Scale of car parts price rises revealed

Fleets have suffered from a marked increase in average parts prices in the past four years, new data released by Epyx shows.

Using a basket of common parts including front discs and pads, wiper blades, clutch, pollen filter, headlamp bulbs and spark plugs, the total cost has risen from £713 in 2020 to £963 in 2024 - a 35% hike in the past four years.

The biggest increases have been seen for headlamp bulbs, up by more 45%, clutches, which  have risen by 40%, and spark plugs and pollen filters, up by more than a third.

The data is taken from Epyx’s 1link Service Network, used by fleets totalling more than four million cars, vans and trucks to manage their service, maintenance and repair (SMR) processes, working with thousands of franchise dealers, independent garages and fast fits.

Tim Meadows, chief commercial officer at Epyx, said: “It’s well known in the fleet sector that parts production has been hit in all kinds of ways in recent years, from the effects of the pandemic through to the war in Ukraine, and that there has been a resulting marked impact on prices.

“This data shows exactly how much. While the overall rate of UK inflation since 2020 has been around 22%, fleets have seen the prices of these parts rise by an additional 13%. These are dramatic increases that have had a definite impact on overall running costs.”

The price hikes have happened when operators have been keeping hold of vehicles for longer, with many needing to buy more parts as a result.

For example, looking at the basket of parts, few fleets would have needed clutches when operating on a three-year replacement cycle but for those that are keeping cars until four or five years old, the incidence of clutch issues is unavoidably higher.

“Just at the point when they’ve needed to spend more on parts, fleets have had to pay more,” said Meadows.

However, the rate of price rises appears to be slowing, with the increase for 2024 over 2023 currently running at over 6%, compared to 11% for 2023 over 2022 and for 2022 over 2021.

Meadows added: “We have seen overall UK inflation begin to fall quite dramatically in recent months, and there have also been corresponding reductions seen for our parts basket.

“While prices are still rising, we are hopefully starting to see increases become more manageable.”

Epyx’s analysis comes as separate figures from Cap HPI showed that in a list of top 20 manufacturers, Tesla has the lowest servicing costs. 

The electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer is also the cheapest for brakes, but comes last for tyre costs, ranked as the most expensive of all the current top 20 car brands.