Combined fleet parts and labor costs were down 3.0% in the first quarter, the American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) and Decisiv reported in its joint Parts & Labor Service Benchmark Report.
This is the second consecutive quarterly decline — parts and labor costs were down 1.1% in the fourth quarter of 2025 — but the slip was not uniform across all maintenance segments. In the first quarter, TMC and Decisiv report parts costs were down 4.6% quarter over year while labor was down just 0.6%.
Service volumes also rose by 5.5%, a noticeable turnaround after three declining quarters that further signifies increased utilization within the carrier population, which added more than 115,000 verified vehicles in the second quarter, per data from RigDig (owned by Fusable, parent company of TPS).
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Year over year, combined parts and labor costs are down less than 1%, with parts down 0.1% and labor costs 1.7%.
“A strengthening freight market in Q1 2026 undoubtedly brought higher mileages and increased service activity, yet the Decisiv/TMC Parts & Labor Service Benchmark Report shows costs moving lower during the same period,” says Tim Hardin, president and CEO at Decisiv. “That kind of result underscores the value and importance of enhanced cost control and improve efficiency, turning a busier quarter into a more profitable one instead of a more expensive one.”
With overall costs falling in Q1, Decisiv and TMC report combined parts and labor cost decreases were seen in 15 of the 25 VMRS Systems tracked, the same number as the previous quarter. Parts dropped quarter over quarter in 16 systems, while labor costs were down in nine VMRS. The latter is less than half of what was seen in the fourth quarter of 2025.
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The largest quarterly change in parts costs was a 17.9% reduction in tire pricing. Tires also are down 13.8% year over year. The largest labor cost decrease from Q4 was Filter Kits, down 5.6%.
On a service activity level, volumes rose the most quarter over quarter in the suspension (11.2%), Steering (9.9%), Lighting System (8.2%), Cab & Sheet Metal (7.0%), and Transmission–Main, Manual (6.2%). The only volume drops came in Transmission–Main, Automatic (-9.6%), Clutch (-5.8%), Tires (-3.7%), and Filter Kits (Multi-Piece) (-2.1%).
Year over year, TMC and Decisiv say combined costs are up in 18 VMRS systems. Parts are up in 20 and labor in 14 systems.
“We’re pleased to see two consecutive quarters of declining parts and labor costs,” says TMC Executive Director Robert Braswell. “And the information delivered in the Decisiv/TMC Parts & Labor Service Benchmark continues to provide [TMC] members an excellent means of comparing how their operations are performing to industry trends so they can take action accordingly to changing industry conditions.”
The Decisiv/TMC Parts & Labor Service Benchmark is based on comprehensive service data. For the report, Decisiv collects and analyzes parts and labor costs for 25 VMRS system-level codes. These codes account for more than 97 percent of total parts and labor spending on more than seven million assets during 300,000+ monthly maintenance and repair events at 5,000+ service locations.
To read the entire report, go to the Decisiv website.
