ARKANSAS, USA — We’ve seen a large number of supply chain issues since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, but one you may have not thought of unless you’ve experienced it firsthand is the wait time to get in auto parts.
“Some things we’re accustomed to getting as soon as overnight sometimes could take weeks or even months,” said John Harrison, owner of Tanksley’s Body Shop in Springdale.
Harrison says it’s been hit or miss and frequently they’ve be able to get most of the parts in except small parts that they need to build out the car.
Harrison says sometimes they’ll be told those parts are unavailable. He says not only are the manufacturers not able to produce the number of necessary parts, but it trickles down to the driver shortage and warehouses not having enough staff.
“I’ve had two major suppliers tell me they’ve never seen their warehouses that sparse,” Harrison said.
If you get into a wreck and need new parts, expect it to take quite a while to get your car fixed. Harrison says they’ll order the parts they know they need but it takes longer when taking apart and reassembling the vehicle and discovering they need more parts.
“Sometimes you are sitting on these things twice as long, three times as long as what it would normally take and in some cases, we’ve got some repairs that have been out here two months waiting on parts that are unavailable,” Harrison said.
Harrison says he heard it’s going to get worse before it gets better, but he hopes for his body shop and his customers that’s not the case.
“We’re kind of between a rock and a hard place in as we do our work as fast and as good as we can possibly do and provide a good repair but if we can’t produce it and get it back to the consumer, customers have to understand where we are on that,” Harrison said.
Other than a supply chain issue with getting parts to repair cars, body shops we called, like many other industries across our country, are also seeing a shortage in mechanics, even further delaying repairs.