Seems the average age of a car on US roads has hit 12.2 years.
Impressive on the face of it. But it raises a question… How long will (or must) a car manufacturer stock repair parts? Seems the answer is… However long they want to as there is no requirement! If the warranty on a given part is in effect or a recall notice is issued, they must supply parts per Magnusson-Moss. But for a 12 year old car still on the road, you are pretty much at the mercy of the manufacturer.
We have posters here posting service problems on cars from the 80s and 90s and 2000s still on the road. We have posters (myself included) that have had their cars off the road for extended periods waiting for repair parts.
Covid made this a mess as did the Great Recession from 08-09 when many suppliers went under never to return. I see this as only getting worse as cars become more complicated while still being more durable.
How is this affected by aftermarket parts? Even though the OEM might not supply a part anymore, other companies can fill the void. This could be true for most any vehicle and is especially true for icons like Mustangs and Camaros.
The aftermarket will step up to make some repair parts, true, but for the volume customers and volume wear parts. Sure a Camaro or Mustang will generally have aftermarket parts available for them, but others won’t.
I can buy tons of aftermarket stuff (sometimes crap) for my Avalanche since it shares so much with the second best selling vehicle, the Sierra pickup. But the Mustang was a recent problem getting a transmission part common to the best selling vehicle in America, the F150. And even Dorman (crap) did not have the part available so 3 months it was down. But it is a 10 year old Mustang, not a 25 year old car.
The problem isn’t with the common parts that wear out, it is the uncommon parts. SRS modules, ECUs, Instrument clusters, things that would park a 12 year old car. Maybe permantly.
Yes, but it will still depend on the attractiveness of that part in the market. The more of any car that were sold and still on the road needing replacements parts, the more interest in supplying them. But they will also purge their offerings if they are not profitable.
It becomes a bit more murky when it comes to parts that are programmable or contain programming. Even if the hardware is common, aftermarket may (probably) not have access to the firmware. So repairing what already exists becomes the only route to repair.
Yeah it really depends on the popularity of the car and the interchangeability between models and years. Electronics can be a problem after 20 years and body panels can be a problem. But junk yards and nation wide search programs make the job a lot easier. About 1980 I was looking for a fender, grill, and bumper for a 62 comet or something or other. A couple junk yards put it on their radio call in Mn and sd but no luck. Finally I talked to a guy I knew as a kid who worked a local junk yard. Yeah, there is one of those way back by the river on top of some other old cars. Is blue ok? Cost me $25. So with computers, eBay, and so on, a lot easier these days. I had a riviera Crt screen shipped from a junk yard in Texas for about $50. Bought fenders and a hood from a yard 100 miles away, etc. just gotta look and settle for used sometimes.
I can pretty much obtain any part I need for my 40 year old truck, new, possibly may have to order it and wait for delivery of course. But for my Corolla, if the ECM fails, not sure if there’s any method to obtain a new one. On modern cars ECM availability is probably the hard limit.
This post is not about 40 or 50 or even 30 year old cars and trucks. This is about 10 to 20 year old vehicles which make up more than 40% of cars on the road. Cars driven by people who don’t work on them, but pay others to do that.
Even my Avalanche having such common part has created problems for me. I needed a new fan clutch. I bought 4 sampes from different aftermarket suppliers. One being AC Delco. Not built by the original supplier because they were no longer in business. None of them worked properly. None would actually de-clutch. This killed my already bad mpgs. I put in a dual electric fan from a later SUV and engineered my own thermostatic control system. Most would just live with the poor mpgs with the fan noise.
I couldn’t do that for the Mustang. I had to just wait and hope a part became available.
I know the Topic was initially asking about the average age of cars getting to just over 12-years and much of the discussion has revolved around the availability of parts, but we are only looking at about half of the problem.
Over the last 12-years, over about 170 million cars and trucks have been sold, that’s about 14 million a year.
There are almost 300 million vehicles registered in the US and for the average age to be only about 12-years, that means there are a lot of older, much older vehicles on the road and they are much, much more difficult to get parts for since the Cash for Clunkers program…
How quickly we forget, the “Cash for Clunkers” program sponsored by the U.S. government back in 2009. So many usable and reusable parts saw car crusher due to this program…
As I’ve mentioned in the past, my garage houses an '84 Harley, an '85 Toyota, an '01 Dodge Ram, a '19 Toyota, and a '20 Honda. That puts the average age of my garage at just over 21-years (old enough for them to buy their own beer and cigarettes… L o L…).
