Delayed Maintenance on Privately Owned Vehicles in US Reaches $25 Billion

We’ve all put things off that, at the moment we made that decision, we knew we’d be better off taking care of it immediately. Procrastination is a fact of life we all engage into some degree, even though we know it often works against us. One of these areas of life is automotive care and maintenance. And if we’ve been turned off by the unprofessional approach of many dealerships and independent repair shops, that only worsens the situation.

The first time I heard of this statistic was about 10 years ago, and the number was what seemed at the time to be a staggering $10 billion. The number is now an unbelievable $25 billion in deferred maintenance in the non-commercial US vehicle fleet. That’s a lot of overdue brake jobs, bald tires, and old fluids. 

This estimate is based on a survey of more than 100,000 households driving more than 170,000 cars. From our decades of experience here at Pacific Motorsports, this $25 billion estimate seems to be reasonable. With 278 million cars on the road, that’s around 5 million brake jobs, 7 million worn-out tires and 11 million engines with old, dirty oil, by the way.

“We found that a surprising amount of households are knowingly delaying vehicle maintenance and that the primary reasons are economic, convenience and a perception that delaying the maintenance isn’t quite affecting vehicle performance. Ultimately, servicing your vehicle at the recommended service intervals can keep money in your pocket by avoiding more unintentional wear, catastrophic failure or worse case, an accident,” said Bill Thompson, CEO of automotive research firm IMR. 

As we’ve said for years, maintenance is less expensive than breakdown repair. It’s also something that you can schedule. Let us know what’s due (or past due, or noted by us on a previous visit) on your MINI or BMW, and let us help you keep it on the road for many years and miles to come.

Call us, or use our convenient appointment feature here on the website, to schedule your next visit and let us provide you with A Higher Standard of Service.

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