The average vehicle on American roads is about 13 years old, a historic high that represents a 10% jump from a decade ago, according to industry data reported by The Wall Street Journal. The aging of the nation’s car fleet is accelerating as consumers confronting high new-vehicle prices, elevated interest rates and economic uncertainty choose to keep their existing cars longer, aided by improved vehicle durability.
Americans this year are expected to buy about 16 million new cars, but the real money for the auto industry is increasingly in keeping the existing fleet on the road, the Journal reported. The shift is reshaping the economics of buying, selling and repairing vehicles in the country, pushing automakers, dealers and independent repair shops to compete for a growing pool of service work.
Timothy Mason, a 41-year-old accountant in Massachusetts, drives a pair of Honda Accords: a 2010 model for his daily commute and a 2001 V-6 with more than 280,000 miles for winter driving. “Where’s the financial sense in a new car?” he told the Journal. “Better fuel mileage, maybe, but is it going to save me $800 plus per month?”
Sticker shock is widespread. The average selling price of a new vehicle hovered around $50,000 in April, about $10,000 higher than at the start of the decade, according to Kelley Blue Book data cited by the Journal. Prices rose 1.8% from a year earlier.
Tom Sparks, a retired pastor in Texas, said he and his wife have ample income to afford a new car but are not interested. He is considering a new Honda CR-V, but the $40,000 price for the model with the right features is more than he wants to spend. “There’s just a big lack of choice between $30,000 and $40,000,” Sparks told the Journal.
Automakers are adapting. Ford Motor recently launched an advertising campaign aimed at getting owners to service their Fords at dealerships, rather than independent shops. The company is rolling out mobile service vans that can perform diagnostics and repairs at a customer’s location, and is using connected data to alert dealers when a vehicle experiences a mechanical problem. “There is the perception that dealer service is not competitive,” Daniel Justo, Ford’s vice president of customer service, told the Journal.
General Motors is also expanding its certified preowned vehicle program, which offers warranties and repairs on used cars. “You sell them once in the sales department, you sell them 10 times over in the aftersales part of our business,” John Roth, president of GM’s Cadillac brand, said at an investor conference last year.
Dealerships are investing heavily in their service operations. Penske Automotive Group, one of the nation’s largest dealership chains, is adding service bays and offering perks such as Wi-Fi-equipped waiting areas and free cappuccino. “Each technician, each bay is very profitable for us,” Shelley Hulgrave, Penske’s finance chief, told the Journal. She said the average age of vehicles coming into Penske dealerships has begun to tick up.
The service business now accounts for about half of the average dealer franchise’s gross profit, according to Cox Automotive. But competition is intensifying. Dealers’ share of service visits fell 12% since 2018, a Cox study found, with the biggest loss coming from customers with cars two to five years old — vehicles typically still under warranty. Independent repair shops and national chains such as Jiffy Lube are rapidly expanding their service offerings.
“There’s never been a more competitive landscape” for vehicle service, Skyler Chadwick, a consultant with Cox Automotive, told the Journal. “Consumers are really handcuffed to their current vehicles and they have no choice sometimes but to repair their vehicle.”
The age of older cars varies by region. According to 2024 data from S&P Global cited by the Journal, vehicles in Montana average about 18 years old, the oldest in the country, while those in Texas average about 11 years old. “You get in the higher financial areas and you see the new cars,” said Scott Loring, service manager at Pine Hill Automotive in Holbrook, Mass. “Here, they’re trying to keep the older ones on the road.”
Drivers like Chris Gleeson of St. Joseph, Ill., are becoming the norm. Unable to find a new car during the pandemic, he bought a used Toyota Tacoma with 22,000 miles six years ago. Buying a new car is no longer on his radar. His wife drives a 2007 Toyota Prius. “It’s unkillable,” Gleeson told the Journal. “I hope this will be the last gasoline truck I ever own,” he said of the Tacoma. “I plan to keep it for another 15 years.”