58 dealership service department statistics for 2026: retention, trust and fixed ops

Franchised dealers in the US wrote 276 million repair orders last year and billed $164.6 billion for service and parts. At the same time, their share of all service visits slid to 29%. Record revenue, shrinking slice. That tension runs through every number on this page.

If you run a service department, a workshop or the fixed ops side of a dealer group, these are the dealership service department statistics worth keeping to hand for 2026: department size and profit (NADA), market share and retention (Cox Automotive), customer satisfaction (J.D. Power), trust and declined work (AAA, RTC), digital inspections, and the technician shortage (TechForce). Every figure links to the page we took it from.

Most of the lost share traces back to a customer who couldn't see why the work was needed. Venta Video, a product of VentaVid, fixes that part: the technician films the inspection, the customer gets a branded page and approves the work from their phone. See how it works on the service drive.

Key highlights

• $164.6 billion in service and parts sales across US franchised dealerships in 2025, on 276 million repair orders (NADA)
• 29% of all service visits now go to a dealership, down from 33% in 2018 (Cox Automotive)
• 54% of owners with a vehicle two years old or newer still service at the selling dealer, down from 72% in 2023 (Cox Automotive)
• 64% of customers want photo or video evidence with their multi-point inspection; only 26% of mass-market customers get it (J.D. Power)
• $640 vs $410: average repair order spend with and without dealer-provided photos or videos (Cox Automotive)
• 2 in 3 US drivers do not trust auto repair shops in general (AAA)
• 42%: the share of technician demand the training pipeline actually fills (TechForce)

How big the service department is

Fixed ops is the steadiest revenue line in the store. The NADA Data 2025 annual financial profile puts hard numbers on it.

US franchised dealerships wrote 276,128,228 repair orders in 2025. Service and parts sales came to $164,598,127,462, or $164.6 billion. (NADA Data 2025)

Service and parts sales have grown from $111.2 billion in 2018 to $164.6 billion in 2025. That's a 48% climb in seven years, with 2024 closing at $156.5 billion. (NADA Data 2025)

The average new-vehicle dealership sold $9,687,942 of service and parts in 2025. It wrote 16,252 repair orders with 16 technicians, body shop included. (NADA Data 2025)

Service and parts sales average $494 per customer-pay repair order and $551 per warranty repair order. For every dollar of service labor sold, dealers sell $1.43 in parts. (NADA Data 2025)

Service labor sales totalled $75.81 billion, parts sales $93.42 billion. Customer mechanical labor alone was $31.48 billion, warranty labor $15.46 billion. (NADA Data 2025)

The average customer mechanical labor rate is $186 an hour. The average dealership carries $572,382 in parts inventory. (NADA Data 2025)

Service and parts make up 13.2% of dealership income, up from 12.4% in 2023. Cox Automotive counted $156 billion in service and parts revenue across 270 million repair orders for 2024. (Cox Automotive, 2025 Service Industry Study)

Average dealer service and parts revenue reached about $9.23 million in 2025, up 33% over eight years. Cox calls it a record. (Cox Automotive, 2026 Fixed Ops and Ownership Study)

A $9.7 million department on 16 technicians is a lot of throughput per bay. Which is exactly why the next section stings: the pie keeps growing while the dealer's slice keeps shrinking. If you want to see how a customer-pay repair order fits into the wider fixed operations picture, both glossary entries cover the mechanics.

Market share and retention

Cox Automotive has tracked the drift from dealer service lanes to independents since 2018. The direction hasn't changed.

Dealerships hold 29% of service visits, down from 33% in 2018. General repair shops rose from 25% to 27%, quick lubes from 12% to 14%. Independent mobile and OEM mobile service each took 2% in 2025, categories that didn't exist in the 2018 count. (Cox Automotive, 2026 media deck)

The number of auto mechanic businesses in the US has grown 12% since 2018 to roughly 299,000. More competitors, each one closer to the customer's home. (Cox Automotive, 2026 study)

The biggest losses are on the newest cars. Dealer share of service visits for vehicles under two years old fell from 68% to 55% between 2018 and 2025. For two- to five-year-old vehicles it dropped from 58% to 45%. (Cox Automotive, 2026 media deck)

Only 54% of owners with a vehicle two years old or newer still service at the dealer they bought from. That figure was 72% in 2023. (Cox Automotive, 2025 Service Industry Study)

80% of new-car buyers say they're likely to service at the selling dealership. Only about 25% leave the store with a first service appointment booked. (Cox Automotive, 2026 study)

Each lost service customer is worth an estimated $12,398 over the ownership period. Cox bases that on 2.4 visits a year, 8.4 years of ownership and $615 per visit. (Cox Automotive, 2026 media deck)

