Over 78.3 percent of heavy duty repair shops charge for diagnostics, with the majority of them charging $250 or less. The average diagnostic charge, however, is $177. In addition, the remaining 21.7 percent don’t charge for the service at all, according to Fullbay’s 2022 edition of the State of the Heavy-Duty Repair report.
For the second year, Fullbay has released its State of the Heavy-Duty Repair, a report to provide heavy duty equipment insights, trends, and benchmarks, as well as labor rates and salaries by region and current shop challenges. It utilizes sampling of repair shops using the Fullbay shop management system and qualitative survey respondents.
Over 900 individuals from the commercial freight, logistics, and repair industries were surveyed and more than 500 shops from across North America were sampled.
Here are just a few key takeaways. To read the full report, click here.
Parts shortage impact
- More than 90 percent of shops had to not only occasionally but frequently turn to other suppliers to find the parts they needed.
- 82 percent of shops reported at least some disruption due to the global parts shortage, while 17 percent reported extreme disruptions.
Technicians pay
- When it comes to U.S. regions and how much technicians earn by the hour, the Southeast reported the highest hourly rates of an average of $31.61. The Western region came in second with wages averaging $30.42 per hour. The other regions average about $25 an hour.
- More than 71 percent of shops increased their technician’s wages in 2021 – up $13.88 an hour on average.
Hiring technicians
- 59 percent of shops said referrals and word of mouth continue to be the best way to find technicians.
- Job board postings came in second.
Providing additional training to your staff makes them more productive and valuable to your shop, the report states.
- 55 percent of shops said they wanted to hire one to three technicians in 2021 but only 54 percent of them did.
- For 2022, nearly 60 percent of shops intend to hire another one to three technicians.
Finding new customers
- 68 percent of shops said referrals and word of mouth are the best ways to get new customers.
- 43 percent said social media.
- For those using social media platforms, Facebook is the most popular. 71 percent are using Facebook for networking, while 35 percent use YouTube and 33 percent use Instagram.
