Your business relies on its fleet vehicles to deliver the products and services that satisfy your customers and drive profits. But if your vehicles are constantly plagued by maintenance issues, they’ll end up spending more time sitting idle in the shop rather than being out on the road generating revenue.
So, how can you minimize the impact of vehicle maintenance issues on your bottom line? Prioritizing fleet maintenance is your solution! What is fleet maintenance? What are the benefits of fleet maintenance that will yield positive results for your entire business?
This comprehensive guide to all things fleet maintenance will give you all the answers you’re looking for, and even help you reduce fleet costs while improving safety and efficiency. Let’s get started!
Fleet maintenance is the process of maintaining your fleet vehicles. By prioritizing fleet maintenance, you can keep your employees safer and your vehicles on the road longer—increasing overall fleet efficiency and profitability.
Fleet maintenance takes two major forms: scheduled and unscheduled.
The role of a fleet maintenance manager is very important. After all, your business relies on its fleet vehicles to deliver your products and services to your customers. If your vehicles aren’t properly maintained, fleet efficiency will suffer—making delivering those products and services a more time-consuming and expensive process. This is why most fleets, especially larger ones, will have a specific fleet maintenance manager role (or even a team of fleet maintenance managers) to be responsible for its fleet maintenance program.
Fleet maintenance managers are typically responsible for:
While the role of a fleet maintenance manager is vital, it isn’t always easy. As technology continues to evolve and become more sophisticated, the skills and parts necessary to maintain modern fleet vehicles are getting more complicated and expensive. Combined with the shortage of skilled mechanics and technicians, it can be difficult to manage and carry out an effective fleet maintenance program in the modern age.
Plus, many business owners and managers today are most concerned with how to reduce fleet costs. It can be difficult for fleet maintenance managers to do their jobs effectively if they aren't given the budget allocation necessary to do so. However, investing in proper fleet maintenance now will actually help you cut long-term repair costs and boost fleet efficiency, meaning higher profit margins.
There are numerous benefits of fleet maintenance that are well-worth the investment. Here are five key examples:
Purchasing a new semi-truck can be an incredibly large investment for your business, so it’s important to get as much useful life out of each truck as possible. According to statistics from Popular Mechanics, the average semi-truck will travel between 45,000 and 100,000 miles each year. With such high mileage, a truck can burn through the useful life of its components in an incredibly short time frame.
By optimizing your planned fleet maintenance schedule, you can identify when vehicle parts need to be repaired or replaced. By making the necessary repairs as soon as possible and replacing faulty vehicle parts before they’re no longer functional at all, you can prevent a small maintenance issue from escalating to total vehicle failure. This keeps your fleet vehicles operating at maximum safety and efficiency long-term, meaning you can get the most return on your investment.
If your fleet vehicles haven’t had the necessary routine maintenance in months, then your employees are likely driving around vehicles that have worn out tires or other faulty parts. This can put them at increased risk for getting into an accident. For example, if there is a problem with the brakes and they need to stop short, they could end up getting into a rear-end collision. If the tire treads are worn out, they could end up hydroplaning or skidding off the road during a rainstorm.
Had these vehicles been taken in for routine fleet maintenance, it would have been easy to identify that the brakes and tires needed to be replaced, preventing both of these dangerous incidents from ever occurring in the first place. Fleet maintenance not only keeps your drivers safe, but also helps you avoid the high costs associated with an accident—such as higher worker’s compensation premiums, insurance costs, legal fees, and vehicle repairs or replacement.
While your fleet maintenance program certainly won’t be free, the cost of prioritizing fleet maintenance now will be well worth it in the future. Ignoring small fleet maintenance problems because you don’t want to pay to fix them now will backfire when you’re left with a bigger, much more expensive problem later.
Conducting routine preventive fleet maintenance can help you identify electrical and mechanical defects so you can fix them before they result in total vehicle failure. While a minor repair may mean your vehicle is in the shop for a few hours or days, total vehicle failure will result in much more downtime. This means you’ve not only spent more money on the repairs themselves, but are also losing revenue as a truck sits in the shop longer than necessary.
Another key reason to prioritize preventative fleet maintenance is to ensure that your vehicles are weatherproofed. At certain times of the year (such as when the seasons are about to change), fleet maintenance managers should ensure their fleet vehicles are ready for the upcoming weather in their region.
For example, fleets operating in colder areas should top off the antifreeze/coolant in all of their vehicles, make sure their tire chains are in good condition, and perform other fleet maintenance before harsh winter conditions begin. On the other hand, during the summer months, fleet maintenance managers in warmer areas should check coolant levels to prevent overheating issues and make sure the tire treads on each vehicle aren’t too worn out in preparation for the rainy season.
A fleet vehicle that is not properly maintained will often use more fuel than necessary, meaning higher fuel costs for your fleet. There are numerous factors that can detract from a fleet vehicle’s fuel economy—but luckily, they can be quickly spotted and fixed through simple preventative fleet maintenance before they result in tons of wasted fuel.
So, if you’re wondering how to reduce fleet costs, prioritizing fleet maintenance is one way that you may not have thought about. Some of the most common maintenance issues that lead to excess fuel consumption are:
Now that you know how important having an effective fleet maintenance program really is, how can you create and manage one in your own fleet? It may feel overwhelming to keep track of so many different aspects of fleet maintenance at one time, but there’s a simple solution that makes it possible to track and monitor your fleet maintenance needs all in one place: fleet management software.
If you thought fleet management software could only be used to monitor the GPS location of your vehicles and assets, think again. Fleet management software is a versatile, powerful tool that can also improve your fleet maintenance program. In fact, with RASTRAC’s remote fleet monitoring capabilities, you can acquire, track, and evaluate a variety of vehicle conditions, including:
As we mentioned earlier, another major responsibility of fleet maintenance managers includes keeping accurate and up-to-date records of vehicle maintenance servicing. Fleet management software can help here too. By automating maintenance reminders for performing tune-ups and oil changes and integrating past service records, you’ll always know with certainty which components of a fleet vehicle require or have received proper maintenance. There’s no risk of losing paper records or having a man-made error!
Plus, when using GPS tracking devices with your fleet management software, tracking devices can connect to each vehicle’s onboard diagnostics system. Then, you’ll be alerted via text or email whenever a maintenance issue occurs so you can determine what kind of service is needed as soon as possible.
By taking advantage of the diagnostic benefits offered by GPS tracking devices and fleet management software, fleet maintenance managers can accurately maintain records that:
With accurate fleet maintenance records, you can stay on top of your fleet maintenance program and have peace of mind that your vehicles are always efficient, compliant, and safe!
At Rastrac, we offer a wide variety of fleet management software solutions and GPS tracking devices to meet the needs of nearly any fleet in any industry.
To learn more about how our solutions can help improve your fleet maintenance program for enhanced fleet efficiency, cost-savings, and safety, contact one of our team members today!