SIC 7549 Automotive Services, Except Repair and Carwashes

SIC 7549

This category covers establishments primarily engaged in furnishing automotive services, except repair and carwashes. Establishments primarily providing automobile driving instructions are classified in SIC 8299: Schools and Educational Services, Not Elsewhere Classified.

NAICS CODE(S)

811191

Automotive Oil Change and Lubrication Shops

488410

Motor Vehicle Towing

811198

All Other Automotive Repair and Maintenance

Examples of miscellaneous automotive service providers include emissions testing centers, inspection services, do-it-yourself garages, diagnostic centers, lubricating and oil change shops, emergency road services, rust proofers, window tinting shops, and towing services. The industry consisted mostly of small repair shops. Lubricating and oil change shops was the largest sector of the industry, including about 4,000 companies with combined annual revenues of $4 billion, according to the Automobile Service Association (ASA).

Despite the large presence of oil change chains, the industry is highly fragmented: the 50 biggest companies hold less than 40 percent of the market. Most fast lube operators are independent owners with one or two shops, and the majority of them operate a single location with 10 or fewer employees and annual revenue of $600,000. The industry is served by the Automotive Oil Change Association (AOCA), a non-profit trade organization with more than 1,200 members representing over 3,000 auto maintenance centers throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada.

The automotive services industry grew out of America's love affair with the automobile. From just 2.2 million in 1920, annual automobile production rocketed to more than 8 million by 1950. As auto output fluctuated around 8 million annually throughout the mid-1900s, the automotive services industry ballooned. Significantly, federal safety and emissions regulations that were developed in the mid-1960s helped bolster demand. By the mid-2000s, there were over 135 million cars registered in the United States. The median age of vehicles in use increased from 6.5 years in 1990 to 9 years in 2005. Americans routinely drove automobiles over 1.6 million miles annually in the early twenty-first century, and periodic maintenance such as oil changes were increasingly recommended at more frequent intervals.

Industry leaders in 2006 included Jiffy Lube International, Inc., of Houston, Texas, a subsidiary of...

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