BETHESDA, Md. (NBC) – In yet another problem tied to the global supply chain crisis, massive shortages in automobile parts and supplies are wreaking havoc on the automotive industry from dealerships to your local mechanic.
This is where the supply chain crunch that we’ve been talking about for months, this is where you may actually start to feel it. If you try to go get parts for your cars, there aren’t enough oil filters. There aren’t enough windshield wipers, brake parts, engine parts.
This is a $300 billion business, but right now they’re struggling to keep all the supplies in the chain.
The typical used car on the road right now is 12 years old. The trouble is there simply aren’t enough parts right now coming in from overseas suppliers and you’ve seen all of that video of ships out on the ocean, stuck and not getting into U.S. ports.
What does that mean for you? If you need to get critical parts, they may not be around. You may have to wait for weeks and, some cases, even months.
That also means if you decided that you just wanted to give up on your car and get another car, used car prices right now are up 35 percent because of the increase in demand for used cars, because there aren’t enough new cars.
There’s a global computer chip shortage and that computer chip shortage affects new cars. So, there aren’t many new cars out on the lots. What cars there are, they’re charging more for. There aren’t enough used cars out there. They are charging more for those.
And if you need to get your car fixed, you may have to wait for parts.
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