Your car manufacturer may not have actually made all of the parts on your car. Most cars are built by bringing together parts that were made by independent companies. There are different types of replacement parts based on who made them or sold them to you.

If your business has a fleet of vehicles, you probably already keep well-documented lists of repairs and maintenance for each one. If you haven’t considered a maintenance review of your entire fleet, it may be time to look at the overall usage and repair history to see where upgrades may be needed. If you need similar repairs in many of your vehicles, it may show a pattern that can be identified as driver abuse or poor maintenance.

According to IHS Automotive, the average age of light vehicles on the road in the United States is a little over 11 years. This trend has been in the making for several years, and it is expected to plateau and remain steady over the next few years. This is being attributed to the slow economy and the better quality of cars being manufactured.

On February 11, 2014 Representatives Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) announced the “Federal Vehicle Repair Cost Savings Act of 2014 (H.R. 4056). It is legislation that may lead to significant use of remanufactured and aftermarket parts in the large fleet of U.S. government vehicles.