A recent report from the American Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council and Decisiv Inc. reveals that heavy-duty truck parts and labor costs continue to decrease, though the rate of decline slowed in the second quarter.
The latest Decisiv/TMC North American Service Event Benchmark Report indicates a 0.7% drop in parts and labor costs in the second quarter across 25 major expense categories, following a 1.6% decrease in the first quarter.
“These declines reflect a continued leveling off of expenses following historically high increases that resulted from supply chain challenges,” said Decisiv President and CEO Dick Hyatt. “Fleets and service providers are seeing a return to predictability and an enhanced ability to more effectively plan service cost allocations. Along with more predictable freight volumes and vehicle mileages, the resumption of more consistent parts availability and overall declines or only modest increases in parts and labor costs point to much-needed cost stability for fleets and service operations.”
Although there was an overall decrease, parts and labor costs actually increased in 13 of the 25 Vehicle Maintenance Reporting Standard (VMRS) categories monitored, up from seven categories with increases in the first quarter.
Parts costs declined by 0.4% in the second quarter, marking the third consecutive drop but smaller than the 2.2% decrease in the first quarter of 2024 and the 2.4% decrease in the final quarter of 2023.
Labor costs fell 1.1% in the second quarter, after a 0.6% decrease in the year’s first quarter.
“Continued trends for reduced parts and labor costs are welcome news to fleets, who have been weathering substantial increases for much of the last several years,” said TMC Executive Director Robert Braswell. “The Decisiv/TMC parts and labor cost analysis report provides council members an excellent means of comparing how their operations are performing to industry trends so they can take action accordingly.”
Compared to the same period last year, combined parts and labor costs dropped by 1.4%. Labor costs rose 0.7% in the second quarter from a year ago, while parts costs decreased by 2.8% from the second quarter of 2023.
The data gathered and analyzed by Decisiv for the Decisiv/TMC North American Service Event Benchmark Reports covers 25 VMRS system-level codes, representing over 97% of the total parts and labor expenses for more than seven million assets and over 300,000 monthly maintenance and repair events across more than 5,000 service locations.
