Average age of cars in Europe: a comparison of EU countries and the impact on servicing and parts

Passenger cars in the EU were 12.7 years old on average in 2024. A country comparison and the impact on workshop capacity, service jobs and parts stock.

Key findings

Passenger cars in the EU were 12.7 years old on average in 2024. In 2023, the figure was 12.5 years (ACEA).
The differences between countries amount to almost a decade. In 2024, Luxembourg had the youngest car parc at 8.2 years and Greece the oldest at 17.8 years (ACEA).
Large aftermarket markets differ significantly. In 2024, the average was 10.6 years in Germany, 11.5 years in France, 13.0 years in Italy and 14.5 years in Spain (ACEA).
As cars age, maintenance moves to independent workshops. According to a survey of the German market for 2025, franchised workshops carried out 86% of the maintenance of cars under three years old. For cars aged six years and over, 56% of maintenance went to independent workshops and 39% to franchised workshops.
In 2024, the EU car parc consisted of approximately 256 million passenger cars. Of these, 49.2% ran on petrol and 38.4% on diesel (ACEA). Most jobs and parts stock will therefore continue to depend on combustion-engined cars of various generations.

The average age of the car parc in Europe helps estimate what work lies ahead for workshops and dealer networks in the coming years. Besides routine maintenance, older cars also need repairs to components that are only replaced after longer use. At the same time, customers more often weigh the cost of a repair against the value of the car. For service management, the age of the parc is therefore linked to parts purchasing, workshop loading and how the service advisor prepares quotes and gets them approved.

What is the average age of the car parc in Europe?

According to the ACEA report, the average age of passenger cars in the EU reached 12.7 years in 2024. A year earlier, it was 12.5 years. The parc therefore aged year on year, even though new cars were continually being added. In 2024, it comprised approximately 256 million passenger cars. Of these, 49.2% had a petrol engine and 38.4% a diesel engine.

For servicing, it is important to distinguish between the entire car parc in operation and new registrations. Sales show which cars are entering the parc. The parc describes a much broader base of cars coming in for maintenance and repair. Electric cars illustrate the difference well. They had a 2.3% share of the EU car parc in 2024, but already 22.7% of new registrations in January–September 2026 (ACEA). What this means for the workshop is discussed in a separate article on electric cars in the car parc.

The European average serves as a guide. A workshop serving a large business customer may have a significantly younger job mix than an independent workshop in the same country. Besides statistics, the operational plan should therefore also draw on the workshop's own history of repairs, parts used and time worked.

In Omnetic, this history is kept by the Workshop module. It follows the service job from the quote through vehicle reception, parts and planning to invoicing. The quote, parts and invoicing therefore stay with one job and are not kept in separate documents.

How does the age of passenger cars differ between EU countries?

For a service network with branches in several countries, the differences between markets matter more than the EU average. The same maintenance offer, the same parts stock and the same allocation of capacity cannot work both in a market with a car parc of around ten years and in a market where cars are on average over 15 years old.

Country	Average age of passenger cars in 2024
Luxembourg	8.2 years
Austria	9.2 years
Ireland	9.7 years
Denmark	9.8 years
Belgium	10.1 years
Germany	10.6 years
France	11.5 years
Slovenia	11.6 years
Sweden	11.8 years
Netherlands	12.1 years
EU total	12.7 years
Italy	13.0 years
Croatia	13.4 years
Finland	13.6 years
Portugal	14.1 years
Cyprus	14.4 years
Spain	14.5 years
Slovakia	14.6 years
Lithuania	14.8 years
Latvia	15.1 years
Poland	15.2 years
Hungary	15.6 years
Romania	15.6 years
Malta	16.1 years
Czechia	16.5 years
Estonia	17.5 years
Greece	17.8 years

Source: ACEA, Vehicles on European roads 2026; data for 2024.

Luxembourg, Austria, Ireland, Denmark, Belgium and Germany stay below 11 years. Latvia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Malta, Czechia, Estonia and Greece are above 15 years. A simple division into West and East is not enough, however. Spain (14.5 years) and Portugal (14.1 years) have older car parcs than Germany or France. The Nordic markets are not uniform either: Denmark is at 9.8 years, Sweden at 11.8 years and Finland at 13.6 years. For a network with branches in different countries, uniform records and job management therefore pay off. The parts range, however, must reflect local demand.

What do more recent national figures show?

