If you run trucks in or around Asheville, you have probably seen two maintenance headlines this year that seem to contradict each other. One says parts and labor spending dropped last quarter. The other says maintenance costs are still climbing year over year. Both are true at the same time, and understanding why is the difference between a maintenance budget that holds and one that falls apart by October.
The quarterly dip, and what it hides
Decisiv and TMC track parts and labor expenses across a large sample of commercial vehicle service events, which makes their quarterly reports a solid read on what fleets are actually paying at the service desk. As Transport Topics reported in March 2026, combined parts and labor expenses fell 1.3 percent from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2025. Parts came down 0.4 percent and labor dropped 2.6 percent quarter over quarter.
That sounds like relief until you zoom out. The same report shows combined parts and labor expenses were still 2 percent higher than a year earlier, with parts up 3.7 percent year over year while labor slipped 0.4 percent. In plain terms, labor rates cooled a little, but parts kept climbing, and parts are the piece you control least at the moment of failure. When an EGR cooler lets go on I-40, you pay the going rate that day.
Our read from the shop floor is simple. One soft quarter is weather, not climate. Budget as if parts inflation continues, and treat any quarter where spending eases as a chance to catch up on deferred work, not a signal to cut the maintenance line.
The benchmark that still matters is ATRI’s 2024 dataset
The American Transportation Research Institute publishes the industry’s standard operating cost benchmark. Its latest completed study, released in July 2025, covers the 2024 operating year, and the 2026 edition is still being compiled. So when somebody quotes you a definitive 2026 cost per mile, they are estimating. The newest hard numbers live in the ATRI Operational Costs of Trucking report.
Those numbers put 2024 repair and maintenance expense at 19.8 cents per mile, down 2 percent from 2023. Total operating cost was $2.260 per mile, and non-fuel cost hit a record $1.779 per mile. That last figure is the one to sit with. Even in a year when repair spending eased slightly, everything else around the truck kept getting more expensive, so a maintenance surprise now lands on a budget with less slack than it had a few years back.
Run that against your own equipment. At 19.8 cents per mile, a truck turning 100,000 miles a year carries roughly $19,800 in expected repair and maintenance cost. If your units run well above that benchmark, the gap usually is not bad luck. It is deferred preventive work coming due with interest.
Where the repair dollars actually go
A breakdown of the same Decisiv and TMC data published by Commercial Carrier Journal in March 2026 shows which systems eat the money. Engine work accounted for 33.1 percent of measured parts and labor spend, exhaust systems took 13.6 percent, and cooling systems came in at 5.9 percent.
Engine work takes a third of every dollar
Nothing else comes close to the engine’s share of spend, and it is also the category where prevention has the most leverage. Oil sampling on a set interval, clean fuel and air filtration, and acting on fault codes when they first appear all cost a fraction of what injector, turbo, or in-frame work costs once the failure matures. An engine rarely fails without warning. It fails after weeks of warnings nobody had time to chase.
Exhaust and aftertreatment run second
At 13.6 percent of spend, exhaust is not a side item anymore. On emissions-era trucks that means DPF and aftertreatment health. Letting a truck limp through regen after regen, or running a filter well past its cleaning interval, converts a scheduled service into a derate, a tow, and a lost day of revenue.
Cooling systems punch above their weight
Cooling shows up at 5.9 percent of spend, but that understates its importance, because cooling failures have a habit of becoming engine failures. A pressure test, a coolant condition check, and an honest look at hoses and clamps during every PM visit is cheap insurance on the most expensive system on the truck.
The technician shortage keeps labor tight
The labor number in the Decisiv and TMC data softened, but do not expect shop capacity to loosen with it. In ATRI’s study of the diesel technician workforce, published in August 2025, 65.5 percent of surveyed shops said they were understaffed and 19.3 percent of technician positions were sitting unfilled. The same study found that technicians hired without formal training needed an average of 357 hours and $8,211 in wages to reach proficiency, against 172 hours and $3,956 for formally trained hires.
For a fleet manager, that shortage shows up as lead time. Emergency work competes for a limited number of skilled hands, and it always wins, which pushes unscheduled repairs out and stretches downtime. The fleets that get the best turnaround in 2026 are the ones that book preventive work ahead instead of arriving with a breakdown.
Five moves that keep your cost per mile down
- Put service intervals in writing. A documented PM schedule, by miles or engine hours, is the single cheapest tool for keeping engine and aftertreatment work in the scheduled column instead of the emergency column.
- Protect the engine through its support systems. Cooling and exhaust problems feed directly into the category that takes 33.1 percent of every repair dollar. Catch them at PM time.
- Use soft quarters to catch up, not cut back. A dip like late 2025 is the moment to clear deferred items while labor is a touch cheaper.
- Track cost per mile by unit. Compare each truck against the 19.8 cents per mile benchmark and flag the outliers before you commit them to another year of service.
- Book ahead of the shortage. Scheduled work gets planned around. Breakdowns wait in line.
Diesel Power Truck Center handles preventive maintenance, engine, exhaust, and cooling system repair for fleets and owner-operators in Asheville, NC. If you would rather run on documented service intervals than roadside surprises, contact our shop and we will build a maintenance plan around your trucks and your routes.