Average US vehicle age hits 13 years as repair spending climbs
The brothers behind suburban New York tire retailer Mavis spent decades acquiring smaller rivals, culminating in their biggest deal: the takeover of the best-known name in repairs, Midas. Now the largest auto-repair chain in the country, with some 4,400 stores spanning nearly every state, Mavis is capitalizing on a market that is booming as Americans keep their cars longer.
“There are other folks out there that understand the business but they are challenged by scale,” said Stephen Sorbaro, who took over Mavis with his brother David from their parents in 1985.
The brothers believe the operational playbook they have been honing since college gives them an upper hand. “We went from kids being total failures to a roaring success,” David Sorbaro said.
This summer, Mavis paid $700 million to acquire Pep Boys, with nearly 800 locations, from Carl Icahn’s Icahn Enterprises. Acquisitions over the last decade have added Midas, Tuffy and Tire Kingdom to a network that now operates as a synchronized national operation while preserving local identity. “We thought, ‘Wow, that’s a much quicker way of doing things,’” David Sorbaro said, recalling the brothers’ first landmark acquisition, a regional chain they secured in 2008 after chartering a private plane to meet the seller in person.
Mavis keeps local managers and technicians in place after deals and generally retains the CEOs and management teams that come with them. Behind the scenes, the company centralizes what it can: real-time supply-chain data that tracks shop inventory and automates reordering, a customer-service team that fields calls and complaints, and an in-house real-estate operation that scouts and negotiates prime locations.
“One day we were just acquired,” said Scott Frankland, owner of a Bronx Midas franchise whose family has operated the shop since the 1970s; it became a Midas in the 1980s. “I was surprised.” A year after the Mavis takeover, completed last June, Frankland said the change has worked out. Tires are 10% to 15% cheaper through Mavis, he said, even as more customers arrive with high-mileage cars and rising gas prices pinch household budgets. “People used to turn in their cars every four years,” he said. “Not anymore.”
The market tailwind behind the consolidation is structural. The average vehicle on US roads is now about 13 years old, a historic high and a 10% jump from a decade ago, as new-car sticker shock, longer vehicle lifespans, tightening household budgets and high interest rates lead Americans to hold onto their rides. Cox Automotive data show nearly two-thirds of vehicle owners keep their cars for at least five years, up from 54% in 2024. Analysts estimate that roughly one million buyers have dropped out of the US auto market entirely, with the cost of a new vehicle now hovering around $50,000.
Spending on US auto service is projected to grow from $211 billion this year to more than $280 billion by 2031, according to Mordor Intelligence, in part because vehicles are increasingly complex and costly to maintain. Some 32,000 auto mechanic businesses have opened in the United States since 2018, a 12% increase, according to Cox. Those shops, including chains and mom-and-pop mechanics, are peeling ever more business away from dealerships, known for higher rates, opaque pricing and multiday waits for routine service. Chains that once offered basic oil changes and tire rotations are expanding into complex engine and electrical work.
“We see the ages of vehicles have gone up,” said Midas President and operating chief Lenny Valentino Jr. “That’s good for our business.” Midas, founded in 1956, had lacked the capital to expand at the rate Valentino wanted, he said. “We needed a parent company to take us to the next level with resources.” After joining Mavis, Midas is adding locations faster than at any point in its history.
Traditional car dealerships are also chasing the same repair revenue. Earlier this month, AutoNation issued a stark warning that manufacturer-backed warranty repair is rapidly drying up, sending shares of publicly traded auto retailers — including rival Sonic Automotive — lower. Fewer new-car sales means fewer cars backed by factory warranty. The drop-off is forcing dealers to compete more for routine, out-of-pocket maintenance and repair business. Jeff Dyke, Sonic’s president, said dealers “are not going to sit back and let mom-and-pop services take business from them.”
The Sorbaros’ parents, Vic and Marion Sorbaro, started the business in the 1940s as a stand in a Mount Vernon, N.Y., toy store where Marion worked. Vic was later propelled by the car-buying craze of the 1950s to pivot from fixing bikes to fixing car tires. He moved out of the toy store to a location down the street, and started adding more shops. Marion managed the finances while Vic ran the stores. The company name itself is a stitched-together mashup of Marion, Vic and Sorbaro.
When Marion died in 1981, the business faltered. David and Stephen, recent college graduates at the time, took over in 1985 and almost immediately began closing stores and cutting services to focus on the basics. With fewer, healthier locations, revenue began to climb.
Stephen, with a freshly minted computer science degree, built a digital inventory tracking system that ran on green-screen computers and floppy disks. “We were really starting to grow our business on numbers,” he said, recalling that some veteran managers pushed back — including one who quit when issued a BlackBerry. Savings from a more efficient supply chain let Mavis undercut rivals on price, the brothers found, applying just-in-time principles commonplace in big corporations but rare in the fragmented car repair industry.
Capital came next. In 2014, the brothers sold a minority stake to private-equity firm Oncap, which later sold that stake to Golden Gate Capital in a deal that merged Mavis with Express Oil. In 2021, an investor group led by BayPine LP acquired a majority stake in Mavis for $6 billion. Acquisitions have left the company with a heavy debt load, but analysts say its track record meshing newcomers successfully while managing same-store growth bode well. Mavis earnings are on track to grow nearly 20% to about $750 million this year from 2025, and the company is pushing to open up to 160 new locations a year, aiming eventually to hit 10,000 stores.
Earlier this year, Mavis weighed an initial public offering but has put the plans on hold for now, according to people familiar with the plans.
“We always wanted to build a big company,” David said. “We’re not reckless, we’re picky and we’re aggressive.”