One number really jumped out of yesterday’s Consumer Price Index report from the Department of Labor: The cost of repairing a motor vehicle has gone up 17% since last year. 

At East Baltimore Car Care, mechanic Jerry Fieden has worked on six cars so far. He’s got seven to go before the end of the day. 

He said the cost of everything has gone up — labor, overhead, but especially car parts. 

“That stuff has gone up ungodly, you know what I mean?” he said. “And all this adds extra money to the cost of the job.”

Plus, those jobs are more complicated than they used to be, said his colleague Tom Tillman. 

“The technology of the cars is getting a lot more complex,” said Tillman. “We have to decipher what is actually going on with the vehicle, and that takes time.”

Also part of the problem is that the cars and trucks we drive are older than they’ve ever been — an average of 12.5 years, according to S&P Global Mobility. 

Robert Frick, a corporate economist with the Navy Federal Credit Union, said that’s a result of car industry supply chain struggles during the pandemic

“A lot of people were forced to buy high mileage old model used cars, which now are coming due for repairs,” he said.

And, Frick pointed out, rising repair prices hit low income people the hardest because they’re more likely to buy used cars.