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SIKESTON, MO - From baby formula to lumber to motors, supply chains have been affected nationwide since the coronavirus pandemic started. The car industry is no stranger to this. 

"Everything has just slowly slowed down," general manager of Autry Morlan Sikeston Jerad Ritter said. "This all really started with the COVID time when everything shut down and we had this huge surplus of parts and vehicles. As that time lingered, that surplus dwindled. So now what we’re running into it that gap of continuous by the time someone is looking for to putting cars together to still trying to get parts and out to individuals is super tough."

Autry Morlan is like many shops around the nation and struggling to get in the parts they need to make the repairs. This can push repairs out to weeks or even months, depending on the complexity of the fix, the number of parts and the supplier. 

Some of it is lack of staffing at the manufacturing level. A lot of it comes down to a lack of drivers to haul the parts. Some of it has to do with high gas prices. There are quite a few contributing factors to the current supply chain issues. 

"ETAs are, again, estimates," Ritter said.  "We’re doing our best, we have no joy in making people wait, we want to take care of them. That’s what we take our pride in."

It's affected the car sales as well. Less new cars are coming in, but new cars also sell quicker. That's moved used cars up into spots in the lot. 

Those spots where the used cars were sitting are now often used for cars waiting on parts. 

Autry Morlan says regular car maintenance definitely helps to keep repairs at bay. They also suggest that if you know a repair is coming, get a rental car early. Rental cars have been one of the biggest issues for the shop with the parts being delayed. 

They're hoping as people are no longer kept quarantined and gas prices go down that the transportation aspect picks back up and they can get back to getting cars on the street sooner. 

"As things continue to slowly return to normal and we see that supply chain slowly open back up and we see things continue to come around the corner, I believe we’ll see this slowly start to take care of itself," Ritter said.