Fuel Costs Are Up. Here’s What Happens Next.

Summary:
Oil and gas prices don’t just hit the pump; they ripple through freight and into repair shops. Here’s what to watch:

Costs creep everywhere. Fuel volatility drives up freight rates, parts pricing, and overall operating expenses.

Shops and fleets feel the pressure. Customers may question maintenance and delay estimates, or even stretch repair timelines. Tighter margins and unpredictable workloads may be ahead.

Stay in control. Shops with strong processes and clear communication with customers are best positioned to ride it out.

Deferred work is building, not disappearing. Every skipped PM and postponed repair is a future ticket. Shops that are ready (and marketing to parked fleets now) will be first in line when things pick back up.

Diesel prices are going up.

Way up. Like, as of March 20, it was over $5 per gallon across the country (and in Canada, too; they’re averaging $2.19 CAD/litre).

Unfortunately, diesel prices don’t exist in a vacuum; when they increase, they send ripples through freight, fleets, and the repair shops that keep trucks on the road. Kind of like a butterfly effect, but with semis.

Right now, heavy-duty’s butterfly is the conflict in the Middle East. Fleet Owner has great coverage of the situation if you want more of those details. What we do want to talk about is how the effects of shifting fuel prices might move through the industry, and how shops can prepare to face them. 

How Increased Prices Are Impacting Freight

Fuel is a large expense for any carrier, and even a small uptick in pricing can lead to some pretty rapid adjustments. Based on what we typically see — and what the Fullbay team is hearing from those in the field — those changes often start showing up in a few ways: 

• Fuel surcharges are rising. Many carriers have fuel surcharges that allow them to recoup at least some fuel costs from customers. Not all carriers do, though, and the rapid increase of oil prices has outpaced most modest fuel surcharges. 
• Spot rates are climbing. Fuel is about a third of a truck’s operating costs. As fuel costs continue to increase, some carriers will simply park their trucks instead of run at a loss. From there, reduced overall capacity will lead to higher spot rates. 
• Smaller carriers will feel it first. Trucking carriers run high volumes at low margins. A spike in diesel prices will hit small carriers immediately — especially those that don’t have as much financial cushioning to absorb shocks.

In addition, regular gas prices are also going up, and as consumers fork over more of their income at the pump, they’re left with less spending power. They stop buying things, which means less stuff ends up put on trucks. As a result, freight demand could decrease.

What Do Rising Diesel Costs Mean For Shops?

At this point, we should probably say we aren’t trying to scare anyone. Really, we’re not. But the Fullbay crew has a lot of experience in the heavy-duty repair world, and we’ve seen what happens during oil fluctuations and supply chain disrupting events. The following scenarios are not the fever dreams of an overcaffeinated writer; they are things that have, at various points in time, already happened.

Here’s what shops can expect if fuel prices continue to rise: 

• More breakdowns. The first thing to go when money gets tight is often, unfortunately, preventive maintenance. And when maintenance is repeatedly deferred, breakdowns…well, they happen more frequently. 
• Emphasis on fuel systems. As diesel becomes more expensive, it’s going to become important to wring every last mile out of every gallon of diesel. 
• Customer challenges. When money gets tight, customers get pickier. You may get pushback from customers who never before questioned an estimate or invoice. “This can’t have taken that long” or “I know the part isn’t that much” may become more common refrains. They may also display less willingness to move forward on “might as well fix it now instead of when it breaks” repairs. 
• Increased overhead. Got service trucks? Yeah, whatever fuel you put in them is gonna go up, too. You may see higher costs per service call and overall reduced margins on mobile work. 
• Increased parts prices and delayed deliveries. We already know that shipping overall will become more expensive, and that’s going to hit shops hard — every part brought in will be pricier to move and stock. If prices continue to rise, vendors and manufacturers may start passing along fuel costs in the form of increased freight charges and delivery fees, along with minimum order requirements and potential delays (for example, consolidating deliveries to save fuel). 

This all feels like a lot, but keep in mind that shop owners already have some experience with shifting parts pricing and availability due to supply chain shakeups during the pandemic. And if you’ll recall, the heavy-duty repair industry (and the freight industry overall) did take a huge hit in early summer of 2020, when COVID-19 was in full swing. The recovery from that — which took place over the course of several years — was uneven at times, but it was a recovery, as this Monthly Shop Revenue Year-Over-Year Percentage Change graph from our 2023-2024 State of Heavy-Duty Repair Shows: 

Graph: Monthly Shop Revenue Year-Over-Year Percentage Change

How Shops Can Stay Ahead Of Potential Problems 

Unfortunately, you can’t control fuel prices or what the freight industry does. What you can do in this situation — and any other — is fortify your operation against volatility. 

That’s nice, Fullbay, you might be saying. And how do you propose I do that? Use your platform?

Well…yeah, that’s part of it. Over five thousand shops are powered by Fullbay for a reason: it helps them run a tighter, more profitable operation. Fact: the average Fullbay shop sees a $20,000 increase in revenue in the first three months of working with us. It gets even higher ($48,000/month) after six months. That’s a lot of income that would be welcomed in a difficult time.

Shops without good systems in place tend to struggle or close during downturns because they just don’t have the fortifications to push back against a wildly shifting market. The shops that survive price shifts and uncertainty almost always come out on the other end with less competition (and a larger share of customers, because someone is going to vacuum up the folks shed by closing shops). 

With that said, we’re not going to say “Get Fullbay” and end the blog on that note. No, friends, we have actual suggestions that go beyond joining our (awesome) family. 

Maintain Good Relationships With Your Customers

The odds are your core customers don’t want to leave you. They know you do good work, and they’re comfortable with you. Besides, odds are the shop down the street is similarly affected and charging similar rates. And frankly, customers will hang on to good relationships. Shops that treat their clients fairly and communicate well are the ones that tend to stick out in a customer’s memory; odds are they’ll stay loyal to that shop when things loosen up. 

