How Many Auto Repair Shops In The Us

Deep-pocket companies are pouring into the vehicle fix-and-maintain business
Meineke Auto Care Centers searching for potential franchise owners in Memphis and Nashville
81 million clunkers expected on nation'due south roads within 3 years

America has become the state of old cars — really quondam cars.

From road-weary Kia Rios to dilapidated Ford Broncos, some 81 meg autos volition have been in use 16 years or longer past 2021, experts predict, a 20 percent increment in elderly vehicles nationwide in five years.

Call this the golden era for the clunker.

With mechanics in gas stations deficient and fewer auto dealerships in business, the aging fleet of vehicles with cracked windshields, tired fuel senders, rattling brake calipers and other road travails lead to a simple question: Where will y'all become to fix your fourth dimension-tested car?

Chances are it'll be a shiny new repair shop.

In cities throughout the land, deep-pocket companies are pouring into the vehicle fix-and-maintain business organization. Just similar fast-food chains a generation ago edged out corner diners, automobile repair bondage backed by wealthy investors are popping up, drawing customers from locally owned garages.

Big companies acquired more than 500 local shops throughout the nation last yr, a consolidation led past Detroit-based Icahn Automotive Grouping LLC, owner of the Pep Boys maintenance store brand, reports the trade periodical Tire Business organisation. At the aforementioned fourth dimension, established repair chains expanded.

In Memphis and Nashville, for case, Meineke Car Care Centers LLC is searching for potential franchise owners able to build and operate new shops financed in some cases by U.S. Small-scale Business Administration loans.

While new franchise owners must afford Meineke's $35,000 license fee and bear witness a $250,000 minimum net worth, experience nether the hood isn't considered a necessity.

"We wait for candidates who are ambitious and want to grow,'' said Devin Hughes, director of franchise sales for Meineke, a brand with about 900 shops nationwide. "The vast majority of our franchisees are coming from corporate America and looking to build an investment for themselves."

While Louisville, Kentucky, and Washington incorporate ample Meineke outlets, Hughes said, under-served metropolitan areas include Dallas, Detroit, northside Indianapolis, Memphis, Nashville and Orlando, Florida.

Overseeing the car shop expansion strategy is the Charlotte, Northward Carolina-based owner, Driven Brands Inc., and its chain-savvy primary executive, Jonathan Fitzpatrick. Formerly Burger Male monarch's principal brand and operations officer, Fitzpatrick intends to double Meineke almanac sales in the adjacent five years to $1 billion.

Profits from the expansion will period to Atlanta, home of Driven Brands possessor Roark Capital Group, a leading investor in a stable of well-known national chains. These accept included Arby's, Cinnabon, Jimmy John's, McAlister's Cafeteria, Moe's Southwest Grill and Schlotzsky's. The Atlanta firm bought Driven Brands iii years agone from New York investor Harvest Partners LP, whose investment pool includes coin from top-rung coin managers including New York-based Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Buying used cars

Just why fixing sometime cars has attracted big investors rests in part on this number: 100 million.

Over the concluding six years, a sales frenzy put 100 million new cars and trucks on U.S. highways. America'south ambition for horsepower and steel might make you think every other vehicle on the road looks new. Look once again.

"Despite the record high number of new cars, there's been tremendous growth in very old vehicles," said automotive consultant Jim Lang of Lang Marketing in Fort Wayne, Indiana. "In fact, vehicles 12 years former and older account for almost half the vehicles on U.Due south. roads."

The sales boom contributed to the clunker fleet in a roundabout way.

Strong consumer demand in conjunction with low interest rates immune automakers to pack expensive options into vehicles and raise prices year after twelvemonth on the car lots. Past this summer, the typical heir-apparent at a dealership paid $35,285 for a new vehicle, reports market annotator Edmunds.com Inc. of Santa Monica, California. This was nigh 25 percent over the average transaction price a decade ago.

Auto prices rose so fast that many heart-income buyers backed abroad from new vehicles. They turned to late-model used autos. This year about xl meg used cars and trucks of all ages will change hands, compared with sales of well-nigh 17.3 million new vehicles.

Strong demand lifted prices — the average used machine cost $xx,085 in October — and pushed away lower-income drivers looking for affordable tardily-model vehicles. They bought older cars instead. This demand in turn raised prices on older vehicles. Scarcity was too a gene.

When layoffs mounted in the 2008-2009 recession, new auto sales plunged and auto plants trimmed output. Today relatively few vehicles assembled betwixt 2009 and 2012 are on the road.

"Consumers looking to escape record-loftier new and used vehicle prices are coming upward brusk in the used market," Edmunds' market place analysts reported recently, noting used "vehicles under $10,000, the nigh affordable segment, are growing increasingly deficient."

Rather than pay a lot for a used car, many drivers decided to fix and hold on to their former rides. Working in their favor was vehicle reliability, Lang said. Autos designed since the late 1990s tend to final longer than before cars and trucks.

Every bit a consequence, the nation's armada of nearly 300 million cars and trucks contains an unusually large share of elderly vehicles. About 81 1000000 autos will take been on the road 16 years or longer by 2021, compared with 62 1000000 in 2016 and 35 meg in 2002, predicts the Motorcar Care Clan, a trade group in Bethesda, Maryland, in its most contempo Country of the Auto Industry written report.

It is on the decorated highways, in among the drugstores, fast-food diners, gas stations and dollar stores, where the repair bondage are showing up.

Just 40 percent of motorists have regular maintenance performed, the Auto Intendance Association reports, noting most drivers cite inconvenience as a reason for avoiding the work. Now, repair chains are taking root on the routes motorists have between home and jobs.

"That working-class market is where we're focused," said Hughes, pointing out Meineke's new shops ofttimes feature children'southward play spaces and bright lobbies.

Auto repair

Over two decades, 13 percent of auto dealerships have closed nationwide. If work needs to be done, drivers tend to rely on local garages, which account for 65 percent of the service on the nearly 300 million cars and trucks in use today.

Over two decades, 13 per centum of the nation's machine dealerships have closed, leaving many motorists far abroad from the dealer'south mechanics. If work must be done, drivers tend to rely on locally owned repair shops, especially drivers of domestic brands made by Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, Lang said.

Because local shops all the same account for about 65 percent of the maintenance and repair concern, many investors are expanding by buying the shops. Icahn Automotive, for instance, acquired more than 225 shops last year, including Mathis Tire & Auto Service, a Memphis concatenation with 12 stores, and W.S. Haynes, a ii-store Memphis business.

Seeing the rise of the well-financed shops, Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based AutoNation Inc., the nation's largest automotive retailer, set up the Approved AutoRepair designation for its garages in a partnership with AAA, an insurer and car intendance organization based in Heathrow, Florida. The retailer earlier this year said 220 facilities are nether the program.

The demise of the smaller shops, said Lang, whose research is relied on by the Auto Care Association, traces in part to the increasing employ of electronic systems in vehicles. While systems such as fuel control modules add to vehicle reliability, they crave expensive repair tools and diagnostic equipment often across the means of family businesses.

The aging car armada has reshaped the automotive industry in another way. Nashville-based tire maker Bridgestone Americas Inc. responded to the industry consolidation last year. Bridgestone and Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. formed TireHub LLC. The distribution firm was set up to make sure the remaining contained shops throughout the state have a steady supply of Bridgestone and Goodyear products.

Another visitor affected by the crumbling fleet is AutoZone Inc. The Memphis-based retail chain operates more than six,000 stores. Stocking parts in its warehouses for an array of vehicles, Lang said, "places an inventory brunt on them. They tin't retire older parts at the rate they in one case could."

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