National registers provide a more up-to-date view of individual markets:

Market	Period	Average age of passenger cars	Source
Germany	as of 1 January 2026	10.9 years	KBA
Czechia	first half of 2026	16.7 years	SDA

For comparing countries with each other, it is worth sticking to the ACEA tables with a common data year. National figures belong in the plan for a specific market.

What does an ageing car parc mean for service jobs?

In its outlook for 2026, the Czech trade magazine AutoEXPERT links the ageing of the parc with the higher repair potential of older cars. Besides changes of fluids and filters, there is more work on the suspension, cooling, air conditioning, drivetrain and electrical equipment. The scope of a job often becomes clear only after diagnostics or dismantling.

Higher repair potential does not mean an equal increase in paid jobs. The owner may postpone the repair, approve only part of it or take the car off the road. A workshop that tracks declined quotes and the reasons for them knows how much work it will actually sell.

Job area	What an older car parc brings	Impact on workshop operations
Routine maintenance	Varied service histories and differing condition of cars of the same age	The quote is based on the history of the specific car, not just its age
Brakes and suspension	Wear of several related components	Further labour and materials are often added after inspection
Engine and gearbox	Large differences in the scope and economics of the repair	Diagnostics is approved separately from the subsequent repair
Electrical equipment and air conditioning	Faults where the cause has to be tracked down	Diagnostic time belongs in both the quote and the plan
Preparing a used car for sale	Maintenance, repairs and a handover date all at once	Internal preparation is visible in the plan alongside customer jobs

For an older car, it pays to divide the quote into three groups: work necessary for safe operation, further repairs according to technical condition and operations that can be postponed. The customer receives a clear basis for decision-making and the workshop a clear scope of approved work. However, the workshop must not hand back a car with an unresolved safety defect as safe.

How are the opportunities changing for franchised and independent workshops?

As a car ages, who works on it also changes. According to a survey of the German market for 2025, franchised workshops carried out 86% of the maintenance of cars under three years old. For cars aged six years and over, 56% of maintenance went to independent workshops and 39% to franchised workshops.

For a franchised workshop, an ageing car parc is an opportunity to retain the customer even after warranty repairs have ended. A clear quote with an explanation of the scope of work and a link to the service history the workshop holds on the car help. If the customer does not understand the price and benefit of a repair, the brand alone will not keep them.

An independent workshop has scope to win older cars. However, it must be able to handle a wider combination of makes, engines and technical specifications. With a more varied mix of jobs, technical information, diagnostics and correct parts selection become more important.

The same limit applies to both types of business: the repair must make economic sense for the customer. Even an extensive repair will not deliver an adequate margin if the workshop does not invoice diagnostics, repeated dismantling or additional work approved later.

How to plan workshop capacity for older cars

The number of cars booked in is too crude a figure for capacity planning. A routine service with a known scope and tracking down an intermittent fault place entirely different demands on the technician, the workstation and the completion time.

A practical plan distinguishes between:

Work with a known scope: parts prepared in advance, an assigned technician and sequenced operations.
Diagnostics: separate time for finding the cause, only after which the repair quote follows.
Jobs waiting for the customer's decision or for materials: kept separate from work in progress.
Preparing cars for sale: visible in workshop capacity, even though there is no external customer.

Without this distinction, the workshop looks fully booked even though some cars are just waiting. It therefore pays to track time worked, hours sold and how long a job remains open separately.

Planner in Omnetic proposes a repair appointment based on the labour content of the work, the required specialisation and the workshop's actual capacity. It takes into account parts availability and the preparation of cars for sale. When there is a delay, a technician is absent or a job changes, it continuously adjusts the plan. The workshop foreman has the final say.

Training should be geared to the jobs the workshop takes on and wants to win. For older cars, it pays to develop diagnostics and work with technical documentation as well as mechanical skills. Investment in electric and hybrid powertrains should be based on their share of the local car parc, not their share of new registrations.

How to adapt the parts stock

An older car parc requires a broader range of repairs, not an unlimited parts stock. Expensive parts held for every possible failure tie up money and risk sitting on the shelf.

