Fleet use of independent garages is around a quarter higher for company cars and vans aged four years old compared to their one-year-old counterparts, research shows.

Fleets see franchise dealers and official SMR suppliers as less important as vehicles age

New data from Epyx reveals that buying of service, maintenance and repair (SMR) shifts from 30% independent garage and 70% franchise dealer for vehicles at 1-2 years old, onto 35%/65% at 2-3 years old, 40%/60% at 3-4 years old and 38%/62% at four years old and over.

The information, taken from transactions during 2023 for Epyx’s1link Service Network platform, is evidence of the established industry practice of turning to independent dealers as vehicles age.

Tim Meadows, chief commercial officer at Epyx, explained: “It’s clear that fleets see different types of garages as appropriate for different points in a vehicle’s lifecycle and that as they age, factors such as the requirement to maintain a franchise dealer service history or needing to take advantage of the specialist knowledge that comes from using the manufacturer’s official SMR supplier appear to become less important.”

However, the Epyx data also suggests that there is an ongoing fall away from independent garages for older vehicles. Such suppliers were actually used for 44% of SMR jobs for four-year plus cars and in vans in 2021, but this reduced to 40% in 2022 and 38% in 2023.

Meadows added: “This is an interesting trend and not one for which we have an obvious explanation, other than the fact that accessing any kind of SMR can be difficult at the moment, and fleets may be finding it easier to book with franchise dealers than independents.”