MacKay & Company’s DataMac Truck & Trailer Service for the U.S. profiles and forecasts aftermarket demand for nearly 900 components for Class 6-8 trucks, school buses and trailers. Traditionally, the DataMac model is updated twice a year, except for the year of the pandemic when it was updated three times.
The forecast is typically updated in January and August. This January, the current forecast for 2025 was for the aftermarket to grow 3.9% in 2025 vs. 2024, with two points of growth being associated with price.
In January, tariffs were discussed but nothing was known on details, so there were not factored into the forecast. Now, more is known as of today, but no one is sure about tomorrow as everything appears to be fluid.
While a lot is unknown — based on many conversations with customers and fleets — what is known is there is a lot of confusion. Confusion, in our opinion, is not good for the economy. There seems to be a great deal of uncertainty on what to do — so the immediate response is to do nothing.
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As Rush said, “If you choose not to decide, you have still made a choice.”
The primary factors that impact the aftermarket are how many vehicles are in operation, segmentation by vehicle class or type, vocation and age distribution. This determines service requirements that drives parts demand.
Retail sales forecast from FTR for Class 8 and trailer sales are down from January to April for 2025. Retail sales don’t have a big impact on current aftermarket demand, but declines can be associated with economic stress or slowdown.
Factors that disrupt the typical movement of vehicles and service cycles — such as pandemics or supply chain challenges — can significantly affect the aftermarket.
As stated in our March 2025 DataPulse Plus report, there are some mixed results reported by parts distributors (OES and Independent) and fleets on pre-buying parts. There is a portion who are/or want to pre-buy parts to avoid tariffs and a portion who are not and, in some cases, pulling back on buying as concerns over a slowdown in economy.
Regardless, pre-buy is not driven by economic activity so impact, if any, is temporary.
What is new is the percentage of respondents who are taking some type of action. This is considerably up from December, but not all actions are going in the same direction.
With imports, there seems to be three buckets of countries: Those that don’t have a trade deficit with the U.S. and not much should change; Europe and China, which seem to plan to fight tariffs with tariffs; then Mexico and Canada. Mexico’s president has a press conference every morning and she states all the manufacturers she has spoken with are not leaving. Canada appears to be ready to defend against the tariffs as they believe they break with the current USMCA agreement.
Good news, the border is closed, and crime is down (except at Tesla dealerships) — but that doesn’t really impact the aftermarket. Reman may become a more attractive option if there are shortages or pricing issues with new replacement parts. Some of the older vehicles on the road may see increased usage, as the price of new trucks could become concerning. Or, fleets may choose to delay deciding and wait to see how things shake out before they buy replacement trucks.
All this impacts supply chains, which we know from recent history, is not a good thing.
If we combine all these less than exact inputs, our best estimate is — if things continue down this path of turmoil, it can’t be good for the economy. Approximately 45% of Truckable Economic Activity is driven by consumers and consumers’ sentiment is a big driver of consumer purchases. The stock market reflects consumer sentiment; it does not have to be rational.
Most families and companies have likely had or will have discussions on what their plan is going forward during this ongoing uncertainty. Cutting back on unnecessary (discretionary) expenses and purchases will most likely be part of the plan. Then it becomes self-fulfilling. We are cutting back expenses because we think the economy is going to slow, the economy is slowing because people are cutting back on purchases.
We will update our forecast mid-year. However, at this point, our best guess is we will pull back on our forecast for the year in pure unit demand. Who knows what will happen with pricing over the next three months, but we will continue to monitor it closely.
We have to. The tariff situation changes daily. For reference, this was written April 9.
