How Vehicle Inspections Can Benefit Your Fleet Vehicles Rastrac Team | Feb 12, 2016 11:40:38 AM

There are a lot of aspects to fleet management that your organization has to balance to keep your fleet of vehicles operating at peak efficiency. From tracking use statistics for each vehicle, to plotting more efficient routes and handling new vehicle acquisition, there are endless tasks to occupy a fleet manager’s time.

However, one task that cannot be overlooked is vehicle inspections for your fleet. Such inspections, while a very basic element of fleet management, are important because of the specific benefits that such inspections offer.

What are the benefits of vehicle inspections?

Here’s a short list:

#1: Early Detection of Potentially Fatal Faults

There are a lot of problems with a vehicle that even the best remote diagnostics system might not be able to detect. Things such as a cracked brake pad or a leak in a fuel line might not be immediately detectable to a remote diagnostics system, except in how they affect the performance of the vehicle.

Performing thorough vehicle inspections at regular intervals (such as every 10,000 – 25,000 miles) can help you detect these issues early, before they can cause a major disaster on the road for one of your fleet vehicles.

For example, say that a brake pad did crack. GPS tracking software might be able to detect how it takes more space for the vehicle to stop, but not the reason why the vehicle is not stopping as quickly as it once did. Because other issues such as tire wear, weather conditions, and individual driver behaviors can affect the total distance a vehicle uses to reach a full stop, it’s nearly impossible to isolate the exact reason behind longer stops without a close inspection.

By spotting this cracked brake pad with a manual inspection, you can get it fixed and eliminate it as a risk factor for that vehicle.

#2: Improved Vehicle Useful Life

Using GPS tracking software can help your organization plan more efficient maintenance schedules by giving you important engine performance data. This alone can help improve the useful life of your fleet vehicles.

Routine vehicle inspections help to further increase the useful life of your fleet by allowing you to detect issues that might not readily appear in an engine statistics report.

For example, wear and tear on a vehicle’s axles, brakes, or shocks can shorten its useful life as other parts can get extra wear as a side effect of wear to these important vehicle structures. Misalignment is a common issue that can cause tires to suffer extra stress, causing stippling and other forms of damage that shorten their useful life.

Inspecting your fleet vehicles and repairing these minor issues can help prolong the useful life of the vehicle by preventing secondary damage caused by these issues.

#3: Improved Fuel Economy

Beyond improving the useful life of a vehicle, performing regular vehicle inspections can help to improve the fuel economy of fleet vehicles.

Worn or ruptured fuel lines, or even just under-filled tires, can reduce a vehicle’s fuel efficiency, driving up the amount of fuel it consumes with each mile traveled.

Performing regular vehicle inspections can help you spot problems that can lead to lower fuel efficiency, saving you money on fuel costs by maximizing fuel economy when you fix these issues.

To take this a step further, using a GPS tracking and map software to manage your route planning for vehicles can help you make the most out of your vehicles’ increased fuel efficiency.

While GPS fleet tracking software is a great tool for improving the efficiency, useful life, and safety of your vehicle fleet, the best fleet managers won’t ignore the need for regular vehicle inspections and other basic maintenance tasks to keep your vehicle fleet operating at peak efficiency.

Is your fleet management company doing its best for you?