

“Closing dealers and the conversion of many dealers to used car operations with service bays mean that the number of ‘high-tech’ dealer bays is plummeting,” Land said. “Over the past 30 months, more than 20,000 dealer bays were lost as a result of shuttered new car operations. Dealer closings will continue through 2011 with the result that by mid-2012 there will be an estimated 40,000 fewer dealer bays in the U.S. compared to 2006.”

All this means the aftermarket must shoulder a larger portion of mechanic technical training so that non-dealer bays can handle the growing number of high-tech vehicles per bay in the United States, Lang notes.

“Fewer service bays, more high-tech vehicles, and a surging foreign vehicle population will combine to create repair and service maintenance challenges for the independent (non-dealer) professional service market far beyond anything it has experienced before,” Lang said. “How the independent aftermarket responds to this growing crisis will play a fundamental role in the future development of the independent segment of the car and light truck aftermarket.”

For more information, visit: www.langmarketing.com