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The UK service, maintenance and repair (SMR) market is set to decline 11% by 2019.
The value of the retail SMR market, excluding VAT and MOT, will peak in 2015 at £10.1bn, before resuming long-term decline, according to the Castrol Professional Car Servicing & Repair Trend Tracker report.
By 2019, the volume of retail SMR volumes is forecast to decline to a similar level to 2008, with servicing volumes falling by 30% between 2013 and 2019.
SMR work is falling because of more reliable new cars entering the market, requiring less maintenance work.
There are also large numbers of 10 year old cars in the vehicle parc that enter the DIY maintenance sector.
The latest research highlights a number of reasons for the value of the SMR market returning to its long-term decline, including the recent recovery in new car sales.
According to the report, warranties, too, are expected to get longer in coming years, and the trend towards motorists holding on to their cars longer could be here to stay.
Trend Tracker analyst Chris Oakham said: “The trend in the UK is towards longer warranties, and over the next five years we expect many mainstream vehicle manufacturers to have introduced extended five-year warranties, either as standard or for a small extra fee.
“Potentially, this moves an extra two years of repair work into warranty, rather than being sold as retail work. With greater numbers of new cars sold now than in recent times, this will only exaggerate this effect,” he said.