I’ve joked about this before… When the wife’s '85’s A/C compressor went out, it took the dealer over 3-weeks to get one that fit, three came in but only one actually fit… So we bought the '19 Toyota (as a “spare” A/C compressor…) and when her '85’s starter died, it took several weeks for that to com in… so we bought the '20 Honda (as a “spare” starter…).
But the wife said this system of “spare parts” stops here, if the Harley needs a part, I’m not getting a “spare…”
Confirms my math, that 12 years of cars is more than 50% of the market. I commented that the over 12 year market was about 40%. That means the over 24 year old cars would be a single digit percentage of the market. Collector vehicles (yours) are not the same as old cars still on the road (George’s truck).
The problem is not that they exist, but that they increasingly cannot be fixed because of lack of parts. Not so critical scrapping a 20 year old vehicle but a significant issue when faced with scrapping a 2009 car with plenty of useful life left due to a lack of a critical part.
The rules haven’t changed but cars have. Cars never used to last this long (typically). And, they are increasingly packed with sophisticated electronics and parts that are expensive to fabricate and stock. There has never been a law or mandate for supporting their products in the market for X years after the last one is sold. This is a very common requirement from customers in the business I am in. If we sell them parts, we are obligated to support them for X years or we don’t get the business. This is probably what needs to happen now with vehicle manufacturers. Some type of consumer protection mandate perhaps. But beware of what you ask for, it could come back to bite us. No more unique cars, too expensive to support if they don’t sell well…
I guess I have been very lucky that even for very old cars (20-30 years old) I can still find all of the mechanical parts I would ever need. Of course, these are models which sold well, such as Dodge Shadow/Plymouth Sundance, Dodge Caravan/Plymouth Voyager, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Camry, etc. What is difficult to find is replacement ECMs, although there are companies which claim to repair them.
We post a lot about the mechanical bits to keep them running but what about body parts? Bumper covers, fenders, clips, trim and parts specific to the model required for accident repair. How about HVAC parts? Actuators, door locks, and power windowlifts? Minor stuff that can park a car.
Like I said, my riv was totaled after hitting a deer because the body shop said parts were not available. I needed the headlight assembly, fender, grill, and hood. There is a junk yard north of Minneapolis that specializes in old cars going back even to the 30s and 40s. I think I paid about $250 for the parts over the counter. You just have to look and do your own work. Now the folks here that start off saying they know nothing about cars are just out of luck and doomed to just replacing the car. I just wish folks would be more self reliant instead of being at the mercy of the market. But it probably starts at ten years old instead of 30. Just can’t teach motivation.
I may be way off base here, but doesn’t it basically come down to supply and demand and when the OEM patent expires, released or whatever they do so the aftermarket can start producing the part… it’s a follow the money thing, if not enough return on investment then no money to be made and therefore no X part being made for us to buy…
Yes, that is exactly the reason. Pretty much applies to everything in life Regarding IP, that isn’t much of a driver for things like body parts. Those require very expensive tooling. Once the manufacturer gives up production, the tooling is potentially available and aftermarket companies may buy that hard tooling so they can more easily resume having these parts fabricated. It would take a huge investment to replicate the tooling needed to stamp and form those parts so starting from scratch to design and make those dies and machines is very cost prohibitive.
The cost of the replacement parts and even the car when new are likely to increase as well. Rules like this increase lifetime costs to the manufacturer and they will pass these costs along to the customer.
Much less today that is used to be. Dies can be made from 3-D scans into 5 axis milling machines cutting mold material for cast Kirksite dies that may be good for 5000 parts. Makes aftermarket volumes of parts most cost effective. Pretty cool stuff.
And Kirksite molds can make plastic or rubber parts the same way.
Absolutely. “Soft” tooling would be effective solution for aftermarket volumes- that’s an excellent point. And you’re right, the scanning of existing parts and direct conversion to machine tool language makes the process so much less demanding in terms of labor. Meanwhile, the cost of machine time is way down compared to years ago.
We converted a cast aluminum housing that had to have hipping process and post casting machining, to a billet machined part for around 1/2 the cost. I couldn’t believe it at first.
If I could buy the original dies, leave them at the existing supplier and just have them run parts in batches as needed, that would be the first choice. However, to your point made above, the cost barrier to entry for aftermarket has come down substantially compared to years ago.
Regarding IP, that isn’t much of a driver for things like body parts. Those require very expensive tooling. Once the manufacturer gives up production, the tooling is potentially available and aftermarket companies may buy that hard tooling so they can more easily resume having these parts fabricated. It would take a huge investment to replicate the tooling needed to stamp and form those parts so starting from scratch to design and make those dies and machines is very cost prohibitive.