Scott Frankland’s family has run a repair shop in the Bronx since the 1970s, a Midas since the 1980s, and last year he learned he’d been bought. “One day we were just acquired,” he told the Journal’s Sharon Terlep. A year on, the bays are full, headquarters leaves him alone, and his tires cost 10% to 15% less. He’s noticed something else about the cars rolling in, too: people used to trade them every four years. Not anymore.
The buyer was Mavis, the suburban New York tire chain that brothers Stephen and David Sorbaro took over from their parents in 1985 and turned into the country’s biggest auto-repair company — some 4,400 stores in nearly every state, including Midas, Tuffy, Tire Kingdom and, as of this summer, Pep Boys, bought from Carl Icahn’s Icahn Enterprises (IEP) for $700 million. Its roots are a 1940s stand inside the Mount Vernon, N.Y., toy store that employed their mother. Earnings are on track to rise nearly 20% to $750 million this year. A Bay Pine-led group bought a majority stake in 2021 for $6 billion, and an IPO is on the shelf for now. All those deals left it with heavy debt — but Mavis didn’t create its tailwind. It’s riding it.
The fleet is aging on purpose
At roughly 13 years, the typical vehicle on American roads has never been older, and it’s 10% older than a decade ago. Sticker shock is a big reason: with a new vehicle around $50,000, analysts reckon about one million buyers have dropped out of the market. Cox Automotive counts nearly two-thirds of owners keeping their cars at least five years, up from 54% in 2024. Newer cars are more complex and costlier to maintain, and Mordor Intelligence projects U.S. service spending rising from $211 billion this year to over $280 billion by 2031. Chains and corner garages are winning that work from dealerships, whose service departments have a reputation for steep rates, murky pricing and long waits.
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This is a Cash Flow (M5) story, and the math mostly favors keeping the car. Finance a full $50,000 over 48 months at Bankrate’s 6.97% new-car rate and the payment comes to about $1,200 a month, with roughly $7,400 of interest on top. A paid-off car that needs tires and a brake job is still a bargain next to that. The catch: repairs arrive as lumps, not installments, and a lump on a credit card wipes out the advantage. So when the loan’s paid off, keep sending part of the old payment to a separate repair account, and park it where it earns something — Bankrate’s money-market average is 0.45%, while 13-week Treasury bills just auctioned at 4.110%. Then replacing the car becomes a planned decision, not a roadside one.
One line for family-business owners: Mavis faltered after the Sorbaros’ mother, who ran the finances, died in 1981; her sons took over in 1985 and started by closing stores. Succession’s cheaper to plan before it’s needed. Same with the car — check the tread before the storm, not in it.