On the road 34 www.aftermarketonline.net JULY/AUGUST 2024 LKQ UK & Ireland is an integrated group of four market-leading businesses, which together comprise the region’s largest and leading distributor of parts and accessories for all makes of car, motorbike and light commercial vehicle, HGV, bus and coach, and static and touring caravan, motorhome and marine vehicle. The business is part of the LKQ Corporation. Each of LKQ UK & Ireland’s businesses — LKQ Euro Car Parts, LKQ Bodyshop, LKQ Leisure and Marine and Digraph — are the biggest in their respective markets. LKQ Europe revenue alone was around £1.5 billion in 2023 compared to just £270 million in 2010. The operation involves three national distribution centres, a total of more than half-a-million stocked parts, 127,000 independent supply workshops and 900,00 SKUs. UK business at the heart of a global corporation Supporting the next generation of garage professionals Through the LKQ Academy, the company announced last March that it was opening 10 new training centres across the UK, the most recent being in Manchester. Andy Savva, better known as The Garage Inspector, was signed up for a three-year deal to deliver garage management training. The academy, a leading provider of automotive training, is opening 10 new training centres across the UK — in a £500,000 investment to help garages and bodyshops prosper by upskilling technicians and supporting staff. The award-winning training arm of LKQ UK & Ireland has already opened two UK centres this year, with new sites in Glasgow and at its revamped Tamworth T1 base. Plans for a further three sites set for the south of England will be announced this year with four more centres opening in 2025. The 10 new sites will add to LKQ Academy’s existing centres in Sunderland and Bristol, alongside 26 external sites, creating a total capacity of 11,000 places on 80 different courses. Courses range from delivering the skills needed to service electric vehicles, to helping support staff become more adept at handling customers’ technical queries. Last year the LKQ Academy launched a course designed to help bodyshops take action on sustainability, which sits alongside a range of course designed specifically for bodyshop technicians. Alongside its in-person training, the LKQ Academy provides hundreds of e-learning courses, with new training soon to launch on topics from servicing hydrogen vehicles to identifying and fixing AdBlue system faults. Lee Chapman, head of support, LKQ Academy, said: “UK expansion is essential to our mission to close the skills gap in the industry, and to help the independent aftermarket keep pace with the dealers, while adapting to major changes from digitalisation and meeting ever changing consumer demands for high standards of customer service, while adapting to work with smarter cleaner and greener vehicles. “We invest all proceeds from the LKQ Academy back into our training, which means all of our are courses part-funded to provide great value for customers.” All LKQ Academy courses are fully accredited by the Institute of the Motor Industry. said the firm’s standard service level agreement is from 30 minutes. However, like all companies in the sector there have been challenges. “As an industry we are still feeling the impact of the pandemic, which of course hit the auto sector hard. “On top of that, there are fewer cars that require an MOT and, when they do, that work is often being delayed by motorists.” Car usage McAteer said that since the pandemic, many more people have become accustomed to working from home — which has slashed car usage. “It really is a perfect storm with more people working remotely. Then when they do need to get an MOT and perhaps pick up just a few advisories, they are probably not going to get that work done straight away to try and save on cost.” McAteer said the UK is now at the point that the average age of a vehicle in the car parc is about nine years whereas it used to be seven years. Then there is the undisputed shortage of technicians in the UK which has impacted the garage sector and of course the supply chain. Yet despite the enormous operation involved at T2, it’s a relative cog in the mighty wheel of the global LKQ Corporation, a Fortune 500 company which describes itself as the world’s largest auto parts provider. It’s all a far cry from Tamworth’s roots as a Saxon settlement. The town’s importance grew when King Offa of Mercia nurtured a kingdom there that was roughly the size of the English Midlands during his reign from 755 to 796. Down the centuries, Tamworth has made agricultural machines, boasted a paper-making industry in addition to textiles and aluminium, and the area was a centre of production for Reliant cars until 1999. Today, T2 is arguably Tamworth’s industrial crowning glory which, by its proximity to the centre of the Midlands’ rail and roads network, has become a jewel in the supply chain crown of the UK’s aftermarket sector.
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