PartsTrader: Overall parts price inflation, aftermarket at a slower pace; median delivery days improve
Greg Horn, PartsTrader chief industry relations officer, shared during a webinar on Wednesday that overall parts price inflation has increased, while the median number of delivery days has improved.
“Parts price inflation is happening, but aftermarket inflation is at a much slower pace than new OE, or even recycled,” Horn said. “We’re seeing the inflation rate of the new OE part actually at a much faster rate than it is in recycled, but recycled is starting to catch up.”
He added that the OEM inflation rate has gone up significantly so far this year, while the aftermarket rate is up by about 1%.
“The median delivery days for all part types has improved,” Horn said. “It seems like we should probably see a decrease in the length of rental because part delays are not an issue as they were in 2023 and 2024.”
Enterprise Mobility reported in August that the Q2 overall Length of Rental (LOR) was 15.1 days, down less than a day from Q2 2024 and matching the decline seen in Q1 2025.
LOR remains elevated compared to pre-pandemic levels, reflecting impacts from ongoing supply chain and vehicle production challenges, according to the report. The Q2 LOR is 2.9 days higher than in Q2 2020 (13.2 days) and 3.1 days higher than in Q2 2019 (12 days).
Horn said Wednesday that the median number of parts delivery days for all part types began in January at 9.2 days and is now down to 6.3.
For OEM parts, the median number of delivery days in January was 11.2, and as of this month, is 7.8. For recycled parts, the year started at 3.7 days and is now at 3.5.
Regarding recycled parts, Horn said the U.S. dollar index has decreased substantially since January, from 113 to 98.2.
“Salvage in the U.S. is influenced about 72% of the time by a foreign currency, so it is really going to impact recycled parts,” he said.
Horn said another factor that can affect the number of repairable cars — the new vehicle sales rate — is slipping again.
“That’s going to lead to our aging car parc, and it’s going to dilute the impact of ADAS equipment being in a larger share of the car parc,” he said.
He said overall auto loan delinquencies are approaching crisis levels and lack a positive outlook ahead.
“That is something that we in the finance, insurance, and parts businesses all need to watch because that will impact what gets repaired,” Horn said. “If you get in a nice, small accident, do you keep the dent and pay the car payment, or keep the dent and pay the rent? That will happen more than those lower drivable claims being turned in.”
Horn also briefly touched on the impact of tariffs on the parts business.
“It’s important to note that the tariffs that most concern us, which will be the steel, aluminum, imported autos, and imported auto parts, all are under a different tariff law,” he said. “These are all imposed as part of Section 232 of the 1962 International Trade Agreement. That means that even if the Supreme Court upheld the ban on most of the tariffs, most of that would affect 53% of goods that are currently tariffed; the ones that apply to us in the automotive world would still stay in place. ”
Horn also noted that the de minimis exemption for goods under $800 being imported into the U.S. has been eliminated, so individual items are subject to an additional tariff.
“Some good news on the tariff front, the U.S.-Japanese trade deal was reached that lowered the tariffs from 27.5% to 15%,” he said. “But you got to remember that previously the tariffs were only 2.5%, so the math geek in me says, ‘Wow, that’s still a 500% increase on the tariff; 15% is pretty sizable…’ [It] still remains to be seen what the net effect of 15% on passenger cars and the SUV market will be for these Japanese imports.”
A recording of the webinar will be available here.
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Tariffs added to an additional 407 steel and aluminium imports