When procuring replacement parts for their vehicles, more than two-thirds of commercial fleet managers surveyed by Automotive Fleet don't mandate factory parts and nearly three of four didn't identify a preferred brand.

The findings were among others in a survey of more than 30,000 managers of small, medium, and large fleets.

When asked if they mandate OEM replacement parts, 68.55% of respondents answered no. And when asked whether they have a preferred brand of replacement part, 72.95% said they didn't have one. Among other responses, 10.66% prefer ACDelco, 9.02% prefer Motorcraft, 2.46% prefer Mopar, and 4.92% prefer "other."

While a majority of fleet managers let their fleet management company handle replacement parts (53.33%), a quarter (24.17%) use a national account with a repair chain and 22.5% use a manufacturer-sponsored repair program at a dealer.

Using these options can offer the convenience of centralized billing, which offers three main benefits, including concenience to 53.72% of respondents, cost savings (25.62%), and national account pricing (20.66%).

Parts ordering still brings pain points around order-to-delivery time, cost, and consistent pricing. The time pain point is primary for 50% of respondents, while cost (25.83%) and consistent pricing (24.17%) still rate high.

And while the majority of respondents still purchase their parts at brick-and-morter locations, more than 45% of survey respondents (45.16%) say they order parts online.

Automotive Fleet conducted the survey using Survey Monkey over two weeks in April, and drew a 0.4% response rate from three segments of fleet managers of fleet sizes of up to 99 (21,586), 100 to 499 (5,327), and more than 500 (3,686) vehicles.