{"id":317729,"date":"2026-06-01T15:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T15:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/317729\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T15:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T15:50:08","slug":"texas-auto-repair-shops-feel-effects-of-middle-east-conflict-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/317729\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas auto repair shops feel effects of Middle East conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 As pressure at the pump continues, automotive companies are also preparing for supply crunches because of the conflict in the Middle East.\u00a0While drivers have already seen gas prices increase,\u00a0the auto industry is taking another hit with motor oil.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Don\u2019s Automotive Repair<\/a>\u00a0manager Jimmy Preston said\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0never\u00a0seen a\u00a0bottleneck like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re\u00a0going to see\u00a0possible rationing\u00a0of oil and, and the higher prices that the extent that\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0going up,\u201d said Preston.<\/p>\n

Preston added that\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0no timeline of when prices could go back down.\u00a0He says that the effects could go beyond just oil changes, potentially affecting all lubricants like power steering and transmission fluids.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Independent Lubricant Manufacturers Association<\/a>\u00a0(ILMA) says\u00a0that is\u00a0because most lubricant formulas\u00a0are 75% made up of a highly refined mineral base\u00a0oil,\u00a0also called a Group III base oil.<\/p>\n

ILMA Communications Director\u00a0Caitlin Jacobs\u00a0explained that a sizeable chunk of Group III base oil was coming from\u00a0refineries in\u00a0the Middle East.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kara Kockelman is a\u00a0transportation engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin. She\u00a0explained that\u00a0the\u00a0disruption in supply could push up pricing across the board.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen\u00a0you have\u00a0all of\u00a0this inflation from this base energy price rising, it affects any economic sector, or just people getting to and from work, or buying their groceries, shipping products around the world,\u201d Kockelman said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The impact will eventually flow down to drivers, but until then, managers like Preston are\u00a0doing\u00a0what they can to keep prices down as long as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to buy as much as we can\u00a0afford to buy in bulk, so that we don\u2019t have to pass that increase right away,\u201d said Preston.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 As pressure at the pump continues, automotive companies are also preparing for supply crunches because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[5175,2160,30626,30627,132,134,133,1570,102,56,223,287,82,27,1569,2053,29499,835],"class_list":["post-317729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-abigail-vaerewyck","tag-app-top-stories","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-app-traffic-and-transit","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-houston","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-traffic-and-transit","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}