TRUMANN — The automotive industry from car dealerships to auto repair shops continue to deal with shortages, delays and price increases brought on by the U.S. supply chain crisis.
The U.S. supply chain crisis started on March of 2020 as part of the COVID-19 shutdown causing shortages and price increases on electronics, medicine, certain food items and automobiles. And while the COVID-19 shutdown and many of its restrictions have been lifted, the U.S. supply chain crisis is still affecting the automotive industry today.
“Ford has really struggled with getting parts” said Billy Edger, general sales manager of Central Ford in Trumann.
Edger, who has been working at the Central Ford dealership for nearly four years, said the supply chain crisis greatly affected the creation of new vehicles. This has become an issue as smaller dealerships are likely to be lower in the priority of getting newer vehicles.
“The smaller dealerships pay more than the bigger dealerships, it’s just how business works,” Edger said.
Edger said his dealership used to have 60 to 80 brand new vehicles, but now the dealership receives barely handful of new vehicles over the course of a few months. On top of this the shortage of parts leads to delays in repairing vehicles at the dealership’s service department. These delays can last from a few day up to even months.
Edger said Central Ford has done its best to help in the parts shortage by giving weekly reports on what parts are in low supply, but despite efforts in the past few years Edger doesn’t see the supply chain problems ending anytime soon.
“It’s worse, the supply chains are worse,” he said. “I mean the ships were sitting out in the sea for I don’t know how many months? But, like I said you watch the news and their struggling to get anything in America.”
It is not just corporations that are affected, but local businesses also continue to suffer from the supply chain crisis.
“This by far I would say is the worst in the sense of pricing, even for a dealer the cost level is the highest I’ve ever seen” said Joel Martin, CEO and President of Why Pay More Auto Sales.
Martin has been in the automotive industry since 1986. He currently operates and owns Why Pay More Auto Sales, a used car dealership in Trumann that he has been running since 2017.
Martin says that he has had to pay $13,000 for cars he previously would have paid $10,000 for.
“Used car dealers are having to pay 30% to 40% more for the same vehicles we bought a year and a half ago” said Martin.
The inflation harms dealers further as Martin says they will likely need to repair and maintain these vehicles with now higher priced parts that are in short supply. Regardless of the problems used car dealers have to deal with, Martin has a more positive outlook.
“If prices begin to come down then we’ll see a turn in the business, but I think we’ll go through all this year with the higher prices,” he said.
Local auto repair shops and part stores have also been affected by the supply chain crisis.
“I have noticed a bit of a delay in actually getting the parts we need, just in the past year or year and a half,” Jeremy Elkins, assistant manager of Smith Tire & Auto. “Before we’d call to get the parts relatively quick the same day, now its maybe having to wait most of the day or the next day to get the parts.”
Elkins has worked for Smith Tire & Auto in Trumann for a year and a half. His job consists of managing the front desk and taking stock of the various parts and inventory.
Elkins said that they normally purchase parts locally from O’Reilly Auto Parts or Advanced Auto Parts, but with those stores having shortages they sometimes have to get the parts or tires from entirely different states.
He said that while they might occasionally have trouble getting tires, their biggest issue is getting certain parts and in many cases have had to delay a customer’s repair due to the time it would take to receive a needed part.
So, despite the supply chain crisis being nearly two years old it still continues to heavily affect the automotive industry. And with no end in sight all automotive businesses can do is endure and wait for prices and shortages to stabilize.
