Hidden opportunities of high-mileage vehicles in dealer service drives

One-line repair orders are eliminating extra revenue by not recognizing common up-sell opportunities for CP work on cars with over 60K miles

Richardson, Texas—Dealership service department may be missing out on an important segment of drivers with high-mileage vehicles. A report by Dynatron states that there are common and often underused up-sell opportunities for car points (CP) work for cars with over 60K miles, as keeping a high-mileage vehicle on the road requires much more attention to scheduled and preventative maintenance than models with fewer miles.

Many service departments and their service drives aren’t equipped with the most experienced service advisor taking care of those vehicles, according to Dynatron. And it’s an opportunity for a service department and fixed ops to tap into increased revenues.

Dynatron’s database includes RO information from dealerships across North America. To formulate this report, the company analyzed ROs from vehicles over 60K miles to create two different graphs.

The above bar graph includes data from over 27 million ROs to show the increase in dollars per RO based on the age of a vehicle. The graph begins with new vehicles and ends with vehicles 10 years and older.

The second graph shows the percentage of one-line ROs dealerships had in Q1 2024. The number of
one-line ROs directly represent potential missed opportunities for selling more on the service drive. The report states that if more than 38% of a dealership’s ROs are one-line, there is a large increased revenue opportunity potential. One-line ROs on high mileage vehicles in particular can leave significant revenue on the table

Also of note:

• The average RO cost for vehicles 10 years and older is 96% higher than vehicles 1 year old or less.

• After a vehicle’s age reaches 9 years, the average RO cost increases by 20.8% in year 10.

The goal is to have the least amount of one-line ROs as possible. When properly addressed in a service department, the hours per RO increase, which directly impacts dollar value with parts and labor, automatically improving several performance metrics just by reducing one-line ROs.