Stock is divided according to recurring consumption, delivery time and how much a missing part would delay the job:

Parts group	Suitable approach
Filters and standard service materials	Stock based on actual consumption and the mix of cars coming in
Frequently used brake and suspension parts	A selection for the most common specifications in the local car parc
Expensive assemblies with irregular demand	Order only after diagnostics and approval of the repair
Parts for scheduled repairs	Reservation for the specific job
Non-moving parts	Separate monitoring, further use or return according to the supplier's terms

Why ordering by model and year is not enough

The generations of the most common cars in European workshops, built roughly between 2012 and 2019, are now 7–14 years old. They therefore fall within the range around the EU average. For each of them, a single model name covers a whole range of specifications:

Example car	Specification and period	Consequence for reception and parts
Volkswagen Golf VII	2.0 TDI 110 kW (2013–2019) and the GTE plug-in hybrid with a system output of 150 kW (2014–2018)	The model name is not enough to select engine and drivetrain parts
Third-generation Škoda Octavia (2017 facelift)	Four TSI petrol engines, four TDI diesels and one CNG G-TEC; outputs of 63–135 kW, manual gearboxes or six-speed or seven-speed DSG	Both the parts stock and the repair quote must distinguish the engine and gearbox
Renault Clio IV (2012–2019)	0.9 TCe 90 hp three-cylinder petrol engine and 1.5 dCi diesels with 75, 90 and 110 hp	Cars of the same age have different maintenance and different parts

Before ordering a part, it therefore pays to verify the specification using the VIN. A mix-up means returning materials, additional handling and often moving the completion time the workshop has promised the customer.

Warehouse in Omnetic manages stock levels, movements, reservations and orders across stock locations and branches on a single stock card. It reserves parts for open service jobs and releases them again when a job is changed or cancelled. For stock management, it offers ABC analysis with minimum and maximum levels for each stock location and helps identify non-moving parts.

Pitfalls when working with car parc age data

Do not derive revenue growth directly from the increase in average age. Between the technical need for a repair and a paid invoice lie the customer's approval, the price of parts and the economics of keeping the car on the road.

Other common mistakes have a direct impact on planning:

Confusing the EU with Europe as a whole. The EU average relates only to EU member states. Other European markets have their own car parc mix.
Mixing periods. A comparison of countries needs a common data year. A more recent national figure belongs in the plan for that market.
Age instead of technical condition. Service history, usage and mileage mean a different scope of work for cars of the same age.
A uniform parts stock for all branches. Records can be shared, but the minimum stock level should reflect local consumption and supply.
Treating all jobs as predictable maintenance. Diagnostics and additional work found later need their own approval procedure and a follow-up date.

Moreover, a year-on-year change in the average is not a forecast of future developments. The workshop's budget is built on its own jobs and local demand. European statistics provide the wider context.

Omnetic links the job, capacity and parts

With older cars, the scope of a repair often changes during the work. When the quote stays in a spreadsheet, the parts reservation in another system and the new completion time only in the service advisor's notes, people have to re-key the same change in several places.

Omnetic replaces these separate systems, spreadsheets and paperwork with a single cloud platform. All modules work with one shared record of the vehicle, customer, jobs and money in DMS Core, so data is not re-keyed between them. For servicing an ageing car parc, the following modules work together:

Workshop: manages the job from the quote through vehicle reception, parts and planning to invoicing. Line items can be split between the customer, warranty and the insurer. It is suitable for both franchised and independent workshops.
Planner: builds the plan from the labour content of the repair, technicians' skills, parts availability and workshop capacity. When a job grows after diagnostics, it adjusts the plan. The workshop foreman decides on the plan.
Warehouse: links stock availability to reservations for jobs, across stock locations and branches, and shows non-moving parts.

Arrange an Omnetic demo based on your own process: from vehicle reception through approval of an additional repair to issuing parts and invoicing.

FAQ

Can the share of very old cars be determined from the average age?

No. The same average can result from a car parc with a very different make-up. A large share of new cars pulls it down, even if many cars over twenty years old remain on the road. For an offer aimed at a particular age group, you need a breakdown of the car parc by age.

How do used car imports affect planning?

Imports change the mix of generations, engines and equipment levels in the local market. A workshop in an area with strong cross-border trade therefore needs to monitor the technical mix of newly arriving cars. Historical minimum stock levels may not match this job mix.

Does a workshop have to replace all its systems at once to use Omnetic?

No. Omnetic can be introduced step by step: start with one module and add others later. Existing systems, such as accounting software or a manufacturer portal, are connected via the open platform (API, webhooks, manufacturer integrations). During the transition, master data and open items are migrated. Closed history remains available read-only in an archive.