(They’ll also talk you up to their friends and colleagues. Free marketing!)

Anyway, there’s a lot you can do to keep your customers happy, including:

• Provide clear, detailed documentation, estimates, and invoices. Price-sensitive customers are going to want to know exactly how long something will take and how much it will cost. Give them that. Break everything down for them so they can see where the time is being spent and how many dollars they’ll need to front. (Yes, Fullbay is great at this.) 
• Communicate. Like, a lot. If there’s going to be a big change — whether it’s an increase in labor rate or a late part arrival — you’ve got to let your customers know as soon as you can. Trust us, you do not want to deal with the customer who shows up to pay their bill only to realize the new axles their truck needs are stuck on a tarmac in Toledo.
  
  Yes, you should already be doing this, but step it up anyway. You’ll also want to explain why costs might be higher, whether it’s fuel, parts, or freight prices. 
• Double down on preventive maintenance messaging. It is very, very tempting to skip a PM here and there to save a few bucks. That tactic, however understandable, often backfires; it’s up to your shop to educate customers on what kind of cost they can expect to incur if a unit does break down due to skipped maintenance. PMs are how we avoid bigger downtime costs down the line; it’s worth it to shell out $500 today instead of $5,000 in a month. 
• Tweak your shop’s marketing. Yes, some trucks that get parked to wait out freight problems end up sitting around…but not all of them! Some owners will use that downtime to address that list of deferred repairs they’ve been meaning to get around to. Marketing to these owners — “Trucks sitting? Now’s the time!” — will net you some work that others miss.
  
  Your marketing in general should not stop, by the way; it’s how you get the word out about your business! 

Reduce Shop Downtime

When costs go up, inefficiency becomes one heck of an overall expense. Small problems like a lost hour here or delayed job there start adding up to actual revenue leaks (and aggravated customers, if it’s their job that’s delayed). Steps you can take include: 

• Create a workflow. Lay out a repeatable process that ensures every job moves through the shop at a steady clip, from intake to authorization and finally invoicing. A structured, documented workflow reduces delays and missed steps, and you can follow it the same way every single time. It also provides complete transparency into where a vehicle is at any point in time — no more guessing “Oh, I think that Peterbilt is waiting on a filter” or “Did we get parts for that tractor?” (Fullbay’s workflow is the stuff of legend, by the way.) 
• Track labor and tech efficiency. A tech who isn’t completing as many jobs as their comrades isn’t necessarily a bum. They might be waiting on authorizations or parts (or worse, digging through inventory), traveling to jobs, or even waiting for a job to be assigned. A platform like Fullbay shows you exactly what your techs are doing when they’ve clocked in, whether they’re superstars or need a hand.
  
  For those who doubt our words, heed this metric: within six months of completing setup, the average Fullbay shop sees an increase of 23% in technician efficiency.
• Give your techs the tools they need. If customers are getting pickier about repairs, turn to industry-leading labor time guides from MOTOR and Mitchell 1 to show them, “Yes, this does need to take that long.” (Yes, Fullbay has integrations with them.) 
• Watch your numbers closely. You want to know where money and time are actually going, so you can catch leaks before they turn into floods. Fullbay has a stack of these, by the way, like inventory-related reports to show you how quickly (or slowly) parts are moving; financial reports to show you how much money is coming in (and where it’s going); and even vehicle service histories. 

Maintain Your Reputation

Your reputation becomes even more important in an unpredictable market. Make sure your shop is known for doing good work, and you’ll likely come out on top in the end. 

• Maintain consistency. It’s tempting — and human — to want to react immediately to news or changes in the field. You may be tempted to slash prices, to overbook, to say “yes” to everything that wanders into the shop. Don’t make decisions with your gut. Use data. If you don’t have data, find a way to get it.  
• Focus on what you can control. There’s not a lot you can do about oil prices or what’s happening in the Middle East. You can, however, do a lot about what goes on in your shop. Pay attention to your operation, your people, and your customers. Ensure your techs are doing good work and your clients are leaving satisfied. In the (sort of) words of Shakespeare, keep your own house in order.
• Protect your standards. When times get tough, quality tends to be the first thing to fall by the wayside. Instead of trimming corners here or there, double down on doing excellent work and maintaining good relationships with your customers.
• Celebrate the little things. Yes, life might be getting more expensive. Do your best to maintain a friendly and upbeat atmosphere. Thank your techs for the hard work they do. Pay attention to your shop culture — data from the latest State of Heavy-Duty Repair tells us almost half of all shops rank culture as #1 in what contributes to job satisfaction for techs — and keep good coffee on tap. 

Keep Calm And Wrench On

We hope if you take only one thing away from this article, it’s that heavy-duty repair shops are resilient. They’ve been through big oil fluctuations before, and they likely will again. They adapt and continue working. And when prices come down (and they will), the freight market picks up again. Suddenly all those PMs some folks skipped are getting rescheduled, and deferred work is finally getting addressed — usually for a much bigger ticket than a little PM would have been. 

If you take two things away from this article, it’s that the right mindset and tools can help you run a tighter ship — the kind of ship that can ride out any oil storm. And, yeah, Fullbay is one of those tools. It streamlines your operation by helping your employees do their jobs more quickly and efficiently, and a streamlined operation is a more stable operation. (You don’t have to take our word for it, by the way; our customers have plenty to say on the matter.) 

And above all, remember that the work isn’t going anywhere. It may slow down for a little bit, but it will spring back, and, like the Tusken Raiders, in greater numbers. And when things do pick back up, Fullbay can help you schedule and pump out the work faster. 

Ready to strengthen your shop against, well, everything? Head to our free demo.