Shops surveyed for Counterman magazine’s 2012 Professional Automotive Repair Technician Survey (PARTS) may only do three jobs a month (on average) requiring A/C compressors; however, brand preference has become a stronger sourcing decision factor than ever before.
When Counterman surveyed technicians back in 2007, 60 percent of shops said they only use a brand they trust when installing an A/C compressor. For the 2012 survey, that number jumped to 73 percent. Shops also are increasingly relying on jobbers as their primary source for these parts, as the chart here illustrates.