In the auction lane, it has been a challenging year for car dealers, with high prices and low supply.

In the service lane, it’s more of a mixed bag.

A Cox Automotive analysis of data from its Xtime business unit released in late June shows that through May, the average revenue generated on a repair order at franchised dealerships had climbed for six straight months.

Specifically, the Xtime Repair Order Revenue Index (which began in January 2018) reached a new high, coming in at 126.8 for May. While only inching forward from April (up 0.08%), it beat year-ago levels by 11.7%.

This growth has occurred even amid repair order volume doing down.

The Xtime Repair Order Volume Index for May was 86.9, down 1.1% from April and 1.6% year-over-year, Cox Automotive.

“Compared to service metrics in May before the pandemic, Xtime dealers may be seeing a small decrease in customer volume, but repair order revenue is up 12%,” Tiffani Stefanescu, manager of performance management at Xtime, said in an analysis.

In the same analysis, the company referenced the Q2 Cox Automotive Dealer Sentiment Index, which pointed to dealer optimism in the service lanes.

“Dealer sentiment toward the current level of business in fixed operations has remained steady over the past four quarters but has dropped nine points compared to Q2 2021,” Cox said. “Sentiment toward future opportunities with fixed operations over the next three months dropped seven points quarter over quarter and is down five points from a year ago.”

In that sentiment index study, which was released earlier in June, franchised dealers were asked to describe the current level of business in their fixed operations, a question that was introduced at the beginning of 2021. On a scale of 1-100 (worse to better), the index for the second quarter was 65.

That is down from 74 a year earlier, but relatively consistent with the prior three quarters, when the index was at 67, 67 and 66, respectively. And it’s still much higher than the reading in Q1 of 2021, when it debuted at 51.

Regionally, it broke down like this for Q2:

  • Northeast: 63
  • Midwest: 64
  • South: 67
  • West: 65

Franchised dealers were also asked to describe the future opportunity within their fixed ops business, on a scale from 1-100 (declining to growing).

For Q2, it came out at 69. That’s down from 76 in the first quarter and 74 a year earlier.

Regionally, the sentiment scores were as follows:

  • Northeast: 68
  • Midwest: 70
  • South: 70
  • West: 70

Both franchised and independent dealers appear to be challenged by staffing issues in the service department. According to the Dealer Sentiment Index for Q2, 70% of franchised dealers said staff turnover was an issue in service, with 63% of independent dealers saying the same.

The overall score was 66%.