MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (Nov. 3, 2014) — While consumers choose tire brands for quality or price, auto technicians favor brands based on reliability and ease of ordering, according to the latest Frost & Sullivan survey of U.S. service technicians on their preferred replacement parts.
When it comes to the tire brand most often installed by auto service technicians, Cooper topped the list among independent shops while Michelin was the winner among franchised shops.
“However, when asked which brand was the overall best, a larger percentage chose Michelin over all others. Reliability, ease of order placement, availability, order accuracy and past experience were the factors cited as most important in their selection,” said Stephen Spivey, Frost's automotive and transportation aftermarket program manager.
The surveys measured factors driving product selection, identifies brand use and preference trends by category — batteries, tires, motor oils, and brake pads. Automotive technicians give more importance to product-related attributes, lesser importance to supplier relationships and the least importance to intangible aspects such as past experiences, according to Frost.
Of the 142 respondents surveyed about tires, 48 percent said Cooper was the brand they installed most, followed by Goodyear at 44 percent and Michelin at 32 percent, according to Frost.
For brake pads, Wagner was cited as the most installed brand by 27 percent of installers, followed closely by NAPA at 26 percent and Duralast by 18 percent of the 262 respondents surveyed.
“Wagner was also chosen as the overall best brand by 19 percent, more than for any other. In this category, ordering related factors, such as fast delivery and availability, were cited as being just as important as product quality and reliability,” Mr. Spivey said.
For batteries, Interstate was cited as the most installed by 54 percent of installers and the overall best brand by 53 percent, according to the 240 service technicians surveyed. Reliability, past experience, availability and ease of order placement were the main factors cited.
In the motor oil category, Mobil was most used brand by 35 percent of respondents, with 31 percent choosing Valvoline and 28 percent selecting Castrol. There were 264 responses to this survey.
“Mobil was also chosen as the overall best brand by 23 percent of service technicians, more than for any other. The top three selection factors were reliability, availability and price,” Mr. Spivey said.