Your Next Car Repair Might Be A Lot More Expensive

Photo: Michael H (Getty Images)

Fixing your car often sucks. Sure, it’s fun to tinker around with carb tuning and spark plug gaps by choice, but the idea of wrenching suddenly gets a lot less fun when your daily breaks down and you’re stranded halfway to work. But, if the latest financial data is to be believed, car repairs are getting a whole lot worse.

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New reports show problems with car repairs across the board — price, frequency, and wait times are all way up. Worse still, according to Axios, the causes behind those increases aren’t going away any time soon. In fact, things could get even pricier.

Photo: Monty Rakusen (Getty Images)

First up is the discussion of just how bad things have gotten. Prices for car repairs have increased by nearly 20 percent since last year, while maintenance costs have similarly spiked (albeit not by such gargantuan increments). From Axios:

The cost of car repairs was up by 19.7% on an annual basis, according to the latest federal consumer price data.More broadly, motor vehicle maintenance and repair was up 13.5% for the 12 months ending in May, the new figures from the Labor Department show.The average cost hit $378.18 that month — a nearly 24% increase from May 2020, when the average was $305.57.

Ouch. I, for one, am glad I purchased an old vehicle that needs plenty of repairs. This was a fantastic time to do this. But as it turns out, I may not be alone — car repair prices are up, in part, because the cars on American roads keep getting older. Old vehicles simply need more repairs, per Axios:

Shortages of new cars — which have contributed to higher prices — are also fueling the trend, said Chris Sutton, vice president of automotive retail at J.D. Power.Older cars mean more repairs, Sutton told Axios. “So you look at a staffing shortage that is compounded with people needing to get their vehicles fixed.”The average age of light vehicles on the road in the U.S. has reached a record high of 12.5 years, per S&P Global Mobility.

Seems like now is as good a time as any to learn to wrench yourself. The more you do at home, with your own tools and time, the less you’ll have to shell out for mechanic labor. In this economy, that’s the smartest move you can make.