Fleets turn to independent workshops to cut SMR costs
Fleets are increasingly sending service, maintenance and repair work to independent workshops instead of dealers in a bid to cut costs.
According to epyx, hourly rates at franchised dealers have increased by 32% from £70 in January 2020 to £93 in March 2026, while rates at non-franchise workshops has gone up from £43 to £55 over the same period.
As a result, the number of fleet SMR jobs on the epyx 1link Service Network platform going to dealers fell from 54% in 2020 to 41% by the end of last year.
Tim Meadows, CCO at epyx, said: “Considerable upwards pressures on both parts and labour costs have been seen during recent years, and fleets have reacted by making more use of lower priced, non-franchise workshops in order to minimise these increases.
“The move towards non-franchise is not a blanket trend and there are subtleties at play. Mainstream company cars, especially from prestige brands, still tend to be serviced at franchise dealers, partially because of their specialist expertise and especially because of the requirements of electric vehicles, but also in order to preserve residual values.
“However, we’ve increasingly seen vans and lower cost cars directed towards independent SMR outlets. For these vehicles, there is less sensitivity to having a non-franchise stamp on the service book and a reduced need for particular skills and workshop equipment.
“A further element has been the general ageing of fleets. Older vehicles are also much more likely to be maintained outside franchise networks, again because their value is lower and the used market has different expectations about where they were serviced.”