Owners who service at the dealership are 74% likely to buy their next vehicle there, against 44% for those who don't. A 30-point gap, or "nearly twice as likely" in Cox's words. (Cox Automotive, Ownership Study)

88% of consumers say the service experience directly affects whether they'll buy from that dealer again. (Cox Automotive, 2026 study)

Vehicle owners visited a service provider 2.5 times a year in 2023, up from 2.3 in 2021. The pre-pandemic figure in 2018 was 2.8. (Cox Automotive, 2023 Service Industry Study)

The average US vehicle is 12.8 years old. Nearly two-thirds of owners now keep a vehicle five years or more, up from 54% in 2024, and the average disposed vehicle is 10 years old. (Cox Automotive, 2025 study and 2026 study)

EV owners rely on dealers for 67% of their service visits, hybrid owners for 50%, ICE owners for 28%. EV owners also report the highest out-of-pocket cost per visit at $417. (Cox Automotive, 2026 study)

So the car parc is older, visits are more frequent and each visit is worth more. The demand is there. What's leaking is the relationship in years one to five, the window where the dealer should have the easiest claim on the work. Our service retention entry explains how that metric is usually measured.

Price, trust and why customers leave

Cox's own summary of this section is blunt: pricing perceptions, not pricing reality, are pushing customers away.

The average dealership repair visit costs $261. The average general repair shop visit costs $275. Dealers are cheaper on average and still lose on price perception. (Cox Automotive, 2025 Service Industry Study)

If cost were equal, 45% of consumers would pick the dealership and 32% a general repair shop. Asked which providers they consider, 42% name general repair and 41% name the dealership. (Cox Automotive, 2026 media deck)

45% of vehicle owners are dissatisfied with their dealership service experience. The top frustrations are unexpected costs and poor communication. (Cox Automotive, 2025 study)

Speed is the single biggest frustration at 24%, followed by pricing opacity (13%), upsell pressure (13%) and a price that came in above the estimate (12%). (Cox Automotive, Ownership Study)

Trust is the number one reason customers come back to a dealer for service, cited by 22%. The deal they got (12%), the dealer knowing the vehicle's history (11%), location (8%) and friendliness (8%) trail well behind. (Cox Automotive, Ownership Study)

Trust as a reason for returning fell from 62% in 2021 to 54% in 2023. The average price per service visit rose 45% over the same two years. (Cox Automotive, 2023 study)

55% of consumers say being able to compare nearby competitors' prices is an important feature on a dealer website or app. (Cox Automotive, 2026 media deck)

After a dealership visit, 89% of customers would consider coming back. Only 20% of customers who used a non-dealer would consider switching to a dealer. Winning a customer back is far harder than keeping one. (Cox Automotive, Ownership Study)

Two in three US drivers do not trust auto repair shops in general. 76% point to recommendations for unnecessary services, 73% to overcharging, 63% to a bad past experience and 49% worry the work won't be done right. This is AAA's 2016 survey and it still gets quoted because nobody has published a better one. (AAA, 2016)

One in three drivers, 75 million people, has never found a repair shop they trust. Baby boomers are twice as likely as younger drivers to fully trust the industry: 76% of boomers have a trusted shop, against 55% of millennials. (AAA, 2016)

64 million US drivers could not pay for an unexpected repair without going into debt. The average repair bill runs $500 to $600, and one-third of drivers skip or delay recommended service as a result. (AAA, 2017)

Read those together and the "declined work" problem looks less like a sales problem and more like an evidence problem. A customer who suspects unnecessary work, can't see the part and is worried about the bill will say no to a phone call. The declined work glossary entry covers how dealers track it; the next section shows what happens when the customer can see the problem.

Service managers usually feel this one first. The estimate is fair, the advisor is honest, and the customer still hesitates because all they have is a number and a voice. Book a 15-minute demo and we'll show you what an inspection looks like when the customer can watch it.

Photo and video inspections: the approval numbers

This is the part of the data that has moved fastest in the last two years. Both Cox and J.D. Power now measure what visual evidence does to spend and satisfaction.

Customers who received dealer-provided photos or videos spent $640 on their repair order. Customers who didn't spent $410. A $230 difference on out-of-pocket visits, statistically significant at the 95% level. (Cox Automotive, 2026 media deck)

49% of consumers who received photos or videos say they're more likely to approve recommended services. 45% say they're more likely to recommend the department. (Cox Automotive, Ownership Study)

65% of consumers say photos and videos build trust. Among dealers who use them, 53% report increased consumer trust, 45% higher engagement and 44% more transparency in the process. (Cox Automotive, Ownership Study and 2026 media deck)

64% of dealership customers want photo or video evidence alongside their multi-point inspection results. Only 26% of mass-market customers and 44% of premium customers say they get it. (J.D. Power, 2026 U.S. CSI Study)

