Heavy Duty Truck & Trailer Repair Shop, 40-Year Michigan Operator

$1.2M

Revenue

$500K

SDE

4.7x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a 40-year-old heavy duty truck and trailer repair operation in Michigan that services commercial vehicles across maintenance, mechanical repair, bodywork, and paint. Trucks and trailers do not stop needing service in a downturn. Fleets keep running, DOT inspections keep coming, and a broken tractor sitting idle costs an operator far more than the repair bill, which makes this the kind of gritty, essential service business that produces reliable cash flow through cycles.

The business generates $1.2M in revenue and $500K in owner cash flow, a 42% margin that is strong for a shop this size and points to solid pricing power and a low-drama customer base. It runs with a full 14-person team including a Maintenance Supervisor, a Paint Shop Supervisor, administrative staff, and mechanics, all of whom are expected to stay on. That team depth is the real story here: the business is not carried on the owner's tools.

The sale includes over $800,000 in equipment: service vehicles, trucks, trailers, shop tools, body shop and paint shop equipment. At a $2.35M ask on $500K cash flow, roughly a third of the purchase price is hard assets, which meaningfully changes how you should think about the 4.7x headline multiple and your downside if the operation underperforms.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is strong for the category, with $500K of cash flow on $1.2M of revenue, a 42% margin that suggests real pricing power and a shop running near capacity. Heavy truck repair is high-ticket, non-negotiable work, and fleet customers pay to get equipment back on the road fast rather than shop on price.
The moat is durability, not novelty. Forty years of operating history, a licensed paint and body shop, and a specialized 14-person crew are hard for a new entrant to replicate. Commercial fleets stick with shops they trust because downtime is more expensive than the invoice, which creates sticky, repeat revenue.
Market tailwinds favor independent heavy-duty repair. Dealer service networks are expensive and slow, the trucking fleet keeps aging, and DOT-mandated maintenance and inspections create non-discretionary demand. This is the definition of recession-resistant: freight still moves, trucks still break, and someone still has to fix them.
The operator advantage is that the team stays and the owner is not the technician. With a Maintenance Supervisor and Paint Shop Supervisor already in place, a buyer inherits functioning management rather than a job. That opens the door to a semi-absentee hold or a bolt-on for an existing fleet-service platform.

How to improve it

Audit and reprice the labor rate and shop supplies fee within the first 90 days. Shops this old often leave 10 to 20 percent on the table by underpricing labor relative to dealer rates; even a modest rate increase on non-discretionary repair work flows almost entirely to the bottom line.
Build recurring revenue through fleet maintenance contracts. Convert the best repeat customers onto scheduled preventive maintenance and DOT inspection agreements, which smooths revenue, improves bay utilization, and increases enterprise value by making cash flow contractual rather than transactional.
Install a shop management system and technician efficiency tracking. Measure billed hours versus available hours per tech, parts markup, and comeback rates. Most 40-year shops run on tribal knowledge, and even basic operational visibility typically uncovers meaningful margin leakage.
Add mobile roadside and on-site fleet service. A single service truck can capture emergency repair work at premium rates and lock in fleet accounts that value response speed, expanding the addressable market beyond what walks into the bays.
Formalize the sales motion to commercial fleets. The listing mentions a website and social presence but no outbound effort; a part-time account rep targeting local trucking companies, municipalities, and delivery fleets could fill the schedule and reduce reliance on word of mouth.
Document the owner's roles before close and cross-train the supervisors. Identify every task the owner personally handles (vendor relationships, quoting, estimating) and transfer it during the transition period so the business survives the handoff and can run without a full-time owner.

Diligence notes

Scrutinize the $500K cash flow add-backs and confirm what the owner actually does day to day. A 42% margin is excellent but you need to verify how much of that cash flow depends on the owner's personal labor, quoting, or customer relationships versus the standing team.
Verify the $800K equipment value with an independent appraisal and confirm it is owned free and clear. Since roughly a third of the ask is hard assets, the condition, remaining useful life, and clean title of the vehicles, lifts, and paint booth directly drive your real downside protection.
Confirm the real estate situation. The listing does not mention the building; determine whether the shop is leased, and if so review lease term, rate, renewal options, and environmental exposure, because a body and paint shop carries hazardous-material and EPA compliance risk.
Analyze customer concentration and revenue mix. Understand what share comes from a handful of large fleet accounts versus one-off repairs, and whether any single customer exceeds 15 to 20 percent of revenue, since losing an anchor fleet would materially change the earnings picture.
Assess technician tenure, wages, and retention risk. This business lives on skilled diesel and body technicians who are scarce and expensive; confirm employment agreements, non-competes, and pay relative to market so the crew does not walk after the owner leaves.

Source

Originally listed on BusinessBroker.net. View original listing →