Satisfaction with the service advisor peaks when photo or video is shared while the work is being done: 928 in premium and 907 in mass market, both well above the 868 industry average. (J.D. Power, 2026 U.S. CSI Study)

High-performing dealers are more likely to have built photos and videos into their multi-point inspections: 47% versus 34% of other dealers. By another Cox measure, 64% of high performers use them against 48% of the rest. (Cox Automotive, 2026 media deck and Ownership Study)

62% of high-performing dealers offer electronic estimate review and approval, against 50% of others. Online scheduling is at 81% versus 72%, mobile check-in at 21% versus 12%. (Cox Automotive, Ownership Study)

UK dealers completed 3.3 million electronic vehicle health checks in 2022 and identified £1.43 billion of extra aftersales work. More than half of the urgent "red" work converted. Even so, £950 million of identified work was done elsewhere or ignored. (RTC, via Motor Finance Online)

That last figure is the one to sit with. A vehicle health check that finds the work is only half the job; the other half is getting the customer to say yes before they drive off. That's why video multi-point inspections and a proper multi-point inspection process are usually the first thing we look at with a new service department. The gap between the 64% who want video and the 26% who get it is the largest open opportunity in this whole dataset.

Customer satisfaction on the service drive

J.D. Power's Customer Service Index is the industry's scorecard, fielded on 51,228 owners and lessees of one- to three-year-old vehicles during 2025.

Overall dealer service satisfaction scored 868 out of 1,000 in 2026, up 3 points. Premium brands averaged 886 (up 8), mass market 865 (up 3). (J.D. Power, 2026 U.S. CSI Study)

Only 26% of customers experience 9 or 10 of the top 10 service KPIs. When all 10 are met, satisfaction hits 979. When only 3 are met, it falls to 632. (J.D. Power, 2026 U.S. CSI Study)

A routine maintenance visit takes 1.61 hours at a mass-market dealer and 2.46 hours at a premium dealer. 62% of comparable aftermarket visits are done in under an hour. (J.D. Power, 2026 U.S. CSI Study)

When satisfaction reaches 950 or higher, 86% of mass-market and 88% of premium customers say they'll definitely return. (J.D. Power, 2026 U.S. CSI Study)

Premium customers of direct-to-consumer brands score their service at 855, 29 points below the mass-market average. Mobile and valet options don't make up for the rest of the experience. (J.D. Power, 2026 U.S. CSI Study)

Satisfaction among mass-market battery-EV owners trails ICE owners by 51 points. In the 2023 Cox data, 56% of EV owners reported at least one frustration with dealer service against 39% of ICE owners, and EV owners waited 34 minutes longer for maintenance. (J.D. Power, 2025 U.S. CSI Study and Cox Automotive, 2023 study)

Porsche leads premium service satisfaction at 915, followed by Infiniti (912) and Lexus (900). MINI leads mass market at 887, ahead of Subaru (886) and Buick (882). (J.D. Power, 2026 U.S. CSI Study)

The 979-versus-632 spread is the number for anyone who thinks CSI is about free coffee. It's about doing the basics, all of them, on every visit, and the service advisor is where most of those KPIs live or die.

Communication and the service lane as a sales channel

Customers tell Cox exactly how they want to be reached, and the same data shows how much sales opportunity sits unused in the service lane.

79% of consumers find text updates about their service highly helpful. Mileage-based reminders score 80%, reminders about previously declined maintenance 69%, email newsletters 62%. (Cox Automotive, Ownership Study)

Reminders drive 47% of unplanned visits among dealership service customers. Reminders about declined work influence 28% of them, against 23% for customers of other providers. (Cox Automotive, Ownership Study)

Only 14% of service customers were offered a trade-in value during their visit. 33% say they'd be highly interested. Cox calls it a 19-point gap between customer interest and dealer execution. (Cox Automotive, 2026 media deck)

$3,195 is the repair estimate at which consumers start weighing a trade-in over the repair. Faced with high repair costs, 47% now prefer to replace the vehicle rather than fix it, up from 30% in 2022. (Cox Automotive, 2026 media deck)

86% of high-performing dealers have an established process for acquiring inventory through the service lane, versus 72% of others. (Cox Automotive, 2026 media deck)

16% of consumers used an AI website or tool to research their last service provider. Of those, 48% used it to work out which services their vehicle needed, and 63% of dealers say AI investment is critical. (Cox Automotive, 2026 media deck and Ownership Study)

58% of high-performing dealers describe service gross profits as strong, against 28% of others. They're also 2.7 times more likely to expect much higher profits over the next five years. (Cox Automotive, 2026 media deck)

The pattern in the high-performer data is consistent: they track repair order metrics closely (44% versus 31%), they standardise the inspection, and they treat every visit as a chance to talk about the customer's next car. None of that needs a new building. It needs a process and a channel the customer actually reads, which is why we wrote a separate piece on video messages for the service department.

The technician shortage

Every approval you win still has to be turned into hours on a lift, and the labour supply behind that is the tightest constraint in fixed ops.

Dealerships employ 278,424 technicians, body shop included, an average of 16 per store. (NADA Data 2025)

The US posts 241,842 technician job openings a year against 101,743 graduates. Supply meets 42% of demand; 58% of openings go unfilled by new entrants. (TechForce Foundation, 2026 Supply and Demand Report)

The automotive sector specifically has a 29% supply gap and a median technician wage of $49,670. (TechForce Foundation, 2026 report)

Unfilled technician positions cost $7.42 billion a year in lost economic output. TechForce estimates 1.2 million new technicians are needed by 2029. (TechForce Foundation, 2026 report)

71% of dealers added high-voltage technicians for EV work, and 54% still say they need more trained staff. (Cox Automotive, 2023 Service Industry Study)

51% of high-performing dealers sell 100 or more shop hours a day, against 38% of others. (Cox Automotive, Ownership Study)

With bays and technicians this scarce, a declined job isn't just lost revenue. It's a diagnosis you paid a technician to make and then threw away. Improving technician utilisation and service absorption starts with converting more of the work you've already found.

What this means for dealership service teams

Put the sections together and the story is simple to state and hard to execute. The department has never billed more, the parc has never been older, and the dealer has never held a smaller share of the visits.

The leak is in years one to five, on customers who said at delivery that they'd come back. 80% intended to. Roughly a quarter left with an appointment. 54% actually returned. Every step of that funnel is a communication step, not a pricing step, because dealers are already $14 cheaper per visit than the independent down the road.

The most controllable lever in the whole dataset is visual evidence. Customers who got photos or videos spent $230 more, half of them said it made them more likely to approve, and advisor satisfaction ran 40 to 60 points above average when the video arrived during the visit. Yet three in four mass-market customers still get a phone call and a printed sheet.

That's the gap Venta Video was built for. The technician records the inspection on their phone, the customer receives a branded page by SMS, WhatsApp or email, watches the worn part being pointed at, and approves or pays from the same page. Across the dealers using it, that has meant a 22% higher approval rate on recommended work and $50 to $120 more revenue per vehicle visit, and 85% of service videos are watched within 15 minutes of being sent. Read how it fits an aftersales workflow, or see the service solution on our aftersales page.

If you service vehicles, Venta Video turns a quick handheld inspection video into a branded page your customers actually open and approve from. Book a 15-minute demo and we'll map it to your write-up flow.

Frequently asked questions

How much revenue does the average dealership service department make?

The average US new-vehicle dealership sold $9,687,942 of service and parts in 2025 on 16,252 repair orders, according to NADA Data 2025. Across all franchised dealers that adds up to $164.6 billion, and Cox Automotive puts service and parts at 13.2% of total dealership income.

What percentage of service visits go to dealerships?

29% of US service visits went to a dealership in 2025, down from 33% in 2018, per Cox Automotive's 2026 Fixed Ops and Ownership Study. General repair shops took 27%, quick lubes 14% and tire stores 10%.

What is a good service retention rate for a dealership?

Cox Automotive found that only 54% of owners with a vehicle two years old or newer still service at the selling dealer in 2025, down from 72% in 2023. For vehicles two to five years old, dealer share fell from 58% to 45% between 2018 and 2025, so anything above the mid-50s for newer cars is now ahead of the market.

Why do customers leave dealership service departments?

Not price: the average dealer visit costs $261 against $275 at a general repair shop. Cox Automotive's top frustrations are wait time (24%), pricing opacity (13%), upsell pressure (13%) and a bill that beat the estimate (12%). AAA found 76% of drivers worry about being sold unnecessary services and 73% about overcharging.

Do video inspections increase repair order value?

Yes, in the data available. Cox Automotive's 2026 study found customers who received dealer-provided photos or videos spent $640 on their repair order versus $410 without, and 49% said the visuals made them more likely to approve recommended work. J.D. Power reports the highest service advisor satisfaction scores (928 premium, 907 mass market) when photo or video is shared during the visit.

What is the dealer service satisfaction score for 2026?

J.D. Power's 2026 U.S. Customer Service Index puts overall dealer service satisfaction at 868 out of 1,000, up 3 points. Premium brands average 886 and mass-market brands 865. Porsche (915) leads premium and MINI (887) leads mass market.

How bad is the automotive technician shortage?

TechForce Foundation's 2026 report counts 241,842 annual technician openings against 101,743 graduates, so the pipeline covers 42% of demand. The automotive sector has a 29% supply gap, and TechForce estimates 1.2 million new technicians are needed by 2029.